Joel Appelbaum, Global Chief Underwriting and Actuarial Officer at The Warranty Group, presented on successful implementation of predictive warranty modeling at the 2012 Warranty Chain Management Conference in Orlando.

Appelbaum spoke on different applications for predictive analytics that can improve business processes, reduce expenses, change risk selection processes, and improve the bottom line.

“Our investment in this was to bring along and leverage our actuarial capabilities to help us predict potential fraud, reduce expenses, and find the best opportunities for ourselves and for our clients,” said Appelbaum. “Predictive models react well to frequency-­‐driven data, and the warranty business is very much frequency-­‐driven.”

From prospecting to trends in future pricing and finding fraud in claims settlements, predictive analytics drives efficiency.

“You’ll have more success finding fraud,” Appelbaum continued, “If you know to say ‘put more scrutiny here.’ We can identify outliers and predict their continuation based on data patterns. Historically we looked at reports that told us what happened. Predictive analytics is what’s happening now and what’s likely to happen. By leveraging your data, it gives you a framework for better decision-­‐making. It can be as simple as predictive analytics about financial evaluation—what is the likelihood that a client will gain in revenue over a year’s time— all of this can be automated through a predictive model.”

Mike Frosch, President and COO at The Warranty Group, stated, “It’s key to helping clients, knowing what’s really working and what isn’t. It’s a way to manage and steer business, especially within turbulent times, and that helps provide the basis for successful collaboration. Our global solutions are market-­‐specific, and leveraging our data allows us to be more proactive, making more informed decisions.”