FCAS, MAAA, CSPA Director and Consulting Actuary
Send email (415) 692-0938
Download Bio Download CV
Download vCard
California Homeowners Insurance – Availability and Affordability as Wildfires Burn Jan 7, 2021
Pandemic and Apocalyptic Skies – 2020 in the Bay Area Oct 13, 2020
Autonomous Vehicles and the Future of Auto Insurance Mar 27, 2018
See all »
Laura Maxwell is a director and consulting actuary with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources in the firm’s San Francisco, California office. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Moravian College. She has worked in the property/casualty insurance industry since 1987 and has provided consulting services since 2003.
Ms. Maxwell currently serves the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) as a member of the Casualty Loss Reserve Seminar Planning Committee, E-Forum Committee, and syllabus part vice chair of the Syllabus and Examination Committee. She is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) Cyber Risk Task Force and a member of the Actuarial Science Advisory Board at the University of the Pacific.
Prior to consulting, she was a product manager for a direct auto insurer and held actuarial positions with a state insurance department and national rating bureau. Her background includes personal and commercial lines pricing and reserving.
Pinnacle Promotes Laura Maxwell and Jordan Paszek Authored by Laura A. Maxwell and Jordan R. Paszek.
December 17 2020 APEX Webinar Actuarial Standards of Practice: Modeling and Assumptions Authored by Laura A. Maxwell and Kendra Letang and Radost Roumenova Wenman.
See More »
Asbestos Liabilities
In 2009, Pinnacle provided expert testimony about the evolution of insurance industry asbestos liabilities in an arbitration hearing among several insurance companies and a pool manager. This assignment drew on our knowledge of the history of insurance industry asbestos liabilities, e.g., the evolution of the legal aspects surrounding coverage determinations, the interplay of primary, excess and reinsurance contracts, the history of failed attempts to control the problem and the impact of bankruptcies among other factors. The assignment also drew on our mass tort / latent liability reserving expertise.
Portfolio Aggregation
A reinsurer wanted to combine the results of their pricing and reserving models for individual treaties - from diverse lines of business and treaty structures - to produce an annual return distribution for the company. This was a part of their ERM framework and the genesis of their economic capital modeling process. After reviewing treaty wordings and pricing and reserving models, we designed a model that reflected dependency amongst the treaties and produced an annual return distribution. Furthermore, the model was designed to allow users of the model output to easily see how sensitive the results were to the assumed dependency structures.
U S Domestic Statement of Actuarial Opinion
Domestic U.S. property/casualty insurers and risk retention groups are required to file an Annual Statement with state regulators each year by March 1. Part of that filing includes the submission of a formal Statement of Actuarial Opinion (SAO) by a qualified Appointed Actuary as to the reasonableness of held loss and loss adjustment expense reserves. The SAO must be one of five types:
In addition to the SAO, most jurisdictions require an Actuarial Opinion Summary (AOS) providing more detail on the Appointed Actuary’s specific findings by March 15. Lastly, a formal report narrative in support of the SAO and AOS is required to be available by May 1.
As the SAO is a compliance document, the primary audience is state regulators but the individual company must arrange for the service to be provided.
A recent SAO for one of our clients touched on many of the required disclosures:
At Pinnacle, we partner with you to explore whatever path it takes to find the answers you need.
Learn More
March 15, 2021 CAS Ratemaking, Product and Modeling (RPM) Seminar
March 18, 2021 March APEX Webinar - Reinsurance 101 in 2021 Register