Daeun Lim

Casualty Underwriter (From February 2013 to June 2019)

My career in Reinsurance started off from Casualty Insurance. While I was working in Casualty team, I mainly handled Mobile phone insurance, Contingency insurance, and newly developed insurance.

· Mobile phone insurance

: In late 2000's , as use of high-end smartphone became new paradigm in mobile phone industry, mobile phone insurance market was considered to be cash-cow, but the insurers including Korean Re had no choice but to maintain conservative strategies against it because of fears originating from lack of data and experiences. My first job, as an underwriter, was to analyze how its premiums and claims would develop during the policy period and how oss ratio would be finalized in the end, which gave me an important insight on mobile phone insurance itself. At that time, in Korea, insurers charged the same premium rate for every individual policy holder regardless of phone type (ex. i-phone vs android phone). However, as a matter of fact, the statistical data showed that pricing should be differentiated depending on policy holders' phone type, as expected loss ratios of each phone type were varied. Nevertheless, as market was soft enough to neglect this and the top 3 mobile network operators were extremely competitive, no one would seem to take an action to correct this. So, I persuaded every related party to differentiate the premium rate for i-phone users, which, in turn, had to pay higher rates than the others. As a result, its loss ratio has been stabilized (from around 90% to 60%), which gave Korean Re and the clients (primary insurers) confidence in mobile phone insurance market. Based on this experience, we took initiatives as a reinsurer on other MVNO’s mobile insurance program, leading our written premium to grow more than triple in the end.

· Contingency Insurance

: When it comes to contingency insurance, Korean Re used to have unique and strong specialty in our local market. So, I achieved opportunities to review and study a wide range of fac and treaty accounts. In terms of premium volume and the number of accounts, Prize Indemnity Insurance, accounted for more than 70% of our Contingency Insurance portfolio. Ironically, the 'pricing' was the most challenging part, as I should have examined the risk quantities in the absence of supporting data. However, along the way I looked up and gathered the data from scratch, I learned how to utilize even extremely limited data and also, how to discover meaningful insight from it. Based on this, I developed written manual which other colleagues, could refer to when pricing and being faced with new risks. As a sole underwriter of Contingency Insurance in Korean Re, I had to take grave responsibilities, but I was also able to extend my views on market and necessary techniques as a underwriter.

· Development of new insurance

: As Korean Re was well-positioned as a supportive reinsurer in terms of exploring market opportunities, our team played an important role in every phase of new insurance product. So, while I took in charge of product development, I was deeply involved in embodying new ideas, analyzing potential risks, devising appropriate terms and conditions, and also pricing. At the same time, I seized a lot of chances to discuss with other underwriters who works for a primary insurance company, which helps me to enhance communication skills. Moreover, at that time, each unit for developing new insurance products mostly consisted of highly experienced and knowledgeable staff, which gave a great chance to mature my knowledge on insurance industry as well.

Nuclear Insurance (From July 2019 to June 2023)

I joined Korea Atomic Energy Insurance Pool in 2019. The pool consists of employees of Korean Re, but its roles and responsibilities are completely different from other units at Korean Re, as it handles every job from accounting to underwriting, even dealing with the insured.

· Underwriting Domestic and Overseas Nuclear Insurance Business

As KHNP, a global top tier player, expanded its business for recent consecutive years, Korean nuclear insurance industry reaped the benefits on it. As a result, for the years I took in charge of domestic nuclear insurance(property insurance as well as liability insurance), the annual written premium grew more than 5% on average. When negotiating our written share on outward business, I leveraged this strong performance of our domestic business and as a result, our written premium in overseas business increased by two digits percent annually, leading to improvement of our bottom line as well. Meanwhile, the fact that Korean pool’s domestic performance is highly dependent on KHNP made every year’s renewal negotiation partial. For example, it took more than five years for KHNP to accept ‘Cyber Exclusion Clause’ in their property policy. To persuade KHNP to agree to adoption of standard ‘Cyber Exclusion Clause’, I took phased approach, which starts from giving insights on risks generally and globally excluded and then elaborated on why cyber risks should be excluded in general property insurance. Even though KHNP and Korean pool had difficulties in coming to agreement, they finally accepted it without premium discount.

Also, I was involved in regular site surveys annually, which took place for 5 days per site. These surveys gave me chances to enrich my knowledge on nuclear power plant and the insured itself. In addition to this, unlike other underwriting team of Korean Re, I should have handled every claim work including reviewing claim report, requesting cash call, settling claims etc.

Based on this knowledge, I focused on devising a clear blueprint of pool’s own claim handling system for the last few months at pool.

· Other work

(Issuing annual report, setting annual budget and managing operational expenses

Since Nuclear pool is considered to be a separate unit, I had opportunities to be directly involved with issuance of pool’s annual report. Also, I handled accounting work as well from setting annual budget and managing other expenses.

Property Insurance Underwriter (From July 2023 ~ )

I started my career as a property insurance underwriter at Korean Re in July 2023. I mainly handled package insurance of High-tech industry such as Semiconductor, Battery, Display, etc. As large portion of contracts which are categorized into High-tech business falls into ‘mega account’ at the same time, not only analyzing risk itself but also comprehensive reinsurance work took lots of time and effort. For example, I took in charge of the package insurance of Samsung Electronics Co.,Ltd, which was the largest and the most symbolic contract in terms of both premium volume and the liabilities. Naturally, numerous reinsurers were involved, and the situation had been extremely tense until the last minute. I got much pressure along the way, but I felt unexplainable sense of achievement the contract successfully made. Also, while I reviewed all the different subjectivities applied by various reinsurers and negotiated with reinsurers to remove certain subjectivities causing DIC, I felt my knowledge on package insurance and the wordings much more improved. Based on this, I organized key terms and conditions, rates, important risk analysis factors of major high-tech accounts (Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, etc.) among our portfolio so that any underwriters can utilize when they are reviewing accounts and negotiating with the insured and other parties.

Lastly, it was fortunate that I experienced the real ‘hard market’ and the softening market; I joined Property team in the middle of hard market and during the recent few months, global market shows signs of softening. Even though it was not that long period in my career, while I dealt with major high-tech accounts, I felt I experienced property market profoundly, which taught me how to respond to market dynamics and communication skills, etc.