Executive Insights: CRC CEO Dave Obenauer lives to help others

Like many professionals in wholesale insurance, Dave Obenauer fell into the business by accident and never left.

For more than 20 years, Obenauer has enjoyed helping people rebuild after a loss. His career evolved from working with a startup captive insurer to becoming managing director of Marsh and then CEO of CRC Insurance Services, where he is now.

As a leader in the industry, Obenauer is a member of the Wholesale & Specialty Insurance Association (WSIA) Board of Directors and a legacy member of the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (NAPSLO) Board of Directors. He’s served on various committees and has a deep understanding of wholesale insurance and how it relates to the world.

When Obenauer is not working, he enjoys such adrenaline-fueled hobbies as racing cars and riding motorcycles.

Here, Obenauer shares his ideas about where the wholesale insurance market is headed.

PC360: What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions about the industry? 

Obenauer: Most people think about insurance as homeowners and car insurance because that’s what everyone buys, and they hear the bad stories about what’s not covered or something that didn’t happen right with regard to a claim. Unfortunately, all of that tends to get the attention of the general population. But that is just a fraction of what the industry does and how it really does help respond to losses and events that help people move forward. Most of what we do in wholesale in particular is pretty far afield from the normal understanding of homeowners and auto insurance.

PC360: Where do you see the most opportunity for the wholesale insurance industry? 

Dave Obenauer: The world is evolving to be more risky every time you turn around, whether it’s weather events, climate change-related items, ransomware and hacking or social inflation. All of that represents a big opportunity for the insurance industry to help businesses and individuals manage risk as best we can and then pay for losses when it’s needed.

In a world with all this change, all this disruption and all these new things that are creating more risk, it puts the opportunity and the onus on the insurance business to help people and companies respond and adapt accordingly.

PC360: What do you see as the top three issues insurers should be focusing on now? 

Obenauer: One of the bigger priorities certainly needs to be efficiency and more ease of use for insureds. That covers everything from the underwriting process to the coverage, the policy issuance process, to (ultimately) the claims process. We’re sometimes a very tough industry for insureds to work with, and those are all areas I think the industry needs to improve.

PC360: How would you describe the insurance industry to someone considering it for a career? 

Obenauer: I describe it typically to folks inside our company and elsewhere as a noble business. We’re here to help people and companies respond to loss and recover from that loss. Certainly, we’re also here to try and prevent claims and losses and those kinds of things, but even when you can’t do that, we’re here to help put things back together as best we can and help people move on. To me, that’s a pretty neat way to think about the business and a way for folks to think about how to connect with a broader world and what we do in insurance.

PC360: What was the most valuable piece of advice anyone has ever given you? 

Work with people you like. That is why this business is so much fun because you spend a lot of time at work, and you can pick who you work with. I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of people who have been friends, colleagues and partners along the way. To me, that’s the core of what makes coming to work every day a fun thing.

Ashley S. Hattle is Michigan-based author and freelance journalist.

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