2023 Break Out Awards NORTHEAST SOUTH MIDWEST WEST
DARRYL HARDING Senior underwriter
kWh Analytics Inc.
Coventry, Connecticut
Darryl Harding joined kWh in May 2021 after spending just over eight years as a senior production underwriter with Hartford Steam Boiler, a Munich Re company. He began his underwriting tenure as a small commercial renewal underwriter with Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.
How are technological advances affecting your job?
We can use new data that has never been available before, and we can build upon it with existing experience and knowledge. We need to be able to merge existing knowledge and experience with all the new data to solve new problems.
What’s a problem that needs fixing in your sector?
Much of the industry isn’t about technology and is using data from decades ago. We have the opportunity to move forward, but we’re slow.
What do you wish more people knew about insurance?
I wish more people understood all the different aspects of insurance — from how a customer buys insurance, how a broker looks at insurance, how insurance carriers look at their own insurance, and how reinsurance works. There are so many different parties and so many different angles.
What’s something about you that would surprise people?
My first job, in high school, was as a janitor. I’ve done a little of everything. I’ve worked in retail, at a golf course; I’ve been a butcher, a baker, just not a candlestick maker.
Favorite hobby or pastime?
Cooking, but since I have two toddlers, all I ever get asked for is macaroni and cheese. My favorite thing to cook is Mexican food or barbecue.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
A race-car driver, but that probably had to do with video games and the “Fast & Furious” movies than anything else.
