Congratulations, Mary Poynter!
Our 2014/2015 RWA Winner
Mary got to attend the recent AHOU meeting in Washington DC.
In Mary’s words:
“I want to thank the NEHOUA for choosing me to represent the organization at this fantastic event. It was a wonderful experience, I met interesting people and heard very informative speeches.
I was able to attend several informative break-out sessions, led by very interesting speakers on topics that are currently trending in the underwriting industry.
A big theme I got out of the AHOU conference this year was the use of big data. This was touched on in its our break-out session as well as spoken about in the ‘future of the underwriting profession.’ Though controversial, big data is here and many companies are already using it. with predictive analytics, the carrier can make a correlation between house/lifestyle data the medical risk. Predictive analytics may be able to replace some age/amount requirements in the future, or determine if additional requirements are needed after reviewing their big data results.
Another interesting session I sat in on was regarding functional & alternative medicine. This is becoming widely popular in today’s medical field, so we as underwriters are seeing more and more applicants using alternative medicine therapies. According to the speaker (a certified ARNP in WI), functional medicine tries to determine the cause of the symptoms and treats that, it does not start with treating the symptoms. Functional and alternative medicine was also touched on in the “future of the underwriting profession” session. Because this is gaining popularity within the general communities, we should be learning more about the tests run and treatments given.
The speech that I was most beneficial was the closing speech given by Robyn Benincasa. Robyn is a retired world adventure racer. While she spoke in great lengths about her various adventure races, she message was about strength in numbers. So often we get caught up in working on our own work that we can forget we are about a team. When we work together, we are all that much stronger. Her message was very encouraging. She spoke about just taking a second look, seeing how your team mates can help you and how you can help them. This was a message I thought about for several days about the conference. She shared her own experiences about racing as an individual but it took team work to really win. I think this is something we could all apply.
Of course the evening activities were wonderful. I was able to go on a private tour of our capital building followed by a rooftop dinner. I saw many historical monuments by trolley and by boat, while evening good company, food and drinks.
The AHOU conference was an experience that I know will benefit my underwriting career for years to come. Again, I want to think NEHOUA for selecting me to be the Rick Weaver winner.”