Decoding Insurance Industry Layoffs with Mike Koscielny

Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, Brian Thompson is a seasoned insurance professional with over 15 years in the industry across various roles including Reinsurance and agency ownership. Currently serving as the Business Development Manager for North America at Descartes Underwriting, he is instrumental in expanding the company's presence in the US market through a client-centric focus on solving challenging placement problems with innovative solutions.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn to navigate and strengthen your connections with marketing representatives.
• Discover actionable strategies to boost your or your agency's process efficiency.
• Mike's insights on the questions and requests that can make a significant impact.

Terrie Strain, CIC is an experienced seasoned underwriter. She has 25 plus years’ experience in commercial underwriting.  All 25 plus years have been in the Excess and Surplus lines as an underwriter. She is currently an underwriter at Med James, Inc.    She is always up for a challenge in underwriting a risk and specializing in all arenas connected to commercial lines.

Co-owner and Cofounder of Insurance Soup, the Collective Agency Council, Career Insurance Agents, Tacobot, Agency Elephant, The Insurance Content Project, Soup LIVE. Staunch Agent advocate. Industry and insuretech investor.
www.facebook.com/groups/insurancesoup
www.theinsurancesoup.com
www.souplive2024.com

• Richard McCathron, CIC, CPCU – President & CEO of Hippo, has served as a member of the Board of Directors since February 2017. Prior to Hippo, Mr. McCathron held senior executive positions at various insurance companies including First Connect Insurance as its President & CEO from October 2012 to February 2017, Superior Access Insurance as its President & CEO from June 2007 to October 2010 and Mercury Insurance Group as its Regional Vice President from April 2004 to June 2007. Mr. McCathron is both a Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter and a Certified Insurance Counselor and sits on the board of directors of Spinnaker Insurance Company, First Connect Insurance, The National Alliance of Insurance Education and Research, and Players Health. He is an advisor to several insurtech companies and holds a BS in finance from Oregon State University.

Jacob Galecki is the Founder and Managing Principal of Galecki Search Associates, a professional and executive recruiting firm specializing in technical and analytical insurance talent.

Michael Koscielny, MBA, CPCU, CIC, is founder and chief executive officer of Born2Lead, LLC. He has more than 40 years of experience creating effective teams and innovative processes for underwriting and pricing. He serves as the Director of Field Marketing for The University of Olivet since July of 2023. He is an Instructor for The National Alliance and The Institutes. Koscielny has held many roles in the 27 years as a volunteer for The Institutes CPCU Society, including as president of the CPCU Society Leadership Council in 2017 and of the Underwriting Executives Council. He lives in suburban Chicago with his wife, Deborah, and dogs, Wiley, and Teddy. He has written numerous articles and given many presentations. He published his first book, Born2Lead: Lessons in Leadership in 2023.

Born2Lead, LLC

Chris Greene is the President and Owner of The Flood Insurance Guru. He is married to Stephani Greene, and they have one daughter Lydia Greene. He graduated with a master’s degree in emergency management with a focus in hazard mitigation from Jacksonville State University in 2007. He started his insurance career in 2009 and launched The Flood Insurance guru in 2018. The Flood Insurance Guru is a flood education company that spends its time educating people on flood risks, flood mitigation, and flood insurance. Chris recently launched one of the world’s largest flood learning centers after producing more than 5000 pieces of flood education content. 

Laurie Dawson – Dawson and Associates, Inc.

Laurie Dawson is the principal of Treaster, Dawson and Associates, Inc., a Full-Service Group Insurance Consulting and Employee Benefits Brokerage Firm.

With more than 30 years of experience in employee benefits and human resource administration, Laurie provides a wealth of knowledge and expertise.

She and her staff strive to provide concierge-level service, empowering their clients to be savvy healthcare consumers.

For more tips and insights, check out Laurie’s mini-blog at https://www.treasterdawson.com/news-updates

Adam Rimmer first saw the potential of parametric insurance while working at RMS, the world’s largest catastrophe modeling firm. Whilst there, he and co-founder Ian Bartholomew structured and modeled triggers on over $2bn of parametric insurance products and catastrophe bonds to protect governments and large corporations in the US and around the world. They are now using those same principles on a scalable platform. The result is FloodFlash, the first sensor-based parametric flood solution set to provide affordable cover to the businesses, corporations, and communities that need it most.