The 2011 IASA Conference features one roundtable that has been aperennial favorite and one that is a new offering. Yet both have acommon goal: helping senior executives raise their game by sharingpractical insights across a number of high-priority topics.

“We’re focused on how people work in the real world. It’s nottheoretical discussion, and our objective is that the participantswill return to their companies and, quite simply, do at least oneor two things differently” says Chris Anderson, CFA, AndersonInsights LLP. Anderson coordinates the Chief Investment OfficerRoundtable, which returns to IASA this year.

This year’s new roundtable for COOs opens the popular sessionsto a new audience. “The COO Roundtable allows us the opportunity todiscuss topics that bridge different parts of the insuranceorganization,” says Rod Travers, executive vice president, RobertE. Nolan Company and session coordinator.

Investment Officers

Content of the Chief Investment Officer Roundtable is selectedbased on the ratings of former attendees and outreach to a widerange of investment officers to ensure the program meets the needsof busy executives. The result this year is a slate of fiveinformative sessions, the first of which is an economic outlook forthe insurance industry.

Led by Bryan Jordan, CFA, chief economist and director ofmarkets analysis at Nationwide Investments, the session will lookat developments that are most relevant to the insurance industryand investment officers. An insurance company economist himself,Jordan has a keen understanding of the elements of the economy thathave the greatest potential impact on insurers, making his commentsand outlook relevant to the CIOs who participate as the roundtablebegins.

Following that session is a panel discussion that will explorehow insurers are deciding whether to handle investments internallyor externally. “There are advantages and disadvantages to eitherapproach,” says Anderson. “We want to have a frank and fulldiscussion about those plusses and minuses and explore how insurersare creating successful strategies using either approach, or incombination, based on real experience.”

Panel members include Jerry Hitpas, CFA, senior vice presidentand Chief Investment Officer, Trustmark Insurance, and RobertMucci, CFA, senior vice president, treasurer and Chief InvestmentOfficer, NGL Insurance Group.

The next presentation covers the “smorgasbord” of investmentstrategies and options for insurers, focusing on alternativeinvestments. Joel Cramer, CFA, director of sales and marketing,AAM; Greg Curran, CFA, vice president of business development, AAM;and Marc Tourville, CFA, CIPM, Cardinal Investments will provide abalanced perspective.

“People throw the term ‘alternative investments’ around all overthe place, but what do they really mean? We want to not justexplore what is practical for insurers, but look at the full rangeof alternatives so that people can get an appreciation for the realdiversity in the marketplace,” Anderson says.

This discussion will lead into a detailed examination of onespecific type of alternative investments: high-yield bonds, led bySean M. Slein, CFA, senior portfolio manager of high-yieldcorporate bonds, Dwight Asset Management. These complex assettypes require a thorough understanding of the risks involved andthe willingness to commit the resources to manage those risks. Thissession will examine those issues and explore how to use high-yieldbonds to bolster overall investment results.

The Chief Investment Officer Roundtable’s final session will bemoderated by Frank Conde, CFA, Chief Investment Strategist at PrimeAdvisors Inc. Conde will close the loop on the days’ discussion bybringing back all the day’s presenters for an interactive dialogwith the audience.

COO Roundtable

The objective of the COO Roundtable is to explore topics thatcross a broad range of operational areas. “COOs across differentorganizations have very different responsibilities,” Traversexplains. “Therefore, in creating the agenda for this roundtable,we took license to address many areas that will draw a diverseaudience.”

The first of those areas involves operations effectiveness,focusing on how insurers can achieve the difficult combination ofperformance improvement and cost reduction. Presenting are ChuckShields, executive vice president and COO, Aflac Group; RobRobison, senior vice president, life and loan operations, Alfa LifeInsurance Corporation; and Ross Orrett, president and CEO,Camilion.

“Our presenters will focus on proven techniques, such as processmodeling, re-engineering, value analysis, lean, and Six Sigma,”Travers says. “These experts have demonstrated the ability to useand internalize those techniques and to make operationalimprovement a continual process of refinement.”

The second session focuses on the procurement function. Acrossthe insurance industry, procurement functions have gainedimportance as a way to bring consistency and specialized skills tothe buying process. However, this development is not without apotential downside.

“We are finding that some procurement functions aren’t reallyliving up to expectations,” Travers says. “They end up focusingenergy on ‘following the checklist’ and getting the lowest price,rather than finding the right solution and focusing on overallvalue. Compounding this, procurement personnel are put in anawkward spot when they are unfamiliar with the specializedsolutions and services they are being asked to acquire.”

Session panelists include Susan B Miller, director - ITstrategic vendor management, Humana; Craig Loughrige, seniorconsultant and procurement architect, Robert E Nolan Company; andLinde Hartley, executive vice president and COO, iWorks Financials.Robert Buerhle of Agile Technologies will moderate.

A session on delivering seamless service, led by Doug Smith,vice president, Unum, provides real-world examples of how toelevate the importance of service and cause it to permeate theenterprise. Thanks to their experience with other financialservices sectors, online retailers, and other businesses, customerstoday have an increased expectation of fast, accurate, andpersonalized service from their insurers. As a result, the need forcross-enterprise integration—encompassing contact centers, systems,processes, skills, culture, and more—has never been higher.

Finally, the roundtable will close with a forum of COOsdiscussing select topics, including some of the most importantissues that arose in the day’s sessions. This interactive sessionis moderated by Steve Boyd, president, Arrowhead General InsuranceAgency, and features Lynn Neville, COO, Everest Insurance; MikeIntrieri, COO and executive vice president, Catholic Mutual Group;and William T. Budde, vice president of client service andsolutions, Instec.

“Everything is fair game—the evolving role of the COO, theworking relationship of CIOs with COOs, managing with analytics,and expense management, to name a few—any topic that is top-of-mindfor today’s insurance COO,” Travers says. “We want to provide theaudience with a meaningful, interactive closing session thatprovides takeaways they can use immediately and that will createlively discussion in the networking reception that immediatelyfollows the COO Roundtable.” K