C e le brat i n
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OU R P EOP L
Our work from home
JOURNEY E D I T I O N 12
E
WELCOME
to Berkley
W. R. Berkley Syndicate Management Limited in London welcomes David Brosnan as newly appointed President David Brosnan is an international insurance executive with close to 35 years of experience; he has worked in the USA, Canada, and Europe. He has spent half of his career working outside the U.S. David earned a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara. David lives in London with his wife Anne and they have two daughters, Katie (17) and Maggie (19). Maggie attends Tufts University and Katie will be attending Pitzer in the autumn. Together, David and his wife love to travel, scuba dive and are always up for a new adventure.
BERKLEY Asia Pacific Sydney welcomes employees back into the office
FEBRUARY’S Select Employee
To honor Black History Month & Insurance Careers Month, Berkley Select had a chat with their Vice President of Human Resources, Donald Avery.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen such awareness and openness to understand. The platform has really been opened and people’s hearts have really been open to hear the message.”
What does Black History Month mean to you? Black History month means so much to me, as well as all the ethnic groups who make up America. I reflect on how far we have come as a whole, due to the sacrifice of so many people. It is hard to imagine that not long ago, people of color could not vote nor use a water fountain unless it was marked “colored.” I aspire to Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violent protest and appeal to the human spirit of human beings. In his non-violent protest, Dr. King demonstrated so much power in how he carried the torch for so many disenfranchised people. As my Mom and Dad raised my siblings and me they always told us that we could do anything and become anything that we wanted to be. The encouragement always focused on our God-given talents – not the color of our skin.
What challenges did you face when you started your career in the insurance industry? Do you feel as though race has ever played a factor in those challenges? How do you think that compares to today’s climate? My career was always one where both people of color and Caucasians encouraged me in special programs. As for difficulties, I was very fortunate to have my parents teach me to be a hard worker – sometimes harder than many others in my profession. This work ethic allowed me to be recognized and provided opportunities during my career.
As for now, things have improved quite a bit since I was growing up, however, there are times where people feel that racism is not an issue anymore or the sins of the past are just that— of the past. One tends to forget that there are still prejudices out there, as evident in the past few months with the Washington riots as well as the lack of diversity in the insurance industry. Over the past 30 years, I have been fortunate to mentor and open the doors for men and women of color into our industry. It is gratifying to see many of these professionals at various insurance companies across the country!
With the current climate of race relations, from your perspective, have we moved forward? Yes, because 20 years ago you wouldn’t see someone like me in a seat like this. It has not been easy, but we have come a long way. There are still gaps though. Some of these gaps are socio-economic that take place because of economic situations and earnings that people of color don’t have or don’t make. This is the first time in my life that I have seen such awareness and openness to understand. The platform has really been opened and people’s hearts have really been open to hear the message. Throughout my career, I have had to be diplomatic and finesse situations extremely well in order for my voice to be heard. Now people are really listening loud and clear.
You have been in the insurance industry for a while. What changes seem to stand out? What would you fix? Technology obviously is huge right now. Automation is going to continue to play a key role in our overall success. Predictive analytics is the future and we will need to embrace it. We try to bring in box underwriting for our smaller and less complex accounts and renewals that help cut expenses. The fix is obvious. We need to tap into the pool of talent that is not homogeneous. Many people are retiring and now there is the opportunity to tap into other pools of talent, which our industry overall should have done in the early 2000’s.
Looking towards the future, what can we do as a company to improve diversity among insurance careers? I see such sincerity from people who feel comfortable enough to come and ask me questions or just pour out their hearts to me. There is a genuine commitment from many who see the benefit in diversity in our industry. Our customers are diverse and with that said, it makes good business sense for the industry to be diverse as well. Companies that want to be leading edge or are leading edge are diverse when it comes to people of color and women in their workforce.
Berkley trademarked the phrase “Everything counts. Everyone matters” more than a decade ago—and we live those words every day.
Congratulations Congratulations to Christopher Smith (Berkley Accident & Health, Special Risk Division). Christopher was recently sworn in to the Georgia Bar Association.
Christopher Smith is sworn in and holds his official license
ADJUSTED
PODCAST
Claims Podcast co-hosted by Greg Hamlin and Claire Muselman
We are excited to celebrate the new claims podcast, ADJUSTED, co-hosted by Berkley Industrial Comp’s Greg Hamlin and Continental Western Group’s Claire Muselman, reached 1,500 downloads this week!
The podcast was also featured on workcompcentra.com. The first six episodes can be found at https://adjusted.buzzsprout.com or any major podcasting platform. Our own W. R. Berkley employees can be seen throughout season one, including Dr. Branco (MEC), Ryan McIntosh (WRBC), Angie Carlisle (BIN), and Van Langham (BIN). We would also like to encourage our listeners to leave us reviews on Apples Podcasts.
