Insurance crisis looms over homeowners and insurers in California

Insurance Business Magazine | January 15, 2020

While the world watches the Australian bushfires ravage the country, it’s not the only region that’s felt the brute force of the fiery catastrophe. The past year may not have been California’s worst wildfire season on record – that title went to 2018 – but still, in late October, fires broke out throughout the state and led to the evacuation of more than 200,000 people as well as a declaration of a state of emergency, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Meanwhile, between January 01 and November 22, 2019, the National Interagency Fire Center reported 46,706 wildfires (compared to 52,080 wildfires over the same period in 2018) and about 4.6 million acres burned, compared to 8.5 million acres the previous year.

Spotlight

It’s no secret that the global pandemic has upended everyone’s life. We know this anecdotally from our own experiences—more online shopping with curbside pickup orders, ordering takeout and delivery versus in-person dining, and changing media consumption. And let’s not forget remote working and learning. These experiences are more than simply anecdotal; McKinsey has written about the more specific effects of the pandemic on consumer behavior and needs. In short, they write: “behavior changes will reshape consumer decision journeys and companies will need to adapt fast.”

Spotlight

It’s no secret that the global pandemic has upended everyone’s life. We know this anecdotally from our own experiences—more online shopping with curbside pickup orders, ordering takeout and delivery versus in-person dining, and changing media consumption. And let’s not forget remote working and learning. These experiences are more than simply anecdotal; McKinsey has written about the more specific effects of the pandemic on consumer behavior and needs. In short, they write: “behavior changes will reshape consumer decision journeys and companies will need to adapt fast.”

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Core Insurance, Workers Compensation

Zywave Expands API Capabilities, Empowers Insurance Organizations to Maximize Data-Driven Potential

PR Newswire | August 02, 2023

Zywave, an industry-leading provider of insurtech solutions, announced today the expansion of its API capabilities, which enable insurance organizations to further maximize their data-driven opportunities throughout the entire prospect-to-client journey. Through these multiple solutions, Zywave will provide users access to insightful, new data sets, empower organizations to optimize their technology workflows, and enable them to use their existing data in meaningful, new ways. Over the past few months, the insurtech provider released two new API products, including Lead Insights API, which provides access to a comprehensive database for lead generation; and Personal Lines Quoting API, a solution that brings quoting with carrier-direct pricing into an insurance organization's existing technology platform. "As insurance workflows have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, APIs have played an even more critical role in the industry, enabling seamless integration between various systems and platforms," said Jason Liu, Zywave's CEO. "At Zywave, our philosophy on open architecture emphasizes the importance of industry partnerships and collaboration, which has led to the development of new solutions that help insurance brokers, insurers, and service providers optimize their operations." Demonstrating its commitment to open architecture, Zywave is introducing several new API solutions that will further revolutionize the industry: Just released, Zywave's Lead Insights API will help users revolutionize their prospecting and sales processes, by providing access to the extensive customer data that powers Zywave's industry-leading lead generation solution. The miEdge dataset enables advanced company searches, identifies key contacts and offers critical insights into employer compliance data for millions of employers nationwide. Also new to market is Zywave's Personal Lines Quoting API, a one-stop shop for quoting auto coverage. With carrier-direct pricing from our over 200 insurer partners in all 50 states, the Personal Lines Quoting API helps our customers enhance their rating processes and maximize operational efficiency, all within their existing technology platforms. In addition to auto, home coverage will be added to the offering in the coming months. Available through Zywave's Sales Cloud, the Policy API enables key policy information to flow freely between critical technology platforms, such as customer relationship management systems, agency management systems, benefit admins, compliance systems, or carrier portals. The structured format of data the API is built upon allows users to create a single source of truth for their policy information between multiple systems, resulting in more streamlined processes and reduced errors. Released in January 2023, the Group Benefits Quoting API enables benefits brokers to quote medical and ancillary lines of coverage more efficiently, directly within their existing systems. Powered by carefully sourced carrier-direct pricing from over 500 benefits insurers, brokers can leverage Zywave's unrivaled dataset to quickly and accurately quote over 55,000 fully funded and level-funded medical, dental and vision plans with their existing census or enrollment data. Previously available, the Content API pushes Zywave's industry-leading content directly into our customers' client portals. It includes over 10,000 pieces of attorney-backed content created by our team of industry experts, on topics including compliance, risk management, human resources, wellness, and more. The forthcoming Benchmark Analysis API delivers the data insurers and commercial brokers need to enhance their benchmarking and loss analysis capabilities. Powered by Zywave's Loss Insight dataset, the Benchmark Analysis API includes Cyber, D&O, EPLI, and Casualty loss data on over one million high-severity losses, valued at more than $10 trillion. With Zywave's extensive portfolio of API solutions, its customers will increase efficiency, optimize their workflows, and drive strategic growth. As API technology and API-enabled partners increasingly become key insurtech investments, Zywave will continue to lead the market with a philosophy of open architecture and a focus on strategic data partnerships. To learn more about Zywave's industry-leading solutions, visit www.zywave.com. About Zywave Zywave leads the insurtech industry, fueling business growth for its partners with cloud-based sales management, client delivery, content and analytics solutions. Zywave's all-in-one platform provides customizable, user-friendly options that enable insurance professionals to build a unique solution to fit their specific growth goals—their own Modern RevOps Machine. More than 15,000 insurers, agencies and brokerages worldwide—including all of the top 100 U.S. insurance brokerages—use Zywave solutions to enhance client services, achieve business growth and promote greater health, wellness, risk management and safety. Additional information can be found at www.zywave.com.

