News
Kia America Joins LexisNexis Telematics Exchange to Offer Personalized Driving Scores to Kia Connect Customers
LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a leading provider of data and analytics for the insurance and automotive industries, and Kia America, Inc. ("Kia") today announced they have entered into a strategic agreement making Kia connected vehicle data available to U.S. auto insurers via the LexisNexis® Telematics Exchange. Connectivity has been at the core of improving the driving experience for Kia. Now taking it one step further, this integration will allow eligible customers who have enrolled in Kia Connect Services to opt in to share their driving behavior data to receive a personalized driving experience and to be more informed drivers.
The agreement between LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Kia means that driving behavior data and vehicle data from eligible Kia connected vehicles will be integrated into the LexisNexis Telematics Exchange.
"With Kia's strategic relationship, the LexisNexis Telematics Exchange includes automakers representing 46% of new market car sales," said Adam Hudson, vice president and general manager, U.S. Connected Car and International Markets, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. "The Telematics Exchange enables both drivers and carriers to benefit from the wealth of data available from today's connected cars. Today's announcement signifies the value LexisNexis Risk Solutions brings to the insurance and automotive industries by delivering market-leading data-powered solutions that ensure a better, more personalized customer experience throughout the insurance lifecycle."
North Carolina Commissioner Rejects Proposed 42% HO Rate Hike, Sets Hearing Date
North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey has rejected an average 42% hike in homeowners insurance rates proposed in January by the state’s rate bureau, setting the stage for a public hearing and negotiations.
“Homeowners were shocked with the high amount requested by the insurance companies, and so was I,” Causey, who announced plans to seek reelection to a third term, said in a statement Tuesday. “I haven’t seen the evidence to justify such a drastic rate increase on North Carolina consumers.”
A hearing has been set for Oct. 7 at 10 a.m. After that, the commissioner will have 45 days to negotiate with the rate bureau and will likely land on a much lower average increase.
The back-and-forth is not unusual in North Carolina. The rate bureau, basing its proposed rates on input from 197 property insurers in the state, often submits a double-digit increase each year, for HO, auto, mobile home and other lines.
After a 2020 requested HO increase of 24.5%, for example, the final rate ended up at 7.9%.
InsurTech/M&A/Finance/Collaboration
Shepherd Raises $13.5 Million in Series A Funding to Help Insure the $10 Trillion Commercial Construction Industry
Shepherd, an insurance tech platform for commercial construction, announced today it raised a $13.5 million Series A funding round led by Costanoa Ventures with participation from Intact Ventures, Era Ventures, Greenlight Re and Spark Capital.
“There is an urgent need for innovation in the commercial construction insurance industry,” said Justin Levine, CEO of Shepherd. “Our mission at Shepherd is ambitious but simple: to create the first comprehensive platform that combines top-tier insurance offerings with world-class software to help commercial businesses manage risk and prevent losses.”
Awards
Tryg and Hexaware Win Guidewire Innovation Award 2023 for "Follow My Claim" Solution
Hexaware, a global frontrunner in IT services and digital solutions, today announced that it has been recognized with a Guidewire Innovation Award at the Guidewire Connections 2023 conference. Hexaware was honored alongside Tryg for its support in developing "Follow My Claim," a groundbreaking claims communication solution. The Innovation Awards honor Guidewire customers who are adapting to an accelerating pace of industry change and evolving customer needs in innovative ways.
Ulrikke Birkeland (Product Owner, Tryg) says, "We wanted to create a new claims communication solution to help improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction, while making the claims handling process easier and more efficient, enabling our claims handlers to communicate with our customers safely and securely during the claims process. Leveraging Guidewire ClaimCenter, we built "Follow My Claim" together with our implementation partner Hexaware and have realized significant business value for Tryg. We are very happy with the strong collaboration with Hexaware and what we have achieved together."
APCIA recognizes 13 Emerging Leaders at conference awards program
The American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) recognized 13 members of its 2024 Class of Emerging Leaders, a highly competitive program that recognizes industry professionals who are making an impact on issues ranging from business transformation and AI to customer service and regulatory issues, according to the trade organization.
The following class members accepted awards during the APCIA’s annual Emerging Leaders Conference, which took place earlier this month in San Antonio, Texas.
Business Impact Award:
Mukund Nair, CSAA Insurance Group
Kenji Swepson, Everest
Business Leadership Award:
Joe Alessi, Universal Shield Insurance Group
Enjonli Hutchison, Amerisure Insurance
Craig Woodworth, Argo Group
Exceptional Philanthropic Impact Award:
- Megan Williams, Auto Club Group
Innovation Leadership Award:
Wendy Coffing, Great American Insurance Group
Jonathan Macenski, Ally Insurance
Glen Norton, Illinois Casualty Company
Outstanding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leadership Award:
Shameem Awan, Amica Mutual Group
Sandra Polanco, Zurich North America
Talent Leadership Award:
- Jon O’Camb, ERIE Insurance Group
“This year’s winners reflect the innovation and collaboration of the industry’s best and brightest future leaders,” Marguerite Tortorello, managing director of the Insurance Careers Movement, said in a release. “The diverse categories of awards also demonstrate the significant impact the winners are having across their organization and in their community through their leadership.”
AI in Insurance
Can AI Solve Underlying Data Problems?
The adage, “garbage in, garbage out,” is as true today as it was 20 years ago.
As Thomas Redman writes in Harvard Business Review, “Poor data quality is enemy number one to the widespread, profitable use of machine learning.”
Just because you can teach computers to help normalize data does NOT mean they can do the cleanup from years of bad habits. Whether your team is supposed to be logging information in two systems but only does so in one, whether you want to connect two disparate systems or whether you need to simply make up for a lack of data, there is work to be done before AI can take over.