Happy Valentine’s Day
Ryan Hoff (BTS) and his boys, Calan (9) and Weston (6), built this snow sculpture for Valentine’s Day and it was a big hit; they had folks stopping outside their house to take pictures
The Hoffs have built numerous snowmen this season, including bucket snowmen and an army of over 160 mini snowmen, how innovative!
KEY RISK Click on the photo below to see the presentation of “Meet My Loves” created by Key Risk employees
My Favorite VALENTINE
Beth Vacanti (BLS) is out for dinner with her husband Emily Urban (BLS) sent us a picture of her #1 valentine—her dog “Milo”
ACADIA
Danielle McCarraher (pictured above), Laura Brewer, and Maria NeCatro (Acadia, Westbrook office) participated in “Cards for Seniors” to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Here are some of the cards they sent to the senior citizens at Avita of Stroudwater, I am sure they appreciated getting these wonderful messages!
“Redefining Failure”— (Part 1)
What does success look like? What about failure? When we define failure as being wrong or making a mistake that leads to experiencing unpleasant or unexpected outcomes, we focus our energy on avoiding failure at all costs. We engage with only those opportunities that are a sure thing. We forge on only doing what is familiar to us because we believe that doing what we have always done will keep us “safe” from failure.
But what if we talked about failure differently—in terms of lost opportunities, chances missed, and, in our business, of the money we left on the table? What if we recognize that the world around us is constantly changing, and doing only what we have always done isn’t the “safe” option after all? What if the most significant type of failure is the failure to act? In our Innovation efforts, we are learning the processes and skills we need to remove some of the risk involved in failure (this is called “de-risking failure”). Through the rigor of controlled rapid experiments, we can test our hypotheses in increments, and take chances in ways that do not “bet the farm.” Through the discipline of this process, we can all but eliminate the “fear of failure” that so often inhibits us from moving forward. Sometimes “surprises” that result from our experiments lead us to even better paths of discovery. In some cases, an unexpected outcome may lead to a new, better idea; in other cases, the realization that an idea will not work frees us up from continuing down a path that is unproductive. And sometimes the process in and of itself—of generating, testing, and developing or rejecting ideas—teaches us one of our most valuable Innovation behaviors— resilience. Our Innovation journey is one that will require us to master the ability to reposition our thinking as we progress along a process of testing our ideas and, ultimately, creating better outcomes. In the highlights on the following page, some of our colleagues around the Company share their learnings as they worked through the process of idea generation and experimentation and redefining failure in the process.
Learning from Stakeholders: Berkley Insurance Asia When Berkley Insurance Asia launched
When One Door Closes... It’s Time to Innovate: Berkley Ceded Reinsurance
its automated marine certificate
When a proposed collaboration with an
insurance project, they did not anticipate
external partner failed to materialize,
the complexity or the cost of the under-
Berkley Ceded Reinsurance went back
taking. From this common mistake they
to the drawing board, restructured their
learned a key lesson—to sit down with
idea, and offered it to its top 12
the key stakeholders at the beginning of
reinsurers. With a slightly different
the planning process, not the end. This
structure, that original concept was then
will help you run a few simple simulations
further developed into that of an alterna-
which will better answer your end users’
tive IRV, and Lifson Re was created. While
needs, and in an efficient and cost
their first idea did not come to fruition,
effective way.
they were able to reposition their thinking and generate not one but two viable alternatives, creating greater efficiencies in a
Adapting to Customer Needs: Berkley FinSecure Inspired by an idea to help insureds/
hardening reinsurance marketplace.
Berkley FinSecure launched Project
Pause and Recalculate: Berkley Insurance Asia
Contour to hyper link terms within
Sometimes a good idea is just not ready.
policies. They assembled a team and
In its first foray into working with a
conducted research, but discovered that
digital insurance broker on a professional
customer needs were not aligning with
indemnity platform,Berkley Insurance
their initial idea, and were already being
Asia realized that just making it easier
addressed elsewhere. While they
to get a quote is not enough to attract
declared this particular project a “fast
traffic to a site. Instead of erring on the
fail,” it left the team excited and primed
side of path dependence and following
for other innovation opportunities which
sunk costs, they called a pause, learned
can be implemented, having now learned
from their miscalculation, and got back
and grown from the experience.
to reworking their idea.
