The N.A. CRO Council Committee Structure includes an Executive Committee and six subcommittees that support the N.A. CRO Council’s objectives. Members of the sub-committees include N.A. CRO Council members and associates with relevant expertise. Sub-committee responsibilities may include advocating with regulators and other external stakeholders, assessing the potential impact of changes to industry practices, and developing whitepapers to help shape industry and external constituent discussions on key issues.
Governance Committee
The Governance Committee is responsible for making recommendations related to governance issues, implementation of the Conflicts of Interest Policy, reviewing the council’s organizational documents, and ensuring compliance with the Bylaws.
- Cathy Wallace, State Farm (Chair)
Financial Risk Committee
The Financial Risk Committee will focus on discussing and researching risk management practices related to financial risks. Financial risks emerge as the distribution of future financial outcomes vary from outcomes assumed in the underwriting of our insurance liabilities and impact a company’s earnings profile and balance sheet, through the revaluing of assets and liabilities or specific events that manifest through earnings. Financial risks include, but are not limited to, market risks (assumptions regarding levels, returns, and volatility of equities, interest rates, and currencies), credit risks (assumptions regarding defaults, recoveries, returns, and diversification of investment portfolios), and insurance risk (assumptions regarding mortality and morbidity, policyholder behavior (including lapse) and assumptions around frequency and severity of loss events(P&C)). Risk management practices should consider the impact that moderate and severe stresses to these risks have on liquidity and capital (Statutory, GAAP, and economic).
Additionally, the Financial Risk Committee will focus on the development and furthering of robust stress testing regimens that explore the effect of integrated stresses on the broad umbrella of financial and non-financial risks, including the evaluation of the effect of the stressed outcomes on a company’s loss-absorbing resources. This provides a view into how the risks behave, both in isolation and in aggregate, through time and under varying degrees and shapes of stress, providing needed context and nuance to the risk and resource (risk appetite) discussion.
- Meyrick Douglas, Prudential (Co-Chair)
- Edward Wilson, Global Atlantic (Co-Chair)
Non-Financial Risk Committee
The Non-Financial Risk Committee will focus on discussing and researching risk management practices related to non-financial risks, losses that are largely operational in nature resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems as well as from external events. Risk management practices should identify, quantify, manage and mitigate these risks. Non-financial risks include, but are not limited to, legal, technology, compliance, third party, business continuity, and model risks, but exclude strategic, and financial risks. While these risks can cause financial loss, the underlying cause is not driven by insurance risk-taking, but more from the operations of an insurance company, many of which the firm is not compensated for taking.
- Patrick Brennan, Progressive (Co-Chair)
- Ben Rosenthal, New York Life (Co-Chair)
Strategic Risk Committee
The Strategic Risk Committee will focus on evaluating disruptive threats in our ecosystem that can fundamentally change the businesses in which the insurance industry is engaged (what we do) or a change in execution (how we do it). Strategic risks can originate or evolve from anywhere, and broadly include, but are not limited to, changes to the regulatory landscape, changes in business models of the companies in which insurance companies invest, advancement in digitalization, data usage and how it impacts underwriting and product design, as well as the evolution of the characteristics of the insured and their interaction with insurers. At an individual company level, strategic risks should also consider the evolution of an insurance company’s chosen business strategy vis a vis the company’s risk appetite, ensuring transparency of the decisions that underpin that strategy.
- Klaus Diem, Nationwide (Co-Chair)
- Sarah Williams, Guardian Life (Co-Chair)
Regulatory Affairs Committee
The Regulatory Affairs Committee will research and discuss issues that may have an impact on existing and developing relationships with regulators, domestically and internationally, to allow the voice of the N.A. CRO Council to be an active participant in the evolution of policy and regulation that affect the insurance industry.
- Philip Melville, Brighthouse Financial (Chair)
External Stakeholder Engagement Committee
The External Stakeholder Engagement Committee will focus on developing relationships with external organizations, other than insurance companies, and an ongoing communication plan with those organizations to allow the N.A. CRO Council’s position on key regulatory initiatives, financial risks, non-financial risks, or risk management practices more generally to be shared. This may include advocating with regulators and rating agencies, assessing the potential impact of changes to industry practices and developing whitepapers to help shape industry and external constituent discussions on key issues, and influencing the industry towards best practices.
- Jonathan Porter, RGA (Chair)
There may be issues that require the involvement of more than one committee and it will be the responsibility of the chairs to coordinate discussion and action as appropriate.
