The THiNK Blog

The new year offers a fresh start for everyone to set new goals and achieve new heights in their personal and professional lives. Life underwriters looking to get a jump on their career goals and refresh their knowledge can turn to our Underwriting Expert Series. With tips straight from industry experts, we unpack underwriting trends and challenges and offer a deep dive on the unique challenges that underwriters face.

Get ready for the year ahead by reading 16 articles that helped underwriters excel and underwrite with confidence last year:

The huge variety of products, special cases, and unique considerations that underwriters face every day make it an exciting but challenging industry to keep up with. Our expert series aims to make it a little easier by providing resources straight from industry experts on the topics that underwriters are facing now.

Critical illness (CI) insurance is an area that life underwriters face that can be complex and involve detailed review to get right. Karen McLeod, Senior Underwriter & Learning Specialist, shares her advice and top tips how to approach critical illness as a life underwriter.

Diabetes has been a longstanding area of interest for life underwriters. The Centre for Disease Control estimates that more than 30 million Americans have diabetes. The numbers appear to be rising, and it’s estimated that as many as 80 million Americans are living with prediabetes – the condition that typically leads to type II diabetes within five years. The numbers are impactful, especially since nearly 1 in 4 people with prediabetes are undiagnosed.

As much as technology promises to be a boom to the life and health insurance industry, our business is a still very much a people business. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers opportunities to streamline our risk management processes and improve the customer experience, the core of what we do is driven by humans handling complex decisions and nuanced interactions.

The insurance industry is undergoing rapid digital transformation fueled by the average consumer’s desire/willingness to engage online. In a study released by EY Global, 80% of customers said they were willing to use digital and remote channel options for different tasks and transactions.

Digitization has the potential to dramatically increase customer engagement at a lower price point – both perennial challenges for the industry. It also has the potential to improve the underwriting process, leading to a better overall customer experience. Nevertheless, digital transformation requires more than simply applying technologies to current processes.

Managers tackle diverse responsibilities and competing deadlines – but the most important thing they manage is their team. In order to get the best performances from individuals and create a unified team, managers need to be well-versed in effective feedback strategies. Connecting with people and providing feedback that resonates is a critical skill to achieve your goals and get results.

In this edition of our Underwriters Expert Series, we’re uncovering the risks associated with lung cancer – beyond cigarettes. Learn about other causes of this fatal disease and why life underwriters need to look at more than smoking status for assessment.

Welcome to our thirteenth installment of our Underwriting Expert Series. Check out the full series for more risk assessment tips. This week, our Senior Underwriter, Karen McLeod provides the essential knowledge you need to know as a life underwriter with regards to Concussions for Critical Illness (CI) and Life Insurance. Let's get right into it!

“A who?” is the typical response from anyone who has never heard of AHOU; The Association of Home Office Underwriters. If you happen to be in the life insurance industry, then you may have attended the Annual Conference which is held annually across North America. In 2018, the conference was in Chicago, and I was fortunate to be able to attend this four-day action packed conference. This was my first time attending AHOU, it was an exciting experience from which I was able to take away several expert insights to apply to my work.

It's Week 12 of our Underwriting Expert Series, and we are excited to be exploring an overview of Pharmacogenetics with Senior Underwriter, Garen Markarian. Make sure to subscribe to our blog to receive the latest expert series in your inbox.