Marketing & Distribution Section Update

An overview of 2019 activities

Bill Bade August/September 2019

Early in my career, I had the pleasure of working at a large carrier with excellent leadership who understood the importance of investing in data and analytics. What was revolutionary technology in our market at the time could be used to identify underperforming pockets of business that could either be closed to new business or adjusted to maintain the overall health of the block. My successes, which led to a leadership role in a nonactuarial department (account management), were based on using the same technology to incentivize our sales force to grow sales profitably.

I am not unique: The Society of Actuaries (SOA) Marketing & Distribution Section (MaD Section) is a collective “who’s who” of brilliant actuaries on the cutting edge of using data to grow sales profitably. Simply put, we represent the larger trend of actuaries using data and analysis to do much more than price and value products. I am incredibly honored to work with a fun group of actuaries and hope you will consider joining us as a member or run for a section council position next year.

During our annual on-site strategy meeting last February, the MaD Section Council identified two topics of interest: direct-to-consumer marketing, and health and wellness InsurTech. All of our 2019 newsletters, webcasts, conference sessions and other content is directed at these two priorities. With your help, we will reevaluate our priorities each year.

In addition to the standard section content, we have agreed to a long-term partnership with Competiscan to publish quarterly reports focused on our strategic priorities. This is fantastic material—exclusively for our section members—that I hope you continue to enjoy. In addition, we will host a wine and cheese reception at the 2019 SOA Annual Meeting & Exhibit to coincide with our InsurTech Competition. Learn more about these exciting events. We can’t wait to see you in person!

Bill Bade, FSA, MAAA, is founder and consulting actuary at Sydney Consulting Group, as well as president at Sydney Administrators and Sydney Insurance Agency. He is also the council chair of the SOA MaD Section.