Success stories of 4 female insurance claims executives
Four leading female insurance experts discuss the challenges they’ve faced and share their predictions for the future of the industry.
Believe it or not, insurance existed during the ancient world, as people wanted to trade farther than from the nearest village. As trade routes expanded, so did risks, causing a need for insurance to mitigate the risk of pirates, fire and other dangers. During the Medieval era, it was common practice to apply for a sea loan. With this kind of loan, investors would give funds to traveling merchants.
The merchant would then be responsible for paying back the loan if and when the ship made it back in one piece. This acted as a form of insurance. Of course, the rules underwent several changes over the centuries, which leads us to today’s insurance.
The modern insurance industry is actually modeled after the British system, and can be traced back to the Great Fire of London, which burned more than 13,000 homes in 1666. Back then, the profession was overwhelming male.
What we’ve seen over the years is a flip in the paradigm.
According to the Insurance Information Institute, today women comprise over 60% of the insurance industry. The majority of those women work in fields including life and health, property/casualty, and reinsurance. By all estimates, this makes women one of the most important pieces of the insurance puzzle.
While there are many outstanding female professionals, here are four women who embody what it means to be a leader in insurance. They have had to overcome many obstacles along the way to succeed and have a great deal of wisdom to share.
Trudy A. Hardin, Esq. and Sr. Vice President of the Claims Council — Financial Services Group, Aon
When Trudy Hardin was working with Aon Risk Consultants, they outsourced her to a client to work in its risk management department to assist with day-to-day risk management issues. From there she moved to the brokerage side of Aon as an Employment Practice Liability Practice Leader.
In 2015, Hardin moved to Aon’s Financial Services Group Legal and Claims Group in Denver, where her focus changed from implementing risk management strategies to designing insurance programs. Today she develops new products and ensures that the policies perform as they were intended.
Things have not always been smooth sailing for Hardin. She says she faced challenges when initially entering the industry such as a lack of knowledge about commercial insurance as a career. Hardin continued, “I had to figure out how to navigate the industry and find a career that worked for me. As I’ve progressed, the challenge has been to break through limitations people in the industry perpetuate.”
When asked what she thought the biggest challenges facing the insurance industry were, she replied, “attracting top talent of all ages, races, and genders.” Hardin added, “A diverse talent base will allow us to best connect with clients and bring the best ideas for innovation.”
Hardin has had many mentors during her career, one of her most notable is an early supervisor, who was also a female. She says this supervisor helped her understand the importance of speaking up and volunteering for new assignments. Hardin also named former teachers, insurance brokers and even one of her sisters who she affectionately calls her ‘cheerleader’ as mentors.
“The importance of these people in my life is lasting because their advice is still relevant, and I use it every day. They have contributed to my success to date and will continue to do so. Thinking about them makes me realize my success is not just mine. There are always people who help you,” Hardin said.
Hardin says the best advice she was ever given is to, “Work smart and do what you say you’re going to do.”
Marlyss Gage, Executive Vice President and Enterprise Chief Underwriting Officer for Travelers
Throughout her career, Gage says her sphere of influence has grown as she has gained additional responsibilities, but says she’s always held positions in the marketing and underwriting departments.
“At its core, the role of an underwriter is to evaluate risk,” Gage said. She continued, “And while that component has not changed over the years, the risks we evaluate have. We are continuously adjusting the way we look at risk to keep ahead of rapidly-changing consumer trends.”
Getting where she is now was not an easy road. Her challenges began in her more formative years. Gage grew up in a small town, where she says it was uncommon for women to seek business degrees. When she entered the insurance industry, she was often the only woman in meetings.
In those meetings, Gage had a difficult time having her opinion heard.
“While I sometimes still see that challenge for women in the industry, it’s definitely something that is being aggressively addressed. The insurance and financial services industry as a whole is making a concerted effort to become more diverse. At Travelers specifically, we continue to have a very strong focus on diversity and inclusion and ensuring that all employees have the opportunity to be heard,” Gage said.
In general, she sees 2019 as an exciting time for insurers and says there is visible change — currently being driven by ever-growing customer expectations.
“At Travelers, we have an unwavering focus on innovation, advancing our digital agenda and enhancing the experience for our customers, agents, brokers, and employees. It’s a challenge for the industry to move away from long-standing practices, but it’s creating a lot of positive momentum. We’re seeing more product innovations, more startups entering the industry and more insurance companies partnering with technology companies,” Gage said.
Though she’s had countless mentors, her most influential one came along roughly a third of the way through her career. He instilled in her that it was acceptable not to always know the right answer to find meaning in failure. He also told Gage to be confident in her abilities and taught her to build a career in a company that she could take pride in. This advice was personified through her fruitful career at Travelers.
