A unique opportunity to collaborate with a pioneering development team crafting innovative AI-driven solutions tailored for the insurance industry. One use case? Develop advanced, user-centric compliance strategies that not only meet regulatory demands but also enhance employee engagement and satisfaction through the complex insurance adjustment life cycle. Merging AI and Human Intelligence (HI), the goal is to unlock new possibilities for insurers to deliver creative, efficient, and effective services that improve the employee and customer experience.

Providing legal counsel and consultive services.Contracts, commercial litigation, compliance, governance, claims and technology solutions. Financial lines, professional liability, property and casualty. Authored articles on AI regulation, negotiation strategies, and legal compliance.Active in insurtech ecosystem.

Managed the legal aspects of claims operations, ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements.Led a team of over 130 members, managing claims and shared services such as compliance, financial administration, vendor management, and regulatory change management.Spearheaded innovation projects, including the development and implementation of insurtech solutions.Served as the Financial Control Audit Liaison, overseeing financial compliance and audits.Project Examples:Coaching TeamsA favorite aspect of this role was working with a group of talented team members to strengthen their skills and prepare them for growth. I encouraged use of talent accelerators, and spent a minimum of 15% of my time each year solely focused on team development, skip levels and 1:1's. Hundreds of conversations simply focused on helping each team member improve. Innovation and Leading Change (LEAP) Built cross functional team focused on leading change and transformation using technology. Piloted multi-year innovation miniseries and led exploration and successful production instances of insurtech including IoT and telematics. The acronym developed was “LEAP”. Learn [seek more information about innovation, whether it is tech or process related] Equity [explore equity options with potential companies] Acquisition [ explore acquisition deals and possibilities] Pilot [Practice and experiment in a rapid pilot program approach. Neural Network ApplicationCreated proof of concept for neural network development surrounding business process. Coordinated with some really smart people on the data science team to build out new analytics-based insights. Fun practice on unstructured data.

As head of Commercial-Ag Claims at ANPAC, managed claims metrics to support profitable national expansion of BOP, CGL, Commercial Auto, Inland Marine, Commercial Umbrella, and CPP lines, focusing on small businesses and artisan contractors. Established litigation management playbooks and billing guidelines including process to escalate high risk losses with automation, managing outside counsel relationships, strengthening case strategy and guidelines. • Served as chair of cross department commercial and litigation claims committee, providing feedback on all high severity, contested coverage, and catastrophic liability claims. Identified trends, providing training feedback, advice, and dispute resolution consultation to strengthen procedures and policies to assure best practice handling that addresses unique local risks and state specific regulatory or legal risk concerns.• Oversaw large-scale implementation of new claims system across multiple lines in collaboration with engineer / programming teams, training 500 staff. Consolidated systems, driving efficiency gains, customer journey improvements, and strengthened regulatory compliance.• Utilized deep In-House expertise to resolve high-stakes class action litigation, bad faith, and catastrophic loss litigation, case management of potential exposures up to $50M achieving favorable outcomes.• Reinsurance Expertise: Strengthened internal forms and processes, while negotiating reinsurance terms surrounding areas of emerging risk related to pollution, aggregate and media exposures. Revamped reinsurance presentations by implementing stronger internal controls and an improved escalation process, leading to strengthened risk management.• Holistic approach examining data, process and business partner relationships leading to a 45% reduction in commercial liability defense costs over 3 years, enhancing profitability and budget outcomes.

In house generalist work included managing major litigation and legal work including contract management, labor and employment issues, marketing compliance, emerging risks, new laws, and regulations. Built commercial and agribusiness focused claim operation. Identified profitability and process challenges, working with team to provide high levels of service on new lines of business, sharing intelligence back to risk selection and pricing.Team Building and Department Establishment: Claims staff lacked proper training on technical commercial and farm products and national rollout faced significant cost and licensing risk for handling. Built and staffed new department and workflows for commercial claims while overseeing internal training and external agent education effectiveness on commercial and farm coverages.Regulatory Liaison and Advisor: Served as a pivotal contact during regulatory exams, mitigating penalties and enforcement actions by regulators through advocacy and internal program change recommendations eliminating subsequent enforcement action.Led state and federal class action defense and triaged high-severity lawsuits to more favorable outcomes, utilizing legal research for creative theories, analytical skills for creative data solutions, coaching team members and utilizing claims committee collaborative process to minimize financial impact. Provided consultation and feedback to improve BOP ISO forms, including Additional insured / Additional interest training, loss control bulletins to strengthen agent knowledge and client communication on product value.Innovative Product Design: Collaboration with pricing, forms and underwriting for creation and nationwide deployment of step-down liability and efficient umbrella products, impacting close 400,000 clients, securing $10M in yearly savings, strengthening value of product and facilitating advantageous reinsurance negotiations.

Handled significant litigation, including class action cases, for the organization. Managed various legal counsel duties, including HR issues, reviewing marketing and media materials, and contract reviews. Oversaw the captive errors and omissions agency program. Defended the company's role during post-Katrina litigation waves in 2005. Directed the expansion of commercial-ag claims servicing across 37 states. Developed expertise as in-house counsel in insurance law, contract administration, corporate governance, litigation risk avoidance, regulatory investigations, intellectual property, labor and employment law, and privacy law.

Providing in depth business consultation to high performing organizations. This consulting opportunity spanned over 13 years and gave me an opportunity to work with and see many great organizations on their quest for quality improvement in the state of Missouri, Kansas and New Jersey. My role included serving as an examiner, team lead and judge for the Excellence in Missouri Foundation, helping organizations with a footprint in the state strengthen their quality, using the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria.

Insurance Courses for Business and Insurance Majors aspiring to be claims professionals through the College of Business Administration. A chance to give back to my alma mater! Go Bears.