Transforming the Claims Process: An Interview with Brian Cohen

Brian Cohen has long been recognized as one of the most dynamic thought leaders in the insurance industry.  As a senior executive with Farmers insurance, Brian led several highly successful business units.  As the company’s Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Sales, he was instrumental in driving fundamental changes in the company’s sales process.  He also was involved with Farmer’s efforts to improve their claims operations.  After Farmers, Mr. Cohen became President and CEO of Clear Technology, a global software provider to the insurance industry, which was acquired in 2008 by Versata Enterprises.

You can find articles authored by Brian in numerous insurance publications.  He is also a frequent speaker at various insurance industry conferences.  Most recently, he spoke on the topic of insurance claims management at the ISOTECH 2008 conference held in Las Vegas this past November.

Brian is not shy to voice his opinion about things that insurance companies should do differently.  We had the opportunity to catch up with Brian at the end of 2008 and get his take on the opportunities that lie ahead for insurance companies. Following are excerpts from our conversation. 

Lloyd’s weathers the storm – The Boston Globe

Lloyd’s weathers the storm – The Boston Globe

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Doing Business in Financial Services Nowadays

(Posted by David Schapiro)

It has been barely two months since Lehman Brothers went under and sometimes it feels like we are living in a different century. Like many of us, I have been through a number of crises of different types – financial, industrial, geopolitical – and they all have at least one thing in common: they go away in the end.  The question is what happens in between…

As the CEO of a software company providing solutions to banks and insurers, the current financial crisis is of special interest to me, to put it lightly. As we offer products that help these companies improve their profitability, our business is going strong. But just like everybody else these days, we need to look into our crystal ball and plan for a potentially very different future.

Over the last few weeks (that seem like years) I have spoken with my customers – leading insurance and banking executives in the US and Europe – trying to build a model of what lies ahead for us in the future. It was intriguing to see how each individual had a unique insight about where we were heading.  But uniqueness is the problem; I was looking for a common ground on which to build a model.

Banking Crisis: The Party is Over, Time to Clean Up!

(Posted by Guest Blogger Elizabeth Macnair)

Much has been made of the eerie similarities between the current banking crisis and the economic conditions leading up to the great depression: speculative bubbles in today’s commodity markets (oil, real estate), extensive margin trading, and an administration urging federal regulatory agencies towards “free markets” and deregulation.

Economists have warned for years that we are due for a correction. These warnings were taken as well as an undertaker who shows up to a really good party, unwelcome! Every party comes to an end. All that is left to do is to clean up the mess and figure out who has to pay for it. History shows us that political and economic climates tend to swing like a pendulum. As unrealistically jubilant as analysts and financial newsies were before the crisis became widely publicized, they are now just as unrealistically filled with predictions of doom.

Thankfully, we learned a lot from the great depression. We understand the factors that worsened an otherwise normal recession into a depression and have empowered federal agencies to avert economic disaster. Here are a few of the lessons and how we will take our next steps towards recovery.