Author: Ben

The previous article illustrates the need to tailor the ‘underwriting mix’ to the rest of the marketing mix in order to create both an appealing customer proposition (and traditionally an…

The publication of the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – usually referred to simply as ‘the DSM’ – is due round about the time…

This was the title of an interesting conference that took place in London in 2013. While it was focused on the UK, a number of the issues addressed are pertinent…

Several of the sessions at the ICLAM meeting at the end of May 2013 in Madrid dealt with predicting cardiovascular risk. The ECG, and especially the resting trace, is a…

Predictive analytics (also referred to as ‘predictive modelling’): is it the future? It is if you listen to firms that are taking a keen interest in, or even specialize in,…

Nowhere in the world is the underwriting process as sophisticated as it is in North America. Nowhere else are underwriting decisions based:   So frequently on laboratory analysis of blood,…

We were musing the other day about how to deal with smoking, pondering matters like: If an applicant says he or she smokes x cigarettes a day, can you believe…

This year the New England Journal of Medicine published one of a series of articles marking its 200 year anniversary. Entitled ‘Two hundred Years of Cancer Research’, the article is…

Auditing performance is a routine necessity of good business management. Where underwriting and claims functions are concerned, how good are quality and accuracy? Is basic philosophy applied in practice? Are…

Distribution is a key to success in any business. And in few more so than life and morbidity risk insurance, where, classically, products “are sold, not bought”. Historically life companies…