customers navigate policies better,
We’d like to continue highlighting the failures (aka learning opportunities) that are helping us learn on this Innovation journey. Look out for Part 2 of this series in the next edition. If your operating unit would like to share a story of how you’re reframing failure, please send your story to Lauren White (lwhite@wrberkley.com)
HELPING Others
In this photo, Kelly is making roasted piri cauliflower steaks with fondant potatoes—they look yummy! Her classes run on Tuesday evening at 6:00 PM (UK time) if you would like to join her. JOIN HER: cookwithkelly.online OR on Instagram @cookwithkelly
Peter Bright (BTS UK) Peter’s better half has been running a vegetarian cooking class once per week (free/everyone welcome) since the lockdown first started. The idea was partially to help mental health of friends and family in those difficult early months and partly to help people who want to reduce their meat intake but do not necessarily know how to replace the flavour layers and texture of their meat dishes. She has been going for more than 30 weeks—more than 1000 meat-free meals cooked under her tutelage.
HOLIDAY
CELEBRATIONS
Berkley Accident & Health is still celebrating the winter holidays. Cindy Bright, Matt Robb and Tom Skurat are outside our NJ office; they are socially distanced, wearing the employee holiday gift of a BAH Columbia Jacket that just arrived last week—better late than never
“SNOW” MUCH
FUN
February has been an unseasonably cold and snowy month in the U.S. Jen Iverson (BTS) and her niece, nephew and dog hit the sledding hills Beth Vacanti (BLS) Wacky winter blitz in Arkansas with 8” of snow and temperatures below zero Eric Grimstad (BTS) and his children, Eleanor and Riker built a snowman Jason Titlow (BTS) making the best of it and working out in the snow Brad Leu (BTS) pictured after his morning walk in -5 F temperatures, with powered gloves turned all the way up
VERUS
Let it Snow!
Amy Griggs braves the snow with her mountain bike in Denver, CO Dan Richard enjoys some ski tubing in Keystone, CO Carol Barry took a photo of the snowfall from her deck in Glen Allen, VA
BUILDING
Snow Sculptures Bill Cox’s (CWG) grandson having some Wisconsin fun building this snow sculpture of Shrek & Theona
Shrek & Theona snow sculptures—what creativity!
KEY RISK
Several Key Risk employees contributed to these SUPER BOWL snack recipes; click on the photo above to see all the recipes. If you like chicken wings, dip recipes, or some game day meatballs you need to check these out!
CHINESE
NEW YEAR Annette Schmidt’s (Berkley Risk) family celebrates the Chinese New Year every year with their adopted daughter, Bailey, From China. A photo from the past (about 5 years ago) and a photo from this year Juris Omana (BTS) made a money tree with “angpao” (also hongbao) also known as the red envelope with an Ox symbol for the Lunar Year 2021. Each red envelope contains a certain amount of money and it symbolizes prosperity and good luck for the year ahead
BERKLEY ESPANA
VID Photo taken pre-CO
The Spanish team has achieved great recognition from the main broker association in Spain, especially when one considers the significant volume and resources differential between them and most of the companies they compete with. They finished in the top five overall; first in Surety and second in both casualty and accident. Congratulations to the Spanish team on achieving this acknowledgment from the broker association.
CLICK on the presentation to see the details from the study
NEW HOME GYM Andy Spisak’s (BTS) converted his GAME ROOM to a HOME GYM
BEFORE
AFTER
The conversion project was bittersweet; so many fond memories of kid’s parties and special events in that game room. Andy remembers giving out tickets for the kids to collect so they could trade in their tickets for trinket type toys. Now Andy has a safe, home gym and a great space to work out and relieve some stress during this pandemic
PANDEMIC PUPPY Chris DeCandia (Berkley Entertainment) and his wife Yaxira got a new puppy. Meet ARTIE, their 3-month old Australian Shepherd mix rescue puppy.
ARTIE
Berkley Industrial Comp
Berkley Industrial Comp had a virtual annual meeting this year where they went Cruisin’ Into 2021! Here are some photos from some of the meeting activities. They even had their own red-carpet award ceremony—the BINNY Awards!
Alice is cruisin’ “winter style”!
CLICK HERE to see the introductory video for the annual meeting
VIRTUAL
VACATION
The Berkley Industrial Comp team goes on a vacation!
WEAR RED DAY BERKLEY INDUSTRIAL COMP supports the American Heart Association and Super Bowl LV during their Weekly Town Hall Meeting.
The BINNY AWARDS presented by Berkley Industrial Comp
A Rooster Crows in New Jersey
Do you remember when we introduced you to the cute baby chicks that Michelle Giuffrida received in the mail? These adorable little chicks turned 6 months old on 1/27/2021
Feeding on basil, which they love!
CLICK each picture to the right to see a couple short videos.
First egg arrived Jan. 17th