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Sarah Vaughan on Outstanding Claims with the PriceWriter Ep 8
39 Plays1 year ago
Join us in today's insightful conversation with Sarah Vaughan, founder of Angelica Solutions. From her early days at EMB working with actuarial teams to establishing her own consultancy in 2019. Sarah shares the lightbulb moment when she realized that the analytical approach used in insurance pricing can be applied to risk prevention, leading to safer outcomes and innovative solutions in the industry. Discover:
~ Sarah's unique journey in the insurance world and her takeaways from leading pricing at companies like Insure the Box and Swiftcover.
~ The shift from merely assessing risks to actively preventing them.
~ Sarah's perspective on the future of insurance pricing, with a nod to technology, telematics, and behavioral research.
~ The challenges and rewards of setting up her own consultancy and her emphasis on capability-building.
Whether you're an industry veteran or just curious about the intricate world of insurance pricing, this discussion with Sarah promises valuable insights and inspiration. Enjoyed the video? Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share!
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Transcript
Introduction to Sarah Vaughan
00:00:00
Speaker
In 2019, I decided to go out on my own and set up my own consultancy. Ladies and gentlemen, in this episode, I interviewed Sarah Vaughan, founder of Angelica Solutions. It originally aired in October, 2023. Sarah is one of our featured speakers at the 2024 Price Writer Conference. We were colleagues in the past and have also worked together on projects since then.
00:00:28
Speaker
The full length version of this interview will be available in the Pricerighter member area, launching later in 2024. To learn about membership, visit our website at www.pricerighters.com.
Sarah's Career Journey
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello Sarah and welcome to the show. Good afternoon, Jeremy.
00:00:49
Speaker
Exe, it's great to have you on. So the first thing I want to ask you is, how did you get where you are today? And the first part of my answer is, but I am more knuck than judgment. I think if I look back in hindsight, I could probably see a series of key events or decisions that have actually led me to where I am today.
00:01:13
Speaker
So if I retrofit the story, I would say, I'd say maths came easily to me as a child. And so after what I call a lucky escape from a management degree, I found myself doing a maths degree. And then at the end of my second year, my brother helped me to get a job in a life insurance team.
00:01:35
Speaker
And then a year later, when I finished my degree, I grabbed the actuarial directory and wrote to everyone that was within a sensible driving distance of my home in Surrey, which, which was quite shortlist. I was lucky enough to get myself a job at what was EMB at the time. And soon now, Willis House Watson.
00:01:55
Speaker
And again, now I look back in hindsight, that was an excellent place to start my career. It was an excellent company. It gave me an opportunity to meet lots of really excellent technical people, but also make lots of good friends. So that sort of was the start of it. And to some extent, the rest is history. But to scroll forward somewhat to get to where I am today,
00:02:23
Speaker
I left the EMB and went in-house for a bit. I've worked for ranks, I've worked for insurance, the bots and the AA and a number of others. But in 2019, I decided to go out on my own and set up my own consultancy. I love the variety. It brings me the opportunity to work with lots of different companies, different parts of the industry and different challenges.
00:02:46
Speaker
But I also actually love helping what I think hopefully the next generation of graduates to follow that same pulse that I did into an industry which I do genuinely now love. So yeah, that's the short version of how I got where I am today.
Mission in Insurance Pricing
00:03:01
Speaker
What would you say is your mission for general insurance pricing?
00:03:06
Speaker
And so without giving the game away, you posed this question to me, you gave me a bit of prep time. And I thought, that sounds very grand, doesn't it? A mission for insurance pricing. And I love the fact that you've clearly got a mission for insurance pricing. And I thought, I drew a parallel with something else that I love.
00:03:23
Speaker
So lots of people who do know me, and to be reasonably honest, you don't have to talk to me for long before I bring it up, but I know that I love running and know that I love park runs. So what is now the sort of global series of weekly 5k events on a Saturday. And if you've ever seen or read some of the history and read any interviews with the founder, Paul Sinton Hewitt, he said right from the early days,
00:03:47
Speaker
that when people said to him, what's your mission with Parkrun? He said, it's that every community that wants one has one. And I draw a parallel there with what I think I want to bring. And I'm not going to sit here and say, I've got a vision for what I think is where insurance pricing should go. There are lots of really talented individuals working in this area and the sort of relied areas. And
00:04:13
Speaker
And I wouldn't profess to say I've got a one size fits all answer and nor would I say that there is one. So what I want is for all these people to be able to do what they want to be able to do. And if I can bring my 20 years of experience in the industry and the things that I've seen,
00:04:32
Speaker
If I can bring them to help them get basic, it's their vision, then that's my vision.
Future of Insurance Pricing
00:04:39
Speaker
And what would you say then is your vision for the future of insurance pricing?
00:04:45
Speaker
I think it's got such potential to move away from being about risk pricing and a sort of retrospective. This is why it went wrong to being about risk prevention and in the major space being about helping reduce road casualties and improve road safety.
00:05:06
Speaker
in the home space hopefully it's about reducing using leak detection so it's to reduce the damage that's caused to people's properties and potentially a health space using connected devices to help people do live the life that they want to live.
00:05:23
Speaker
I think that's where the huge opportunity is. It's another one actually having just said about the making it happen. I think you could do a lot of analysis and we would know an awful lot about how
00:05:38
Speaker
let's say young drivers could or should change their behavior. But I think, luckily, actually, human beings are very hard to get to change their behavior. So what it might mean to the sort of future of insurance pricing and data is we need to move away from that sort of traditional safe space where we are just utilizing
00:06:00
Speaker
the pilot and setting a price for it. If what we want to do is change behaviour, we probably need to start to engage with other disciplines. I think behavioural change experts, marketing experts and potentially more creative industries to say how do we use knowledge that we've got.
00:06:19
Speaker
to reduce risk, which arguably that to the principle is not new news at all. I think it's another one I read relatively recently about some of the history of Lloyds and the shipping insurance. At very early doors, those who were insuring some
00:06:35
Speaker
early ships figured out that actually if they helped improve safety and risk management on those voyages that would be good for them and good for the people who were insuring themselves so it's win and that's where I'd really like to see it go if we can.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yep. Excellent. Like, thank you very much, Sarah. Is there anything else you'd like to add? I'm going to say, I don't think so. And then I'm going to do that thing that everybody always says, no, but, and I'm really, I'm only ready to say thank you ever so much for inviting me to talk today. I think you've got, yeah, it's a great series of thought-provoking questions from my perspective. I've really enjoyed bringing together some artists, but yeah, it's been a real pleasure. Brilliant.
00:07:22
Speaker
Okay, thank you very much Sarah. Thank you. Thanks, you have a good day.