Hyperion X’s Flandro on driving pricing with data
As carriers gear up to write and place their 1.1 renewal business, Hyperion X’s managing director of analytics, David Flandro, speaks to The Insurer about the dial-shifting possibilities of converting reams of industry data into actionable insights.
Using data is no new thing, Flandro began, but the “real trick” is to display the data in a way that’s useful.
“Everybody talks about data. In fact, I think we’ve been talking about electronic trading in Lloyd’s since the nineties…It’s easy to talk about data, it’s harder to produce data.
“There are a lot of data in the insurance sector that people could use. The real trick is getting those data into a format where they’re usable and universally applicable and accessible,” he said, calling for players in the space to demonstrate what’s different about the way they use and present proprietary figures.
Flandro’s focus on using data comes after a surge in carriers turning towards it in the run up to this year’s 1 January renewals.
“Data is more important to carrier decision-making at this renewal than it’s ever been in my career,” he said, adding: “I’m seeing people using data in a number of places they haven’t, particularly in deciding where they’re going to grow, where they’re going to buy and how they’re going to buy.”
But widely applicable data availability is still a work in progress, and more needs to be done before it can be used to inform underwriting decisions across the board.
“Data are becoming more ubiquitous, but they’re not yet as homogenous as they need to be,” Flandro said.
But Hyperion X is developing solutions to the data conundrum, he continued, highlighting the broker’s “data accelerator platform,” which pools and analyses Hyperion’s proprietary data.
Pointing to a property catastrophe reinsurance pricing graph Hyperion X compiled from data up to and including 1 June, Flandro went on to underline the importance of “up-to-date data” across all lines of business and the role it will play as “the next step for this industry.”
“Once we have data ubiquity and data homogeneity, and once the data become more democratized, we’ll be able to use it to really change things,” he concluded.