Event Registration

Sessions:

---

Lunch Speaker:
EVP Global Risk Management & Client Services, Cotton Holdings
With unprecedented CAT losses this year, property claims have the potential to put carriers and risk managers to the test. Why do many insurance claims fail when coverage is in place? This educational and entertaining session will be led by a seasoned risk professional with experience in large CAT property losses. Areas of how to deal with the adjusters, carriers, lawyers, accountants and internal company management when the claim stalls will be explored. Find out how to avoid costly mistakes in claims presentation and preservation; policy interpretation; forensic accounting; business interruption and the most egregious error, human emotions. This session will provide confidence in handling CAT claims.

Takeaways:
1.Present a process for keeping property claims moving forward.
2.Educate risk managers on the danger signs when negotiating a major CAT loss.
3.Provide real examples of successful CAT settlement.


Lance Ewing, ARM, CRM, ERMP

Lance J. Ewing has extensive executive experience in the field of risk management and insurance including his role as EVP Global Risk Management for Cotton Holdings, Inc. including risk finance, risk management and employee benefits.
Previously he was the VP Industry Practice Group Leader at AIG with a portfolio of $1.4B of GWP. Prior to this position he served in senior risk management capacities for Caesars Entertainment, GES Exposition Services/VIAD and for the City of Philadelphia School District. Mr. Ewing additionally worked for various insurance companies including Lumbermen's Underwriting Alliance, Pennsylvania Hospital Insurance Company (PHICO) and New York Lumberman's Insurance Trust in HPR risk engineering, underwriting and risk control capacities. He also was President of three insurance captives.

Mr. Ewing received his Master's degree in Law & Justice from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his second Master's degree in Occupational Safety Engineering. In addition to his Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation and his International Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designation, he is a matriculated Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) candidate and has completed his Enterprise Risk Management Professional designation (ERMP).

Lance was National President 2003-2004 for the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS) and was also their Chief Risk Officer (CRO). He teaches risk finance and risk management as a faculty member for the National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research. He also served as a Board member for the Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC). He serves on the University of Mississippi Business School (Risk Management) Advisory Board, where an endowment was created "Ewing Endowment for Business Excellence in Risk Management and Insurance".

Mr. Ewing was the keynote speaker for the Asia CEO Forum in 2015. He was honored as the Real Estate Insurance Leader 2014-2015 for Globe Street and was the 2008 Risk Innovator of the Year. In 2007, Lance was named Risk Manager of the Year (Business Insurance). He has authored several articles on insurance, risk management, crisis management, captives and workers' compensation. He is a frequent speaker on Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), global claims, disaster recovery and risk financing topics. Mr. Ewing is an expert witness as part of the Insurance Expert Network (IEN).

Lance has spoken and worked internationally to promote insurance and risk management in China, Philippines, Japan, Macau, Hong Kong, India, Croatia, Romania, Kosovo, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Bermuda, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. Mr. Ewing continues to be a strong and forthright supporter of global risk management and insurance.

---

Session #1:
Understanding Catastrophe Modeling
In this session, John Elbl, a Vice President at AIR Worldwide will provide a brief history of catastrophe modeling and how models have evolved to become more sophisticated over time. This discussion will describe AIR’s unique approach to developing models, and best practices for understanding and interpreting model results. It will also highlight the latest developments in some of AIR’s most recent model releases as well as what’s next in risk modeling. A brief Q&A will follow this session to answer any questions you might have on the past, present and future of catastrophe risk modeling.

John Elbl, CEEM, Vice President, AIR Worldwide
John Elbl is a Vice President in AIR's Business Development group. In his role, he assists with service and support for AIR's Flood Model, AIR's developing Cyber Model, commercial insurer clients, as well as aids in developing AIR software and models to better meet the needs of commercial insurers. He has extensive experience working with companies to interpret analysis results, optimize modeling workflows and, improve overall catastrophe risk management. Prior to joining AIR, he was the SVP of Risk at American Integrity, and the Global Head of Catastrophe Modeling at Zurich Insurance Company. Before that, he was a Reinsurance Underwriting Manager at Empire Fire and Marine. John holds a M.S. in Applied Mathematics from University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in Mathematics from Kansas State University. He has achieved the designation of Certified Extreme Event Modeler by completing the requirements of the AIR Institute Certified Extreme Event Modeler Program.