Think of where you’ve seen AI in action, like the craze for images created by AI. Sometimes they turn out well, yet sometimes they are comically bad. And nothing is funny when you’re trusting AI to help grow your business. Missing out on key pieces of information could lead to disaster.
AI generated photo with many odd features
When we trust AI to do the work: This is an AI-generated image of an insurance agent issuing a policy to a local business owner. image
How does this translate to insurance?
Imagine you have one system that records all customer interactions from a marketing standpoint – interactions on social media, website engagement and email tracking. You have a different system that tells you how many times they logged into your self-service customer portal (and what they did there). And of course, the customer could also be interacting directly with their carrier without your knowledge, perhaps buying additional insurance or researching whether their current insurance is good enough for them.
Jennifer Carroll is the CEO of Veruna
Avoid getting caught up in the AI hype
As 2023 came to a close, my colleagues and I spent time thinking about some significant trends in the AI and insurtech space.
The most impactful trend we see is artificial intelligence applications becoming pervasive in many parts of the insurance value chain. To date, most insurance companies have not leveraged AI effectively. Many have struggled to build applications that genuinely add value for many reasons. Poor data quality, lack of appropriate IT resources to implement, and a disconnect between end users and the data science teams developing these applications are among them.
With the advent of generative AI in 2023, we saw insurance companies invest in developing AI-powered digital assistants for their frontline employees, be they claim adjusters, underwriters or customer service reps. The benefits of AI are becoming very apparent to carriers, and we believe 2024 will see this trend explode in importance.
AI will start impacting combined ratios
In 2024, you will see more carriers crediting their successes with artificial intelligence as contributing to combined ratio improvements. The last few years have been challenging for property & casualty carriers, with inflation (both economic and social) taking unexpectedly large bites out of their margins. But with more insurers adopting AI to control losses and manage expenses, we believe companies will see their past and current investments in AI as reasons why they’ve been able to manage more effectively.
Tom Warden is the research fellow at CLARA Analytics
Canada
Muddy Waters shorts Fairfax Financial
Short seller Muddy Waters has placed bets against the shares of Canadian holding company Fairfax Financial, which, through its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and the associated investment management.
“We find that Fairfax has consistently manipulated asset values and income by engaging in often value destructive transactions to produce accounting gains,” the firm argues. “We believe a conservative adjustment to book value should be ~-$4.5 billion or ~-18% lower than reported. We see Fairfax as far more akin to GE than to Berkshire Hathaway.”
The holding company issued a press release in response:
“Earlier today, Muddy Waters Research issued a report regarding Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited suggesting that the book value of Fairfax was overstated. Fairfax disagrees with the allegations and insinuations contained in the report, and would like to assure all shareholders that Fairfax has prepared its financial statements and reporting in accordance with all applicable accounting principles.
Events
2024 Technology Forum - Insurance-Canada.ca - Where Insurance & Technology Meet
Overview of the 2024 Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Forum (ICTF2024), “Becoming My Customer” – Tuesday, February 27, 2024, at the St. James Cathedral Centre, Toronto.
Knowing your customer and the risks you are helping them address is an essential element of improving all aspects of insurance, from marketing, underwriting, servicing and monitoring through to claims settlement.
Enabled by rapid innovation of technology and driven by consumer expectations, the competitive insurance business is stepping up its game.
Understanding your customer is more critical than ever as the industry moves more rapidly from a “repair and replace” philosophy toward a “predict and prevent” mindset.
Learn from expert speakers who will discuss issues, successes and opportunities in the industry, and how “Becoming my customer; stepping into their shoes” is key to the success of your business.
2024 PREDICTIONS
Viewpoint: 5 Global Insurance Trends You Need to Know About in 2024
In the insurance world, 2024 brings forth many challenges and transformative trends. From the escalating global risks, such as climate change and cyber threats, to the evolving role of insurers as societal safety nets, the industry is on the brink of significant change. Here are five global insurance trends you must watch out for in the new year.
Viewpoint: 5 Global Insurance Trends You Need to Know About in 2024
In the insurance world, 2024 brings forth many challenges and transformative trends. From the escalating global risks, such as climate change and cyber threats, to the evolving role of insurers as societal safety nets, the industry is on the brink of significant change. Here are five global insurance trends you must watch out for in the new year.
Simone Grimes, CPA, is chief financial officer at Acadia Insurance (a W.R. Berkley Company).
Super Bowl LVIII
Road Risk Alert: Distracted Driving and Speeding Fluctuate with February Festivities - Cambridge Mobile Telematics
Distracted Driving Surges on Super Bowl Sunday
February may be the shortest month, but it’s also a month full of festivities that can lead to risky driving. The convergence of Super Bowl Sunday, Mardi Gras, and Valentine’s Day results in fluctuations in distracted driving and speeding within a single week.
According to a new CMT analysis, Super Bowl Sunday is among the year’s top 25 most distracted days. It also sees the most speeding of the three celebrations. On the other hand, Mardi Gras sees a drop in distracted driving and speeding in Louisiana. Meanwhile, Valentine’s Day doesn’t see any impact on distracted driving across the country.
To understand the changes in driving behaviors across all celebrations, CMT analyzed driving patterns and behaviors two weeks before and after each holiday from 2020 to 2023, covering over 90 million car trips.
GEICO releases ‘Legend of the Lizard’ documentary ahead of the Super Bowl
Recently, GEICO reintroduced its famous Caveman character. In the commercial, GEICO asks the character to participate in a new GEICO documentary.
And here comes the twist.