That’s true. Never really think of it from the volume perspective.
I could be wrong here, but I think in commercial space underwriter usually has more power in term of the pricing than actuary. Some of the specialty line doesn’t even have pricing actuary.
I am still in the phase of wanting go as High as possible. But given that a lot of people chose not to (especially those in mid management),I might be one of them in future, although I don’t really understand why at the moment.
It varies a lot by line and even just by company. Early in my career I worked in an area where it really was the underwriters driving the ship. The actuaries are there like “excuse me I think this is underpriced” but largely ignored. I think much of that is failing of more senior leadership and the lead actuaries being charismatic/etc enough.
I’ve also been in large account pricing where the actuarial messaging really drives the ship and underwriters/brokers are there to be the face of the negotiation but the analytics really determine the range of values. Honestly I think we’re more going this direction as analytics becomes increasingly fundamental.
You’d likely be surprised. My company has a large number of qualified actuaries, but still gets a consultant to sign off on their larger reserves.
That is most likely because you’ll see “last role held” in those descriptions.
“Claim adjuster” tends to be an entry-level position . . . and this department deals with the “back-end” of the business.
Most will likely end up moving into underwriting–the “front-end” of the business–to get additional insight on how to be profitable and understanding the market and the company’s risk appetite (which isn’t usually the case in Claims).
That’s a good point. Our current president wasn’t in claims, but … at least one of his direct reports, with responsibility for a rather large chunk of the business, was head of claims operations before that. And one of our top exec’s in charge of underwriting also did a swing through the claims operation.