Guerra began out dealing with advertising and social media for PAK Programs, earlier than venturing into danger administration and loss prevention. Specifically, he makes use of drone and mapping expertise to assist determine wildfire danger areas in shoppers’ vineyards and different properties in California. The information he collects feeds into underwriting and danger administration methods.
“I love to travel. Through this, I’m able to go see a lot of different parts of the country, but more so I like the critical thinking that it involves,” Guerra informed Insurance Business.
“I like going to a new winery because each one is like a puzzle – how am I going best capture the data here? How can I best construct the map on this property? Where’s all the important stuff? How can I prioritize capturing everything?”
A non-traditional entry into insurance coverage
Guerra got here into insurance coverage after a number of years volunteering, main journey packages in North Africa and Southeast Asia, and writing journey articles. PAK Programs’ president, Larry Chasin, recruited Guerra as a freelancer to put in writing about breweries beneath a weblog sponsored by the insurance coverage agency. Eventually, Guerra was taken on full-time and given larger publicity to the wine and liquor trade.
He didn’t placed on his loss-prevention hat at PAK Programs till 2017, after devastating wildfires struck California and components of the wine nation. Guerra and Chasin went to Napa Valley to see the extent of injury and to offer some assist to the communities.
“I studied archaeology at the University of Vermont, so I had an educational background in cartography, geospatial analysis and mapping software,” Guerra stated. “While I used to be in Napa, we noticed that the issue was having all these shoppers everywhere in the valley however no manner of figuring out the place they had been in relation to high-risk wildfire zones.
“So, I told Larry we could utilize my experience to map out where our clients are and use them with different data sets that were publicly available to help determine risks.”
Guerra did in depth work mapping out PAK Programs’ unfold of danger throughout the nation. He additionally obtained a part-107 drone pilot licence and commenced going out to shoppers’ grounds to create his personal maps.
“I would go out to the wineries and fly over the properties, some of them over 800 acres, and I would use the imagery to build maps for underwriting and loss prevention,” Guerra stated.
The maps enable PAK Programs to supply completely different danger administration methods to homeowners, together with vegetation administration. Underwriters can use the information to find out constructing measurements and the structure of the properties.
“A lot of the claims issues we had stemmed from the fact that we could know where the big winery or the tasting room was, but because some of the properties were so large, there would be a little shed, pump house or barn in the back that had been overlooked and burned down,” stated Guerra.
“The shopper would assume this was lined however we didn’t even learn about it, which then results in powerful conversations.
“The mapping helps us be proactive in preventing those things from happening.”
How can the insurance coverage trade entice expertise from non-traditional backgrounds?
Amid a expertise crunch, concentrating on folks with non-traditional backgrounds might be rewarding for insurance coverage firms. But the trade must be open-minded in regards to the expertise it needs to draw.
“There’s a preconceived notion that the insurance industry is very traditional, which a lot of the times it is. But I think there’s a resistance to change sometimes,” Guerra stated.
“Companies that embrace the change or try to adapt by incorporate new technologies are going to attract a lot of younger talent.”
For potential candidates, insurance coverage can show to be a multifaceted and dynamic profession path, in response to Guerra.
“I never considered I was getting into the insurance industry, which I think has a reputation of being somewhat stale and boring,” he stated.
“I’m moving between different industries [at PAK Programs]. The brewery folks are very different from the winery folks, and a hobbyist winery owner is different from the big-box retailers,” Guerra stated.
“There’s a lot of subculture within these different program cultures and being a people-person and adaptable to a variety of situations comes in handy, especially when you’re on the ground.”
What are your ideas on concentrating on non-traditional backgrounds as a option to plug the expertise hole in insurance coverage? Share them within the feedback under.