The THiNK Blog

The content of this article was originally published in The Actuary as Simplifying the Complex: How to speak to nontechnical audiences.

A natural part of anyone’s business career, the further you advance, the broader your audience becomes. And that applies to both formal and informal settings.

As an actuarial student, your primary audience is your boss (an actuary), his or her peers (other actuaries) and your peers (actuarial students). For the most part, this group is homogenous and very similar to you. Thus, it’s not too difficult to prepare to present information to them. You just need to focus on how you want to present the information since, generally speaking, the way you want to present it is the way they want to receive it. Said differently, early in your career you already know your audience well. This is not true, how­ever, as your career advances and your audience gets more diverse.

Welcome to the fifth edition of our Underwriting Expert Series. Missed the previous articles in the series? View them here! This week, Senior Underwriter, Karen McLeod, is discussing the link between obesity and cancer.

This is the fourth edition of our Underwriting Expert Series. Make sure to catch up on the rest of the series here. This week, Senior Underwriter, GarenMarkarian, explores the opioid crisis, how it impacts the life insurance industry and what life underwriters need to consider when assessing applicants with current or past usage.

Thanks for tuning into the third edition of our Underwriting Expert Series. So far, we’ve covered underwriting mature ages and the impact of legalized marijuana on underwriting. This week we are exploring another newsworthy topic that will impact the life insurance industry: genetic testing. 

Welcome to the second edition of our LOGiQ³ Underwriting Expert Series! Each week, one of our life underwriters will provide an in depth look at an important topic for life underwriting professionals.  

Welcome to the first edition of our new LOGiQ³ Underwriting Expert Series! Each week, one of our life underwriters will provide an in depth look at an important topic for life underwriting professionals.  

Remember that super scary moment back in high school when it was time to decide what you wanted to be when you ‘grow up’. AKA choose the path you wanted to take in university or college. You go to school and either stick to the path, take a couple of detours or maybe change directions altogether. Regardless of the path you took, you have now successfully kicked off a career in underwriting...and are reading this blog.

Managing resources  on your underwriting team is a tricky balance.  In fact, I’ve often heard to it referred to as a game of chess.  Like chess, it requires you to always be looking ahead and making the right move at the right time. But even the most skilled chess players encounter challenges.  When they are challenged, what do they do? 

Instead of hastily making a move, they step back and take a hard look at what’s in front of them.  They carefully consider the possible outcome of the chess piece they are about to move.  They anticipate what move their opponent may make and the impact their move may have.  Then they carefully and methodically move their chess piece.

Winter is here its time to tighten the bootstraps. I mean that both literally and figuratively.

Literally because if you live in the northern hemisphere, you know what’s coming. And figuratively, if you’re a Life Underwriting Manager, the combined pressure to finish year end strong and plan for the following year is always an uber-laid back and relaxing time.

Just kidding, of course. This sprint to the end of the year is always fraught with balancing competing priorities and business pressures including: