Executive Insights: Insurance & the art of motorcycle repair
An unquenchable need to understand how things work took Andrew Rippert from the Manayunk neighborhood of Philly to the c-suite.
Growing up in Philadelphia’s Manayunk neighborhood, Andrew Rippert developed an early passion for working with his hands and building things.
Initially, this interest was applied to fixing bicycles. As a kid, Rippert, who currently serves as Aspen Re’s chief underwriting officer, would salvage parts from discarded bicycles at the town dump and build ridable bikes from pieces.
“That interest in bikes translated into working on motorcycles as I got a little older,” he says, adding with a laugh: “I was riding motorcycles years before I reached a legal riding age.”
In addition to the thrill of riding, Rippert was drawn to the more cerebral side of motorcycle mechanics.
“Understanding how things work at a basic level is key to learning virtually anything. That’s true whether you are building a car, a motorcycle, or a contract of insurance or reinsurance,” Rippert says.
It was this desire to comprehend the world at its fundamental level that led Rippert to pursue a double major in math and physics, which he says gave him a “principal education in how things really work.”
In college he was a research fellow at the Warton School of the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a stipend of about $800 a month for his efforts. It was at this time the city of Philadelphia started putting wage taxes on graduate student stipends.
“I come from humble beginnings, so I either had to take out more loans or find a job that I knew I could do well in,” Rippert says.
With a background in math and some contacts in the actuarial field, Rippert set his sights on insurance and landed his initial industry job with a Philadelphia company. The first major project he worked on was assessing the profitability of that firm’s lines of business across all its distribution mechanism.
“I worked with a lot of senior people, and the impact of that study significantly transformed the distribution and lines of business. It made me say, ‘wow, I can come in here and use my background and have a real-world impact on how a business runs,’” Rippert explains. “I was excited by that.”
While he’s spent three decades in the financial sector, including holding executive leadership roles with Arch Capital before joining Aspen, Rippert hasn’t forgotten his humble beginnings in Philadelphia. His love for working with his hands and building things also hasn’t waned either. When he isn’t busy working out or spending time with his two daughters, Rippert can be found wrenching on a 1982 Honda CB750 he is restoring.
PropertyCasualty360.com recently caught up with Rippert, who shared insights into how the industry has changed and where it is heading.
PC360: What skill sets should the next generation of insurance professionals be developing?
Rippert: Resiliency — have mental toughness, emotional toughness. Things will not always work out the way you want. You need to stick to it and not give up. Consciously think about how to persist, tackle your challenges and learn from them.
Open mind and curiosity — be a lifelong learner. Take every opportunity to learn something new. Have a curiosity about the world, your business and life in general. These different perspectives enlighten and steer you to make better decisions, personally and professionally. Read a minimum number of books every year. Learn new topics; this will make you more informed and a well-rounded person.
Empathy — adopt and practice empathy. You will face challenges in life, and you will need to be able to negotiate and collaborate their outcomes. If you understand the world from another person’s perspective, you will have better insight into how to get things done, together. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes, and you’ll be more successful through collaboration and effectiveness. It’s a critical skill.
Know your industry/trade — know it forwards, sideways and backwards. Technical proficiency is essential. Become an expert at it. Don’t fake it, know it.
Network — think about building your network over the course of your career. Develop friendships and professional relationships. This is a very valuable asset.
PC360: In your opinion, what have been the most significant changes for the insurance industry in the last decade?
Rippert: Social and societal changes, which has taken place in the world over the last ten years. Since the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement, we have been making good strides, however, that pace has really accelerated over last ten years. We are all more conscious, not only about race and ethnicity, but many other dimensions that make us a diverse society.
Climate change also is a game changing issue for our industry. It has been trending up for a while, however, it has really ramped up over the last decade. Additionally, the pace of innovation and competitiveness of markets has accelerated exponentially. The innovation cycle and societal evolution cycle — and the frequency of the ups and downs of those two cycles — have greatly increased and things are changing more quickly.
PC360: How can we improve the insurance industry’s reputation with the public?
Rippert: Be more engaged with the public. Doing things, such as establishing mentorships and apprenticeships, and making our workforce more diverse and inclusive where we do business. This will lead to communities becoming more aware of us as an industry. We also need to be more proactive and engage in neighborhoods frequently. This can be accomplished through fundraising or volunteering. There are many ways where we can give back. All these things create a broader sense of community. We should put more energy into engaging on a local level, both individually and corporately. The industry needs to be caught doing good. That will serve us well and it’s the right thing to do.
PC360: Who have some of your mentors been throughout your career?
Rippert: Mentors can come in many different shapes and forms. Abe Lincoln is someone I greatly admire. I read a lot of history (pre and post-Civil War era) about the challenges Lincoln had during his administration, and a great book about Lincoln is “A Team of Rivals” — an incredible book with leadership lessons. To me, he was a significant mentor through the leadership he demonstrated.
An early boss I worked with took me under her wing and helped me to understand the technical and finer points of the business. She provided me the opportunity to meet clients on my own. On one of the first business trips I took, she asked me to go to Singapore and Australia to meet and present to senior executives. Were it not for her and the guidance and support she demonstrated, I would not be as successful as I am today. She was a great example of helping me hone my skills, and showed great empathy and compassion in supporting my career.
PC360: How would you describe the insurance industry to someone considering it for a career?
Rippert: It is full of opportunity, change and innovation. The insurance industry can be very rewarding, stable and an exciting place to work. You can learn a lot, have a great career, earn a good income, travel the world and impact society in a positive manner. If you like a portfolio of issues — whether technical, analytical, mathematical, economical, societal, science — the industry can expose you to all those things. It has a reputation for being a little sleepy, but it really isn’t. It’s a world of opportunity that can be very rewarding.
The business of insurance is basically a selling a contract where we will pay if something goes wrong. You’re always trying to figure out what that thing is, which could happen so that the insurer has to pay. You don’t have perfect information, you have uncertain outcomes, you have changing conditions and you have to make the right decision for your business. So, that’s an exciting and challenging environment to work within every day.
PC360: What are some of the biggest misconceptions about the industry?
Rippert: That the industry is filled with boring, sleepy people who work 9-5 and retire when they’re 60 and go off into the sunset. It’s anything but that!
PC360: What was the most valuable piece of advice anyone has ever given you?
Rippert: Know your trade well, create a network and a board of informal advisors/mentors. Be honest. Work hard. Be open to learning. There is no magic formula; just be persistent, learn your trade and be empathetic.
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