USAA

Jennifer Hoolehan Kyung

Jen Kyung is the VP of P&C Underwriting at USAA, bringing over 30 years of experience in the industry. Her leadership roles include chief underwriter at USAA, with expertise in underwriting strategy and new capability development. Jen has also held senior positions at Ernst and Young, Zurich Insurance and Accenture, focusing on underwriting transformations. She chairs the Insurance Information Institute’s Executive Leadership Committee, is a board member of ACORD and has served on the board of WINGS, Program Inc. Jen graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Economics.

Through this article, Jen Kyung outlines critical trends in P&C insurance, focusing on AI, modernization and strategic vision. Drawing from over 30 years of experience, she discusses how USAA is pioneering ‘Next Generation Underwriting’ through AI advancements, modernization with Guidewire and Earnix and a focus on member engagement. Jen highlights the importance of addressing industry challenges like climate volatility and evolving consumer expectations. She emphasizes collaboration and innovative solutions to improve underwriting processes and prepare for future risks while ensuring exceptional service for members.

Harnessing Innovation and Expertise for the Future

I have been fortunate to be in this industry, focused on underwriting for over 30 years. Over that time, I have seen that while underwriting fundamentals are evergreen, the technology and data to achieve those fundamentals have evolved. I have held underwriting leadership roles in commercial and personal lines at insurance carriers and global underwriting consulting firms. These experiences have given me a comprehensive view of the changing environment for underwriters. My current role at USAA is focused on developing new underwriting capabilities to pursue ‘Next Generation Underwriting.’ With so many opportunities in the industry, it is an exciting time for our team to explore and execute new underwriting use cases to enhance our underwriting insights and actions while ensuring best-in-class service for our members.

“Embracing the future of underwriting means harnessing AI, modernization and strategic vision. At USAA, we are revolutionizing our approach to underwriting by integrating advanced technologies, developing new capabilities and focusing on membercentric innovations to stay ahead in an evolving industry”

Focusing on Awareness, Collaboration and Innovation

There are several challenges in the P&C insurance sector, including climate and volatility of exposures, as well as economic and legal system abuse. As these challenges reach beyond our immediate control and involve many stakeholders, in addition to insurance carriers, we must focus on what we can impact. Creating awareness for our stakeholders is vital so that others understand these challenges and how they affect the end insurance consumer, including the potential to increase overall costs. Trade organizations, non-profits, carriers, and other industry stakeholders can work together to raise this awareness through quantitative facts and objective data. Additionally, the industry needs to look towards new creative solutions that enhance risk sharing, risk mitigation techniques and incentives for all stakeholders to reduce risk in the future.

Evolving Consumer Expectations, AI Innovations and Talent Transformation

As we look to the future, trends shape where we are headed as an industry, including consumer expectations, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and talent disruption. Consumer expectations continue to evolve as seamless experiences are ubiquitous in our daily interactions with other providers. Artificial Intelligence is a prevalent theme in our industry. The potential use cases for AI present tremendous opportunities for us as underwriters. Finally, we have a significant opportunity to evolve our talent in insurance, especially as we see disruption in the marketplace regarding the number of opportunities, emerging new skills and a generation of talent seeking new endeavors.

Leveraging AI, Talent Development and Enhanced Member Engagement

USAA has committed to Artificial Intelligence (AI) training for all executives and critical roles in 2024. USAA has also committed to supporting and funding a series of strategic generative AI use cases across the organization to deliver new value. USAA continues to invest in internship opportunities, the ‘Hiring our Heroes’ program bringing military veterans and families into the workforce, new employee orientation and leadership programs. Additionally, USAA is highly member-focused and continues to build and invest in the member experience, including digital experiences, empathetic member conversations and balancing the member and membership points of view in every discussion and decision with the team.

Modernization with Guidewire and Earnix

USAA is undergoing a modernization transformation, including a transition to Guidewire and Earnix. These new platforms will enable greater process automation, the retirement of legacy systems and the ability to layer on nextgeneration underwriting and digital interactions, which will benefit our member experience. Additionally, from an underwriting perspective, we are investing in several strategic programs to identify, test and learn new data sources, technical capabilities and models to bring various new product solutions to our members while protecting the membership.

Critical Strategies for Advancing Underwriting Excellence

I advise senior decision-makers to invest in core underwriting capabilities that continue to support underwriting fundamentals while pushing your organization to the next level. Good underwriting hygiene never goes out of style, which is paramount to our work. Build an ‘underwriting toolkit’ so that each lever can be pulled as needed when the subsequent risk arises. Uncertainty and risk are part of who we are and how we manage our business. While we cannot possibly know the subsequent considerable risk, being ‘capability ready’ prepares organizations and underwriters for whatever may arise.