Issues & Answers Special Advertising Section:
August 2021
Joseph Stuhl
Executive Vice President, Broker Executive,
Munich Re US
Lara Mowery
Global Head of Distribution
Guy Carpenter
Stuhl: When you think about the ways that we have historically done our business together, actually the process itself creates a lot of stress on the relationships. What I mean by that is the broker will work for many months putting together a submission with all this data. They send it to the reinsurance market. Then we, in turn, are trying to manipulate this data to fit into our own pricing models. This can take quite a bit of time and energy. Most times, we’re going back to the broker with additional data requests. We may have missing information or pieces of information that we need for our models. The broker now has to go back to the client, a lot of times, and ask for additional data. If you multiply this by the number of markets they’re sending the submission to and having to go back and forth with the client, that just creates stress in and of itself. It’s just one point in the puzzle for how not having data standards creates an inefficient process.
How can we better leverage proprietary and public data to understand client needs and the changing nature of the risk that they’re facing?Stuhl: Historically, we’ve looked at the data the client gave us, and we looked at our own database. Increasingly, there are third-party vendors and other sources of public information that people are tapping into to better understand the exposure. You have to create a foundation for being able to do that and set yourself up to be able to feed that kind of information and enrich the data that you already have so that you’re making better decisions, you’re understanding your client better, and you’re providing more value.
Mowery: There’s an amazing amount of third-party data out there and available. There are some data sources that historically would have provided really good information, that weren’t digitized and were stuck in places in manual files. How do you leverage that and gain access to that? More and more of that information is now available through different third-party data sources.
What will your workplace look like in the near future?
Stuhl: It’s a great question. Certainly, it’s going to be revolving around data. I just see the evolution there of being much more data oriented. We’re developing a lot of AI-type technologies to bring better insights into the risks that our clients are facing. Some of these risks, like cyber and climate change, may not really be able to be modeled in our traditional way, looking in the rearview mirror, so to speak. We may have to look at different data sets and be able to think differently about how we evaluate those risks.
Mowery: We have transitioned to a bit of a different focus in terms of taking the traditional broking role, taking the traditional actuarial and cat modeling roles and thinking about what new technologies or different ways of thinking about data science help to supplement and enhance all of that more traditional focus on the business. Still bringing that underlying expertise and knowledge but wanting to connect with some of the other disciplines that are out there and move forward in a slightly different way.
Munich Re has a strategic focus on working with our clients and brokers to understand their needs. Using these insights, along with our industry expertise, proprietary data and new technology, we look to continue to co-create innovative solutions with our broker partners that address the ever-changing needs in the marketplace.