Chubb's Michelle McLaughlin sees data as the future of underwriting

As executive vice president, middle market, and chief underwriting officer at Chubb, Michelle McLaughlin leads a division that writes $6 billion in premiums for policyholder companies that have as much as $1 billion in revenue.

McLaughlin leads a 60-person team and has broad responsibilities for profit and growth. Aside from her group’s external clients, she also supports Chubb’s senior management and underwriters. 

McLaughlin has spent her entire career at Chubb, beginning as an accounting intern and working on internal audits at the insurer. Her experience there includes underwriting for P&C lines. She has seen many years of changes and evolution in how the carrier handles data for underwriting.

“One of the major transitions that I’ve seen over the past 27 years, and it’s progressed every year, is the ability to use data,” McLaughlin said. “We can now use data to better manage our portfolio, but also provide that data to our underwriters so they can make better account underwriting decisions.”

The future for leveraging data in underwriting means improving its quality and by extension, using data models more effectively, according to McLaughlin. “Our ability to analyze it will improve more over time and having that ability to get that information to the underwriters quickly,” she said, adding that AI will make it possible “to use models more effectively whether for pricing our business or how we use the risk characteristics of the account to help us derive our premiums.”

Underwriters need strategies that they can execute, and therefore need authority to make decisions when working with customers, McLaughlin stated. “It’s our responsibility to make them more efficient, to give them tools to make their lives easier,” she said. “We call it the underwriter experience. How do we make an underwriter experience better?”

Finding good underwriting talent is challenging, and Chubb develops professionals who are promising in that function. McLaughlin is invested in that development, seeing it as part of leadership. “When we find that talent, we do a great job of training them and therefore, it is critical to retain them,” McLaughlin said. “Another reason why that underwriter experience is so critical.”

She believes in leading by example, which includes digging into the work oneself and demonstrating care for those she manages. 

“Having empathy and an emotional EQ connection with people is having a good pulse on your people and how things are going with them,” McLaughlin said. “Being a good communicator is super important as a leader and having that constant communication and connection. Also, being forward thinking, being somebody that can look forward and be strategic about where things are going is critical.”