Industry Insights

Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19. These terms come up all the time now in the industry and in our daily lives – so much so that they can sound normal, and it can feel like this virus has been around forever. But then I remember that it’s only been a little over a year since the pandemic really started. And in science, one year really isn’t very long at all. It is, however, long enough to see both a light at the end of the tunnel – and the potential for lasting effects.

The element of surprise. Facing the unknown. Making predictions. That’s what comes to mind when students interested in the actuarial profession ask me why I have enjoyed this career for the past 22 years. There are always problems to solve, but on any given day, I can never fully predict exactly what will come my way. Every morning, I start with my short list, but something unanticipated is usually on the horizon, case in point, the Coronavirus.

You can probably imagine that working with more than 100 third party administrators (TPAs) means that HM Insurance Group (HM) receives tens of thousands of claim detail files every year. It’s a lot of data to manage. Files come into a secure, designated Stop Loss claims email box or via an FTP site. They are then saved to a corporate drive so our Claims team can format the TPAs’ Excel files into a format acceptable for loading into our claims system. The entire process takes a lot of manual work.  

We’ve all heard about gout. It’s that sharp, hot pain and swelling that most commonly afflicts the big toe. One of the world’s oldest recognized diseases, gout was first identified by the Egyptians in 2640 BC and has been viewed as a lifestyle disease of the rich and affluent, primarily because of its connection to certain more expensive dietary habits. This “disease of kings” has been problematic for ages, with little change in the treatment options that first were identified thousands of years back – until a few years ago.

The news is full of stories about health-related vaping incidents. At this point, medical professionals haven’t even determined all the ways in which e-cigarettes can injure the human body – and vaping was initially promoted (somewhat innocently) as “an alternative to cigarettes.” But there have been issues ranging from breathing challenges to lengthy hospital stays for life-threatening lung conditions to a shocking number of deaths now being tied to the ingredients in vaping products.