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Innovation can help insurance industry professionals face challenges

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Innovation can help insurance industry professionals face challenges

Innovation within the insurance industry can help risk managers, insurers and brokers face numerous challenges in their organizations, a panel of experts said Tuesday.

Risk managers are challenged by numerous changes such as environmental, regulatory and compliance issues, Kathleen M. Ireland, director of global risk and insurance management for IBM Corp. in Armonk, N.Y., said Tuesday during the 22nd Annual Insurance Executive Forum presented by the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services of Illinois State University.

“Innovation allows us to come up with new and creative ways to demonstrate our value to the world, and to our customers and to your clients,” Ms. Ireland said. “Going forward, it's not going to be who you know, it's going to be what you know and what you do with it.”

Insurance industry innovation, through products and services, among other strategies, helps insurers and brokers understand their customers' needs, allowing them to provide tangible solutions, the panelists said.

“Innovation is really a tactic for all of us to create more revenue, to increase margin, but we have to have a unique capacity to listen to our customer base, to understand exactly what they need and what they want,” said Scott M. Wick, Chicago-based executive vice president and chief sales officer for Hub International Midwest Ltd., during the forum.

“Insurance is still a people business and it will continue to be a people business forever,” said Jonathan E. Michael, chairman and CEO of RLI Corp. in Peoria, Ill. “But you have to have innovation to get closer and closer to the customer, to the broker, and I think that's the end game for insurance companies in innovation.”

While new companies with plenty of capital can enter the insurance marketplace relatively easily, technological innovation can “level the playing field” for other entrants, said John Goldwater, president and CEO of Berkley Net Underwriters L.L.C., a unit of W.R. Berkley Corp. in Woodbridge, Va.

“The opportunity is through differentiation and people to truly create the advantage,” he said. “If you don't innovate in this economy that we're in, you're going to get left on the sidelines.”

The forum, which was moderated by Business Insurance Senior Editor Rodd Zolkos, was held at the Union League Club of Chicago.

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