Frank J. Coyne is chairman and chief executive officer of Verisk Analytics.

A Message from Frank J. Coyne

The current business environment presents many challenges. Market forces continue to put significant pressure on the profitability of insurance companies and others involved in the business of risk. Economic and environmental factors continue to fuel competition. And as competition intensifies, the industry is also seeing a change in the very nature of competition.

The keys to surviving and thriving will be gaining a true understanding of what drives strategic growth in the evolving marketplace, evaluating risk with more comprehensive analysis, and targeting efficiency and effectiveness to drive profitability. Keeping up with advances in technology and implementing them in the most efficacious ways will be vital in gaining this understanding and executing against the core fundamentals — cost-based pricing, solid underwriting, sound loss adjudication, and prudent risk management.

In our continued commitment to helping our customers handle marketplace challenges and respond to change, Verisk Analytics is staying on top of critical industry issues. We’re continually updating our products and services. We’re performing in-depth analyses to seek answers. And we’re taking advantage of innovative technologies, such as predictive modeling, to develop tools you can use to help make sound business decisions and enhance every link in your value creation chain.

One of Verisk’s key objectives has been to meet the expanding needs of our customers through innovation, and we’ve advanced a number of initiatives. By combining innovation, industry expertise, sophisticated technology, and new and varied sources of information, Verisk launched several products and implemented many key product enhancements.

These new and enhanced products are helping insurers make better decisions for pricing, underwriting, and loss adjudication. One area where Verisk is investing significant resources is predictive analytics. We've launched risk-based pricing models for personal auto, commercial auto, and homeowners — and we’re working on several other predictive analytic products and tools for pricing. Verisk is also using predictive analytics to enhance the value of our core products.

In addition to predictive analytics, Verisk is investing in many other areas, including:

  • property valuation and replacement-cost tools
  • catastrophe risk management tools
  • claims analytics
  • policy-level transaction information
  • GIS platforms to help analyze property risk

In the regulatory and legal arena, Verisk continues its ongoing review of social, legislative, and regulatory changes to keep our programs up to date. We maintain a specialized staff of insurance experts and lawyers dedicated to developing and updating our programs to comply with all legal and regulatory requirements.

We're also investing in our top-notch staff of industry experts. Our staff includes about 800 people who hold advanced degrees, certifications, and professional designations. More than 175 of the degrees are doctorates. Areas of employee specialization include actuarial science, data management, mathematics, statistical modeling, economics, fire protection, healthcare, geology, meteorology, oceanography, engineering, and many other disciplines.

We continue to invest in our operations and infrastructure, as well. We've executed initiatives to safeguard customer information and ensure compliance with legislative, contractual, and regulatory requirements regarding Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI). Every year since 2001, our Jersey City, N.J., location has earned CyberTrust Perimeter Certification, an ongoing assessment to ensure we maintain a secure computing environment. In 2010, we achieved the certification at the enterprise level. Our improvements in operations and infrastructure all contribute to economies of scale no single insurer can match.

The industry is at the beginning of a fundamental change in the business of risk. Faced with increasing marketplace pressures, escalating exposure growth, and other significant challenges, embracing new technology and advances in analytics will be vital to your success.

At Verisk Analytics, we’re solidly committed to being your business ally, providing essential services focused on data, analytics, and decision-support tools to help you handle current and future challenges. Year after year, we strive to increase the value and responsiveness of our products and services by addressing your needs.