Innovative Business Models with Jeremy Keating, George Wright, and Liam Jorge
Jeremy Keating
Author of "Price Writer: The nine-step method to becoming a highly successful general insurance pricing leader" | Founder of Price Writer | Podcast Host | I empower pricing professionals
The persistent dogma of how people should work was decided over fifty years ago. But the world of work has changed. Here are three actuaries with novel approaches to their careers and business who are embracing that change.
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How did you get to where you are today?
JK: Since I was a boy, I have been fascinated by stories like Foundation by Isacc Asimov. Where smart people use statistics to mathematically forecast the future. It is a key reason why I work in general insurance pricing. Why I am a Price Writer. The moment that changed my career trajectory forever and set me on this path was in the early 2000s. I was a junior group life underwriter. As I manually calculated the sum insured for a proposal form, using sets of numbers provided by the actuaries. I couldn't help but wonder: why x times y? Why not a, b, or z? It was at that moment that I realized the future would belong to those who could create and understand complex mathematical algorithms, not to those who simply wrote numbers on forms. I knew then and there that I had to be skilled in data and analysis.
LJ: When I qualified as an actuary in 2017, I had a vague goal of learning to code but never fully committed to it. It wasn't until the first covid lockdown in 2020 that I suddenly had some extra time on my hands and started teaching myself Python. Over the next few years, I became obsessed with coding and gradually progressed from building basic APIs and web apps using Python (Flask) to building some pretty cool interactive web and mobile apps in JavaScript (React/React Native). I considered quitting being an actuary to become a full-time web developer, but I'm glad I didn't. There are loads of actuaries and loads of web developers out there - I think I'm in a pretty unique position to have a foot in both camps! I've had a few frustrating experiences with existing actuarial job boards, both as a hiring manager and as a job seeker. This led to me starting my own job board.
GW: I started out developing modeling tools in environmental science and when I moved to insurance, I assumed the tools in finance would be more powerful. But I quickly realized the software wasn't nearly as advanced, and from a tech point of view, it surprisingly felt like a backward step. I was working at Lloyd's with their capital modelling system which led to opportunities with other companies too. There was a clear gap in the market for developers who understood actuarial processes. Vounder Analytics is the result. Frustration inspired me to a different approach. Watching other industries advance, knowing we could be building better tools for insurance. I think it's fascinating how Silicon Valley has reshaped project management for software development, and I think a lot of the processes they use are transferable. The more I got involved in actuarial teams, the more ambitious I became about the change that is possible and needed. The event that inspired me was as an analyst being given a broken Excel model that took three hours to run. Within a day, I had that time down to six seconds. I felt actuarial teams spent too much time doing admin tasks that didn't create value and this annoyed me. Excel has a valuable place, but there was a need for better solutions in the mix and it was such a seemingly simple problem to solve.
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What is the mission of your business?
JK: thePriceWriter.com helps general insurers to win at pricing. That means we help them to set the right prices, keep and improve their position against the competition, and choose the right solutions including technology, data, and personnel. Ultimately, we want to make sure our clients never suffer the downward spiral that results in them exiting a line of business. Hardly a year goes by without a big name crashing out of the market due to ‘competition’. Had they worked with us they would still be writing business. Everyone has competition. It is the same for all insurers but not all of them see the future coming. Not all of them listen to the right people. We have many happy customers including some of the largest insurers with massive pricing teams and some of the smallest start-ups where we are the only pricing resource.
LJ: If you’re an actuary and you’ve ever searched for a job, you’ve probably noticed that actuarial job boards are a pain to use. They're clunky and outdated. They’re dominated by recruitment agencies. There’s no quick way to find jobs that match your skills and tech preferences (e.g. Pricing or Python).?I think the actuarial community deserves a modern job board that's easy to use, respects your privacy, and gives you actuarial-specific job filters (not just location or job title).
GW: We improve the tools available to insurers and underwriters. Activities like tidying up existing data, as well as updating practices with those that are standard in a modern tech stack; the algorithms that power other industries have huge potential to be used for insurance. This sets us apart from the traditional model because what Vounder does differently is that we are data people who specialize in insurance. This gives us greater domain knowledge and the ability to communicate between actuaries, data teams, and IT. Our current business model and the services we provide are interim pricing and capital support while developing a SaaS product to create a tidy data flow; great for MGAs or underwriters who are taking the first steps towards digitizing their processes.
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What is your vision for the future?
JK: I see a future where pricing departments are well over 500 people. Because that is the magnitude of people needed to seize the opportunity that pricing presents. I want every insurance customer to pay what I call the Goldilocks price. The one that's just right. Just right for them as a customer and just right for the provider. All the customer's relevant information is considered so it is fair and truly reflects their behavior and expected claims cost without undue cross-subsidy. So, the customer is happy to buy and get a good outcome. Plus, the insurer can make the right margin. Every insurer should be using their pricing opportunity to the absolute maximum effect. Finally, I want everyone to recognize thePriceWriter.com as the top-of-mind consultancy for all general insurance pricing. We are better and faster than anyone else.
LJ: My aim is to make ActuaryList.com the most jobseeker-friendly site out there. I'll continue making regular improvements to the site based on feedback from the actuarial community. I’m also passionate about making actuarial salary data open and transparent - I believe it empowers job applicants and existing employees. Plus, companies who choose to include a salary range in their job post on ActuaryList.com get a better response. It's a win-win. Lots of interesting developments are planned, watch this space!
GW: For the industry to have fewer silos and better software options available.?This benefits our customers because it opens the industry to access a wider talent pool as not every developer has to be an expert in insurance. If we can get actuaries focussing on actuarial tasks, software engineers optimizing software, data engineers optimizing data flows, and everything managed more holistically we will create a much more efficient, less risky, and data-driven underwriting world.