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Core Insurance, Insurance Technology

NSM Insurance Group Acquires Shield Commercial Insurance Services

PRnewswire | July 11, 2023

NSM Insurance Group, the nation's leading specialty insurance provider with more than $1.5B in premium across 25+ niche insurance programs in the U.S. and U.K., today announced the completion of its acquisition of Shield Commercial Insurance Services. Based in Palm Desert, CA, Shield specializes in insurance solutions for the general contractor and construction liability space. "We are energized to continue our series of strategic acquisitions in the U.S. and U.K. with Shield," said Bill McKernan, President of NSM Insurance Group. "Shield is a fast-growing and best-in-class business with exceptional underwriting and a profitable track record. They are a perfect fit for our B2B portfolio of dynamic, specialized businesses. We will accelerate their growth by expanding their geographic footprint and national distribution with our robust network of 15,000+ agent partners across the country." Shield is exclusively focused on underwriting business for small and mid-sized contractors, offering coverages for General Liability, Excess Liability, Workers' Compensation, Inland Marine and Contractors Professional & Pollution Liability. "We're thrilled to join the NSM family of specialty insurance brands and further enhance and bolster our offerings to meet the unique needs of contractors," said Robert Anderson, President and Co-Founder of Shield Commercial Insurance Services. "Over the last two decades, we have delivered innovative products for this niche segment and have built a tremendous reputation with agents and carriers alike — which has fueled our explosive organic growth over the last five years." Over the past 33 years, NSM has developed a winning formula for building the industry's most successful and sustainable programs, consistently outperforming competitors and driving industry-leading growth and profitability over the last four years. This latest acquisition complements NSM's robust portfolio of specialty insurance programs and brands for the commercial P&C industry and consumer insurance — backed by the company's state-of-the-art resources, including IT, operations, marketing, HR and finance. About NSM Insurance Group NSM Insurance Group is the nation's leading specialty insurance provider, exclusively focused on building successful insurance programs. For more than 30 years, NSM has been committed to delivering industry-specific insurance programs that help agents meet the unique needs of their customers and fuel market growth through innovative development, underwriting, distribution and claims expertise. The company has built more than $1.5 billion in premium across 25+ specialty insurance programs and brands in the U.S. and U.K. focused on collector cars; pets; social services and behavioral health; addiction treatment; coastal condominiums; towing and garage; trucking; sports and fitness; professional liability for contractors, architects and engineers; habitational; medical stop loss and managed care; staffing; and workers' compensation. For more information on NSM, visit nsminc.com.

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Risk Management, Insurance Technology

Expert.ai Launches AI Platform for Insurance to Power NLP-driven Intelligent Process Automation

PRnewswire | June 27, 2023

Expert.ai, the industry leader in AI-powered language solutions, today announced availability of the expert.ai Platform for Insurance. The expert.ai Platform for Insurance powers underwriting and claims solutions so that insurers can use natural language processing to eliminate documents from review cycles, extract needed data and prioritize which submission or claims need an expedited review or to be assigned to a senior adjuster based on complexity. The expert.ai Platform for Insurance provides insurance teams with a way to automate the repetitive tasks associated with document reviews, extraction and assessments, freeing up time to focus on de-risking underwriting decisions, determining coverage and conducting preliminary claims investigations. Key platform capabilities include: Out-of-the-box data extraction for common data fields Urgency, severity and intent routing for claims and submissions packages Extraction of key exposure factors, e.g., coverage exclusions, limitations, pre-existing conditions, etc. Accurate summarization for human review, e.g., pre-assignment of risk grades for human validation/evaluation from property risk engineers Data redaction for GDPR and PII (personally identifiable information), etc. Record type categorization and elimination of records from review cycles A customizable insurance-trained language model From submissions and claims management through policy comparison and risk engineering, the expert.ai Platform for Insurance supports even the most intricate, complex and language-intensive uses cases. "At expert.ai, we've deployed insurance solutions for Global 100 providers across the range of workflows from claims automation and risk engineering through policy reviews and submissions intake. Artificial intelligence, in fact, offers insurers tremendous potential to transform their operations, improve combined ratios and establish a lasting competitive advantage," said Walt Mayo, expert.ai CEO. "The expert.ai Platform for Insurance provides AI-based NLP solutions to reduce time to production and scale in the future. From customizable language models to insurance use case trained models, we help insurers deliver real value across their organizations, with high levels of accuracy, significant time savings, tangible capacity gains and better customer engagement." Expert.ai will be showcasing its Platform for Insurance during the Reuters "The Future of Insurance USA 2023" event in Chicago on June 27-28. About expert.ai Expert.ai (EXAI:IM) is a leading company in AI-based natural language software. Organizations in insurance, banking and finance, publishing, media and defense all rely on expert.ai to turn language into data, analyze and understand complex documents, accelerate intelligent process automation and improve decision making. Expert.ai's purpose-built natural language platform pairs simple and powerful tools with a proven hybrid AI approach that combines symbolic and machine learning to solve real-world problems and enhance business operations at speed and scale. With offices in Europe and North America, expert.ai serves global businesses such as AXA XL, Zurich Insurance Group, Generali, The Associated Press, Bloomberg INDG, BNP Paribas, Rabobank, Gannett and EBSCO.

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