The N.A. CRO Council Structure includes an Executive Committee, Governance Committee and five working groups that support the CRO Council’s objectives. Members of the working groups include CRO Council members and associates with relevant expertise. Working group responsibilities may include assessing the potential impact of changes to industry practices, discussing regulatory items with regulators and other external stakeholders, and developing whitepapers to help shape industry 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 working group
The Financial Risk working group 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 working group 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)
- Klaus Diem, Nationwide (Co-Chair)
Non-Financial Risk working Group
The Non-Financial Risk working group will focus on discussing, researching, and evaluating risk management practices related to operational and strategic risks. The working group will explore risks associated with inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems, as well as disruptive threats in the insurance 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).
- Sarah Williams, Guardian Life (Co-Chair)
- Patrick Brennan, Progressive (Co-Chair)
Regulatory Affairs working group
The Regulatory Affairs working group 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 working group
The External Stakeholder Engagement working group 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 or working group and it will be the responsibility of the chairs to coordinate discussion and action as appropriate.