---

Session #2:
Improving Earthquake Risk Quantification for More Informed Risk Management
While traditional catastrophe models can be helpful in analyzing large portfolios, site-specific application of science and engineering can provide an improved quantification of earthquake risk that is stable and transparent, allowing for better informed insurance purchase and pricing. Additional data, research and engineering assessments can be leveraged to provide hazard assessments and damage estimations tailored to the specific building being evaluated. An overview of the types of information and engineering required to provide a custom view of the risk will be provided and a case study of applying this approach will be illustrated.

Marc Ramirez, Ph.D., P.E., Berkshire Hathaway

C. Marc Ramirez is an Assistant Vice President with Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance’s Catastrophe Engineering and Analytics team. He received his Master’s and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University where his research focused on improving, simplifying and implementing building-specific loss estimation methods to be used in the context of performance-based earthquake engineering. Previously, he headed AIR Worldwide’s San Francisco office and prior to that worked as a structural design engineer for KPFF Consulting Engineers, through which he obtained his P.E. license.

Manoj (Manny) Dewani, Assistant Vice President, Berkshire Hathaway

Manoj (Manny) Dewani is an Assistant Vice President with Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance’s Western Region Property team. He has over 10 years of experience in the Excess & Surplus Lines Property realm where he worked in both Underwriting and Sales capacities. Previously, he worked at Lloyds insurer Hiscox USA, and prior to that held various positions with AIG in San Francisco and New York including manager of the San Francisco Property team.

---

Session #3:
Managing Your Flood Exposures
Tim and Mike will discuss why it's vital that you understand your flood exposures and review practical steps you can take to mitigate them.

Tim Malone, Vice President, Client Service Manager – Tim joined FM Global in 2004 after graduating from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He's held various roles in engineering, underwriting and client services and has worked with clients from a variety of industries including Life Sciences, Automotive, Telecommunications and Semiconductor. Tim joined the FM Global Los Angles Operation’s management team in 2016.

Michael Sevcsisin, Vice President Operations Engineering Manager - Mike joined FM Global in 1989 after graduating from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He spent time as a field engineer and then an account engineer until he was promoted into a managerial role in 1999. Since then he has held a variety of engineering management roles at FM Global.

---

Session #4:
Top 5 Ways Earthquake Early Warning is Protecting Millions of Lives and Billions in Assets Across Los Angeles
This discussion will cover what Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) is and how it works. We will cover current use cases to demonstrate how this technology is actively mitigating risk on the West Coast and look to the future to see how else this technology can save lives.

Josh Bashioum, Early Warning Labs

Joshua Bashioum is the Principal Investigator at Early Warning Labs (EWL) and is regarded as an international authority on Earthquake Early Warning. Mr. Bashioum has been featured as a US Delegate to the United Nations for early warning, a seismic hazards collaborator to the White House and guest speaker at leading universities and the CA state capitol. Prior to EWL, Mr. Bashioum spent over 15 years in Emergency Management, including 12 years volunteering as a first responder and over 7 years of instructing with California Fire Departments, FEMA and the Citizen Corps. During his time in the field, Joshua saw opportunities to provide products and services to the disaster preparedness industry. He started a successful disaster preparedness products company in 2008 and secured national distribution through the nation's largest retailers including Costco, Staples and Amazon. After exiting the products space, Mr. Bashioum began exploring opportunities in technology when he was introduced to the USGS, Caltech and the ShakeAlert program. He realized the tremendous opportunity to commercialize the technology and founded Early Warning Labs in 2014. Mr. Bashioum has studied Earthquake Science at USC's Southern California Earthquake Center and is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and Entrepreneur Program.

---

---

LA RIMS Thank Our Sponsors

Become a 2024 Sponsor