PEMCO Mutual Insurance

Chris Purcell is vice president and chief information officer for PEMCO Mutual Insurance, a Seattle-based personal lines insurer serving the Pacific Northwest for more than 70 years. Purcell’s experience in information technology spans a wide range of industries, from green energy and construction to sports, entertainment, and financial services. He’s driven innovation and digital transformation initiatives for start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike.

A s the Pacific Northwest’s largest locally based personal lines insurer, PEMCO Mutual Insurance has differentiated itself for more than 70 years on our ability to know and understand our policyholders. We’re fortunate to live and work alongside our customers, weathering the same storms and sharing an appreciation for the region we all call home.

As a property and casualty insurance provider, much of our business revolves around collecting and analyzing data to help us better understand, predict and mitigate risk. Cataloging volumes of data helps us realize patterns and share insights across the enterprise, which guides us in making informed business decisions. However, in insurance, it can be easy to overlook the fact that every data input represents a very real and human aspect of our policyholders’ lives – purchasing a new home, getting into a fender bender, or coming home to a flooded basement.

At PEMCO, we are constantly exploring ways to bring our vast collections of data off the spreadsheet and back to life as a reflection of our customer-centric culture, and as a strategy to mitigate risk for the benefit of the business and our policyholders. By utilizing existing and emerging data visualization tools, we’re able to see patterns in the data that help us experiment in a virtual environment. With data visualization, insurers can manipulate and test ideas without suffering real-world consequences. In other words, we can take risks without taking risks.

  ​As A Property And Casualty Insurance Provider, Much Of Our Business Revolves Around Collecting And Analyzing Data To Help Us Better Understand, Predict And Mitigate Risk   

Three tangible examples come to mind when thinking about the ways data visualization helps insurers mitigate risk.

First, this concept is particularly relevant as we address the increasing intensity and severity of catastrophic events, like wildfire. In recent years, our ability to visualize and understand the relative risk of wildfires has increased significantly. Using dynamic geospatial mapping data, we can make real-time decisions that help underwriters assess wildfire risk for a specific property and consider the overall concentration of risk in a particular area. Geospatial mapping data works intuitively, often as an interactive tool, in ways that reflect the company’s By Chris Purcell, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, PEMCO Mutual Insurance CXO INSIGHTS Chris Purcell is vice president and chief information officer for PEMCO Mutual Insurance, a Seattle-based personal lines insurer serving the Pacific Northwest for more than 70 years. Purcell’s experience in information technology spans a wide range of industries, from green energy and construction to sports, entertainment, and financial services. He’s driven innovation and digital transformation initiatives for start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike so that we can visualize catastrophic modeling. This benefits our policyholders because we’re able to calculate more accurate pricing, and it benefits the company with better risk concentration, which informs decisions we make around reinsurance – both the limits we set and how much we retain

Another way we leverage data visualization is by using artificial intelligence (AI) to determine future risks. AI applications can look for patterns in a range of insurancerelated categories, like claims activity for example, or customer retention. With AI-driven predictive analytics, we essentially look at the past to help us forecast and make decisions about the future. When patterns repeat, we can forecast a certain event and if needed, manipulate the data in a virtual environment to create alternative scenarios and outcomes. We can ask “what if,” without assuming the risk, and then make business decisions that align with the best outcome from our modeling. This can ultimately improve claims costs, and relationships with customers and yield a host of other measurable benefits to the company.

Finally, a third example comes from the proliferation of technology designed to keep consumers safe. Modern vehicles use hundreds, if not thousands, of sensors to collect data points that tell the vehicle what actions to take. The data being collected in real-time can tell the vehicle to perform actions or maneuvers that will keep drivers and passengers safe or even potentially avoid a crash. Similarly, technology companies and property and casualty insurers are translating that concept to homes, innovating ways to use sensors and real-time data to create a 3-D visual model of the home. Using existing technologies that many consumers already embrace – such as Nest or Ring – we can detect potential threats like water leaks and power surges before they become more significant issues that could lead to a costly claim.

For P&C insurers, data visualization can mitigate risk to help save our policyholders from disaster, injury, and unnecessary claims. By leveraging tools that allow us to take risks in a virtual environment, we can better protect our community and deliver world-class service and experience that allows our customers to worry less, and our business to succeed.