Engineering Underwriting

Gary Kaplan, chief underwriting officer and head of the Technical Center strategic service unit for Zurich Financial Services subsidiary Zurich North America's commercial business division (Zurich; $9 billion in 2003 net written premium and policy fees), doesn't believe that underwriting is more of an art than a science. "I've always thought that calling underwriting an art was an excuse not to do a lot of the work that goes into making decisions about risk," he comments.

Trained in chemistry and mathematics, Kaplan has brought a more methodical and technology-driven approach to Zurich since he joined the company in 1995. He played a major role in the creation of the company's underwriting Technical Center in 2001.

Chief among the Technical Center's fruits is the carrier's ongoing Underwriting Workstation initiative, begun in 2001, which embodies Kaplan's push to increasingly support underwriting through modeling and automation. "The idea is that the underwriter can turn to these support tools to efficiently guide and validate his or her assessment of risk," he remarks. "That flows to our bottom line on the expense side and brings consistency to the decisions we make."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio