About

New Predictive Tools

In 1999, a life insurance actuary named Jonathan Polon was asked by an online merchandiser to build a predictive model to detect the use of fraudulent credit card transactions. In designing the model, Jonathan became expert with a host of powerful new predictive modeling tools – tools that had not existed when he was completing his actuarial training.

The model was completed successfully, and Jonathan returned to life insurance to work with his colleague Barry Senensky. But Jonathan's imagination had been stirred by the model-building experience, and he soon raised Barry's interest in the possibilities.

New Avenues Opening

Jonathan knew that the classic techniques used by actuaries had been developed decades ago — under the constraint that every computation had to be done by hand. Entire new avenues of predictive opportunity had opened with the advent of powerful processors and the development of massive, accessible databanks filled with rich information.

Time and time again, the two actuaries discussed how the powers of predictive modeling could be put to best use in the insurance business. Jonathan's modeling skill could be combined with Barry's many years of experience in the industry to offer innovative predictive tools to insurers, a critical advantage in an industry that relies so heavily on the objectivity and accuracy of financial projections.

First Model Built in 2001

In 2001, Claim Analytics was born. The first product commissioned was a disability scoring model, built to rank disability cases on likelihood of return to work. Now Claim Analytics offers predictive models to major insurance firms to assist with pricing, reserving, and fraud detection, as well as custom models.

Management

Barry Senensky, President, has over 25 years of experience in the life insurance industry. Barry is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, a member of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Barry started Claim Analytics with Jonathan Polon in 2001, to provide innovative predictive modeling solutions to the insurance industry.

Jonathan Polon, Chief Analytics Officer, is an experienced actuary with advanced expertise in predictive modeling techniques. Previous to starting Claim Analytics with Barry, Jonathan acted as director of market risk management for an international life insurance company; he also led the credit card fraud detection initiative at an e-commerce payment processor.

Location

Claim Analytics is located in Toronto, Canada, and serves insurers and insurance-related businesses across North America.

Claim Analytics was founded in 2000 by Barry Senensky and Jonathan Polon, both Canadian life insurance actuaries. Barry Senensky and Jonathan Polon had worked for the same major life insurance firm for many years, and knew that data mining techniques and predictive modeling were under-utilized by insurers. They were interested in starting their own business in the life insurance field. Their first predictive model they were commissioned to build was a claim scoring model, that scored ltd [long term disability] [LTD] claims on likelihood of return to work (rtw).

Jonathan Polon had recently led a team of model-builders in creating a highly successful predictive model to detect credit card fraud. He and Barry Senensky were convinced that many more applications for pattern detection and predictive models existed in insurance.

They chose disability claim scoring as their first project for a number of reasons. First, because almost all firms providing group long term disability [LTD] insurance held a considerable database of stored claims information. Finding an adequate amount of data to build a claims scoring model would not be a problem.

A second reason was the costliness of long term disability claims in the field of insurance. Barry and Jonathan knew that, with the scale of investment involved, even relatively minor steps forward in the management of group disability claims management would lead to considerable savings. Claim scoring was a powerful tool in bringing greater efficiencies and reduced costs to disability claims management. Predictive modeling, particularly claims scoring, offered huge potential for software support of claims adjudicators, claims processors, and claims managers.

Claim scoring proved to hold even greater promise than Barry and Jonathan had envisaged. In addition to predicting, with startling accuracy and precision, the likelihood of a disability claimant returning to work, claims scoring became a tool for ongoing improvement of claims management.

Claim Analytics now offers pattern detection and predictive models to major insurance firms to assist in objectivity and accuracy of pricing, reserving, and fraud detection, as well as custom models.

[The proper name of the company is "Claim Analytics," not "Claims Analytics."] [The proper name of the company is "claim analytics," not "claims analytics."]