NextGenUW – A Conversation With Neil Sprackling
Neil Sprackling, President US Life & Health at Swiss Re, shares his view on the future of underwriting in the life and health insurance business. An interview conducted by Peter Kelley, Jon Hope Publishing Co., Inc.
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Inspired by Edi Schmid's article about the next generation of underwriting, Peter Kelly conducts an interview with Neil Sprackling on the transformation of the life and health business:
- In the simplest analysis, how has technology influenced the underwriting process… and how is it changing it?
- How has technology altered our perception risk, and then how we analyze and assess it?
- With technology like GPS/tracking, the ability to gather post-underwriting data that further assesses risk opens a wholly deeper ability to manage risk. What are the implications of this phenomenon for the industry?
- What, if anything, has substantively changed with time-tested mortality tables?
- What are the practical applications for Predictive Modeling, and the use of proxy-data in the underwriting process of something as simple as, say, a life insurance policy?
- How effective, and how accepted, is the emergence of ‘wearables’ as a post-underwriting risk management solution?
- Is the basic insurance model, ‘ex-ante compensation’ based on predictive outcomes, actually changing? If so, how are products changing amid these technological advances?
- Your research identifies that, even in the face of such momentous technological advances, the role of the underwriter remains critical, the ‘fulcrum of the process’ as your report stated. Care to elaborate on this?