LinkedIn: Social Networking for the Insurance Professional

By Claude Penland, Associate of theCasualty Actuarial Societywww.ClaudePenland.com

One

• LinkedIn is the most active professional social network in the world.

• According to their press materials, they have over 90 million members, with roughly half of those members residing in the United States.

Two

• If you are not a member of LinkedIn yet, I highly recommend joining the website to grow your own professional social network.

• If you are already a member, and you work in insurance or reinsurance as an underwriter, accountant, actuary, risk manager, claims professional, financial analyst, agent or other insurance role, this article will begin to list for you some of the more active insurance-related jobs and discussion groups on LinkedIn.

Three• If you search for “insurance” among LinkedIn groups,

it returns over 5,000 groups.• Risk, Regulation and Reporting is one of the largest

LinkedIn groups. Insurance topics covered by its members include European insurance regulations (Solvency II), international accounting standards (IAS), international financial reporting standards (IFRS), asset-liability management, risk management, regulatory issues, governance and compliance. I also recommend their Solvency II and US Insurance subgroups.

Four

• Discussions at the Global Insurance Professionals group recently included catastrophe risk, marketing strategies, insurance startups, emerging risks and appropriate workplace behavior.

Five

• Not to be confused with “Global Insurance Professionals”, Insurance Professionals invites producers, underwriters, risk managers, claims personnel, actuarial analysts and others to discuss pricing, insurance careers, coverage questions, network security, customer service, small business advice and other topics.

• Property and Casualty and Life and Health subgroups cover more specific line of business topics.

Six

• The subgroup Insurance Professionals has covered issues such as cold calling, underwriting, European insurance startups, healthcare reform and capital modeling.

Seven

• Global Insurance Network has a very broad audience of brokers, risk managers, agents, claims professionals, actuaries, reinsurance employees and others.

• Best ways to drive traffic to your insurance blog, resume best practices, job hunting strategies and six sigma methodologies are some recent interesting discussions.

Eight

• The Risk Management & Insurance Professionals group actually requires insurance-related experience in order to join.

• Market trends, ratemaking, insurance coverage, risk management, legal deposition handling, policy structure, pandemic models and business plans were some recently covered topics.

Nine

• Insurance Industry Executives encompasses almost 8,000 members in the life, health and property and casualty insurance fields.

Ten

• Reinsurance Insurance Professionals Worldwide is the largest reinsurance-related group on LinkedIn.

• Reinsurance-related discussions there tend to cover contract negotiations and drafting, brokers, excess layer considerations, startups and new branch operations, insurance-linked securities, Bermuda and European markets and job hunting.

• An Asian-specific subgroup recently launched as well.

Eleven

• Three additional LinkedIn groups specifically designed for reinsurance include Reinsurance Professionals, Reinsurance (from Postonline.co.uk) and the U.S. Reinsurance Under 40s group.

Twelve

• Those interested in insurance-linked securities, including industry loss warranties, surplus notes, securitizations and catastrophe bonds, are directed to ILS – Insurance Linked Securities, Insurance Linked Securities and the subgroup Insurance Linked Securities.

Thirteen

• If you work specifically with workers compensation insurance, like-minded insurance professionals are members at the Work Comp Analysis Group. Safety, risk management and HR professionals are also welcome.

• See also the WorkCompCentral and Workers Compensation Roundtable groups.

Fourteen

• Confluence (Insurance professionals & Insurance recruiters) is an outstanding group with eclectic conversation.

• Career advice (underwriting, financial and actuarial careers were recent topics), brokerage and software-related jobs, insider trading, product sales and business development are often discussed.

Fifteen

• Insurance Marketing Professionals group is devoted to direct and insurance brokerage distribution and marketing, while Insurance Product Management is lightning-focused on insurance product analysts, product developers and product managers.

Sixteen

• The Managed Care Connections group covers healthcare marketing, sales, operations, accounting, healthcare economics, product development, finance, underwriting, actuarial work, pharmaceutical and case management.

Seventeen

• Global Health Economics Network has close to 5,000 members.

• Those looking for additional healthcare economics groups could also look at The Healthcare Strategy Innovation and Management Group and Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Medical Economics, and Medical Economics; each group has about 1,000 members.

Eighteen

• The Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) group is focused on risk management, and is peppered with risk managers, engineers, consultants, underwriters, actuaries, project managers and financial analysts from around the world.

• Another very active risk management group is the 17,000+ strong Risk Managers group.

Nineteen

• Claims professionals can discuss adjusting, careers, management and operations at the P&C Claims Professionals group.

• See also the Insurance Claims Professionals and Claims Management groups.

Twenty

• Vehicle telematics is the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics applied to road vehicles.

• Those professionals working in telematics interested in networking, insurance applications, vehicle tracking, fleet management, remote diagnostics and toll charging are directed to the Telematics group.

• There are also the Telematics Update and Insurance-Telematics groups.

Twenty-one

• For insurance agents, there is Insurance Agents’ Opportunities For Success.

• The Health Executives Network is for health insurance professionals such as brokers, benefit consultants, underwriters, producers, analysts (financial, accounting, actuary), vendors and others.

• Also check out National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU).

Twenty-two

• And, finally, see Insurance Professionals of America, with 4,000 members, including auditors, supervisors, underwriters, marketing and actuarial professionals.

Twenty-three

• Insurance professionals interested in discussing Solvency II European insurance regulations are encouraged to check out Financial Risk Management Network, Solvency 2 Experts Group, Solvency II CEIOPS subgroup, Solvency II European Insurance Regulations – SolvencyDeux.com and Solvency ii Association.

Twenty-four

• Social media best practices, marketing and promotion for insurance and reinsurance professionals are covered at Social Media 4 Insurance and Social Media – Insurance and Reinsurance.

Twenty-five

• Four groups to inform those looking to learn about insurance-linked securities include ILS – Insurance Linked Securities, Insurance Linked Securities, Trading Risk and Insurance Linked Securities subgroup.

• Recent topics have been industry loss warranties, surplus notes, catastrophe bonds, casualty securitizations, sidecars, reinsurers and hedge funds.

Twenty-six

• Casualty actuaries can chat at Casualty Actuarial Society group.

• Life, health, investment and pension actuaries can discuss topics for the actuary at the Society of Actuaries group.

Twenty-seven

• Insurance mergers and acquisitions are discussed at Insurance Mergers and Acquisitions – WhoBoughtWho.com and Insurance Mergers and Acquisitions Group.

• Takaful (Islamic insurance) is covered by Islamic Finance – Takaful & Pensions, Takaful and Retakaful News and Trends – TakafulMe.com and Takaful groups.

Twenty-eight

• Insurance accounting is addressed at Insurance Accounting & Finance, while insurance law is discussed at Insurance Legal/Compliance Professionals.

• Also see www.ClaudePenland.com • Thank you!