When asked about the single best piece of advice she has received, Gage said the following. “Do your job to the best of your ability. If you build skills along the way, develop strong relationships, know your resources, coach, mentor and transfer knowledge — you will have a challenging and rewarding career.”
Darla Finchum, Chief Claims Officer, MetLife Auto & Home
Finchum’s career has always been in property and casualty insurance, however, she has worked across the business including underwriting sales, operations/service and her role today as chief claims officer. In this role, one of her key responsibilities is to enhance the policyholder experience. MetLife has taken innovative solutions that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to do just that.
Finchum says that all of her collective experience has put her in a place to perform the duties required by her role of developing and executing the strategic direction of the claims organization. Even with the shifting structure of hierarchy changes, Finchum says she’s managed to find an organization that encourages collaboration in the form of cross-functional teams and one capable of increasing efficiency.
“Today’s consumer is in the driver’s seat like never before, expecting to engage with businesses on their own terms and in their preferred channels. At MetLife Auto & Home, we are focused on putting the customer at the center of our business to ensure we are delivering products and coverage our customers need as well as the quality service and experience they want.”
Each successful executive profiled has shared a piece of advice they were given at some point in their career. Finchum’s advice is simple, “Always put people first, to listen to them, and understand their passion so you can foster their development and see to their success.”
Finchum has been fortunate to have built an expansive network of trusted advisers that includes former bosses, colleagues both inside and outside the organization, as well as her mother and aunt who remain instrumental in her development.
Lori Bailey, Global Head of Cyber Risk Zurich Insurance Group
In insurance, her entire career — Bailey’s father owned a small property/casualty agency in Peterborough, N.H. Bailey started working for AIG after graduating from college, where she implemented a program to introduce students to insurance.
Today, with over 20 years of experience, Bailey has seen a lot of change in her rise to her current role.
Prior to moving to Cyber Risk at Zurich, the majority of her work was in professional liability, later transferring to the underwriting department in 2000. This is around the time when some of the first cyber policies penetrated the insurance market.
In essence, cyber has always been a component of what she does day-to-day. The sheer magnitude only grew in the past five to six years.
Bailey tackles everything from hybrid coverage of general liability coverage and property and some specialty lines for extortion, as well as kidnap and ransom coverage. During her 20+ year career, Bailey has seen the number of women in insurance drastically increase, to the now over 60% of women who dominate the field.
In terms of cyber, one of the most noticeable changes is the underwriting process. Today, there is much more access to risk assessments, tools, and altogether, the process has changed. Everything happens in real-time, which is drastically different from what she remembers 20 years ago. In addition to her many hats, Bailey also leads the Women’s Innovation Network (WIN) for Zurich North America.
The problems facing those in cyber can sometimes be grey. There are always issues like securing customer data and protecting your own systems from threats. There is, however, more to the story.
“In cyber — one of the biggest challenges is gathering the data we need and using it in more meaningful ways. We have access to a lot of data points, but sometimes connecting the dots can be a bit challenging. In an environment where we have big data — there are a lot of data points for companies regarding risk. Using it to come to a meaningful conclusion is still difficult,” Bailey said.
She continued…
“Property insurance can look at lots of different kinds of data, whereas cyber doesn’t have the same access and it can be difficult to predict what will happen in the future. As the head of WIN — I continue to take on greater diversity in the industry as a challenge. We’ve made great strides in gender equality, but continuing to spread that diversity remains at the forefront of my consciousness. For cyber, it’s great to have different backgrounds, thoughts, and areas of education/experience to inform us as we move forward as a company.”
Even with cyber predicted to be the fastest growing sector of insurance, Bailey had some guidance along the way, with the assistance of both formal and informal mentors like her father, friends and coworkers.
The future of cyber
Bailey says cyber will continue to evolve and that products will change as well. We can even expect to see more services in the market from carriers and brokers. There will be a noticeable surge in the use of technology for the underwriting process.
From a customer perspective — we will likely see a focus on resilience and the security aspects of cyber, as even the best security is not 100% effective.
Zurich has added network security monitoring to its roster of services. The insurance giant is working with a firm to provide services for its policyholders to help them better detect abnormalities in order to mitigate claims. We will undoubtedly see more innovative approaches like this in the cyber industry.
As of today, Zurich is the first company to offer network security monitoring with a cyber insurance policy.
For these and other women working in the insurance industry, there are tremendous opportunities as risks grow and evolve, technology changes, and companies and boardrooms become more diverse.
Their predecessors in the industry paved the way, shared their hard-earned lessons and mentored this generation of female insurance leaders. Soon a new generation will be adding their contributions to the industry.
Moshe Beauford (moshebeauford@gmail.com) is a freelance journalist, copywriter and blogger. Beauford’s work has appeared in publications such as GeekTime Israel, PasteMagazine, Times of Israel, PropertyCasualty360 and Claims.
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