(Image source: Carpe Data.)
While digital experiences tend to get more headlines, a revolution in data-driven underwriting is happening across insurance industry sectors. In the commercial insurance realm, a story that caught our eye was that of EverPeak Insurance’s (Denver) engagement with Carpe Data, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based next-generation data provider to insurers. A new workers’ compensation business created by Denver-based carrier Pinnacol Assurance, EverPeak is integrating Carpe’s Minerva platform to streamline and accelerate its underwriting process as the business prepares for national expansion.
We spoke to Carpe Data Chief Product Officer about how the company is helping EverPeak to achieve its expansion by providing insights based on massive amounts of online data to complement conventional sources.
Insurance Innovation Reporter: Tell us about EverPeak’s engagement with Carpe Data. What is Minerva and how are you helping EverPeak to meet their business growth ambitions?
Scot Barton, Chief Product Officer, Carpe Data.
Scot Barton, Chief Product Officer, Carpe Data: EverPeak is integrating Minerva to streamline and accelerate the underwriting process. Minerva is the name for our data store that we carefully construct to be available for sub-second API access to data. And we now made a GUI interface on top of that to instantly visualize all of the valuable data inside Minerva. EverPeak is looking to do expand nationally, and you can’t do that with the same people power—you need an accelerator. Having our insights available so quickly is going to enable them to make those smart decisions and expand it at the pace of their business goals.
IIR: So, essentially, we’re talking about the ability to automate this process?
SB: Yes, especially automating the online research. What’s happening at a business they may insure is only available through the business’ online content because they simply don’t report everything that actually happens there. To be able to have that automated search of the business risks, of the business operations, fed to an underwriter instantly lets them to focus on finding new business and making smart pricing decisions—and not on researching who the business really is and what the business really does. We’ve done that work for them.
IIR: Why should they be confident that they can achieve their objectives, their objective of national expansion?
SB: We’re serving up the same quality content that big carriers like The Hartford, Travelers, Farmers, and Allstate have used, but now through the GUI interface because EverPeak is a smaller operation. We wanted to provide a low- to no-lift alternative from an IT investment standpoint. So, the underwriters can gain instant access, it’s web-based, and it doesn’t require platform integration to get insights to our data.
IIR: Could you elaborate on how Minerva uses advanced data analysis to quickly extract information relevant, in this case, to workers’ compensation risk?
SB: Yeah. We’ve really done a two-step process. The first thing is defining business characteristics and operational risks across any kind of business, from contractors to retail, restaurants, manufacturing, habitational risks. We get the data first, but then we’ve even built insights and models on top of those characteristics to have things like loss propensity, scores, and predictions. We’ve got customer review aggregations across multiple online platforms, including things like hours of operation and exposures. So, we’ve put together a very good package of valuable characteristics and predictive elements that are used for not just appetites, but for pricing insights.
IIR: Are you able to serve various lines of business with Minerva, not just workers’ comp?
SB: Yes. Basically, when it comes to the relevant data, if it’s online, we’ll find it. Those rates of online content vary by different industries, but we will happily “waste” our time and not waste the carrier’s time. If it is there, we’ll give you the insights that are there about the risk. It’s not just about regurgitating basic kinds of data that have been around for a long time. It’s really new content that’s predictive of risk. And you can’t find that unless you search for it; that is an extremely time-intensive activity and we’ve automated that process for carriers.
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IIR: It sounds easy, but I gather this is a vast amount of data.
SB: Yes, and it takes a lot of insurance focus to identify. It isn’t just about scraping a webpage. You’ve got to identify actionable, predictive elements that are used in insurance use cases. Luckily, there are several people our teams that long and deep insurance experience. So, we’ve succeeded in matching up the insurance expertise with the new technologies that come with online platforms and data-focused companies.
IIR: Does that ultimately provide a more granular more understanding of these specialized risks
SB: Yes. We’ve heard repeatedly that people have to do more with less. We’re still at an age where we’re hearing about layoffs and reductions on a weekly basis from large to small carriers across the country. We want to empower carriers to do the most that they can with the people that they’ve got—to be able to augment their processes with our insights to speed up the time of manual underwriting and give them those insights instantly. That’s a really great value.
Almost every carrier is looking to automate to a more straight-through process. In order to do that, you need that safety net of what is happening in the online perspective and in the rendered services of a business. And we can do that because we’re monitoring multiple online platforms, websites, and areas to gain those insights. So, before you underwrite a business, you had better know what their online content is, and you can’t get that without working with Carpe Data.
IIR: Many kinds of data commonly support the underwriting process. What is special about online data?
SB: The content still ranges from what kind of business is it—what’s their NAICS code or their SIC code, what’s their classifications, what kind of operations they’re doing, what kind of hours they’ve got, what the online experience is. We always say both sides of the coin. You have to listen to what the business says about themselves. Then you have to listen to what are the actual rendered services of that business. The blind spot from survey data or quotes or agent or brokerage data is that’s it’s really only the perspective of what the customer wants to carry to know. We complete that picture by looking at the rendered services and helping augment what’s really going on, what are the real business operational risks of a business.
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