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Nice chart, So What...

  • Writer: W Y
    W Y
  • Feb 20, 2024
  • 2 min read

Updated: Feb 22, 2024

Delivering Insights that matter...


 

As a claims leader, I reviewed a lot of PowerPoint decks, some with dozens of charts, graphs and seemingly endless narrative. Honestly, some of it looked like make-work. There is often a temptation that whenever an analyst creates a chart, it MUST go into a deck or presentation. Here's a secret, if there is nothing interesting in your data, considering not sharing it.


For most operations, there should be a handful of core metrics that represent your "so what." Maybe it is cycle time, referral rate or net recoveries... Whatever it is, report on these and save the other metrics for when there is something to report that matters, preferably with an interesting story that will help your audience understand why the data is important and remember it. If the core metric data is boring, good. It is likely that everything is running well, and the slides will only take a moment to review. You can spend time discussing other opportunities to grow your operations. Better still, perhaps you have a PowerBI where information is standardized, and your leadership can self-serve, but that is a topic for another day!


As I noted in another post, the ability to spot data variance is what you are looking for. However, it can often be hard to do this, both for the creator of the insight, as well as the consumer. Data literacy is in short supply! Keep this in mind when sharing operational insights.


An area I always found this to be a particular challenge is in the area of subrogation. Different lines of business pay and recover money at different rates. Say you have a big recovery year, but paid indemnity is higher. Did you have a bad year? If you report your recovery data solely on a calendar year basis, it might look that way! Are there other ways you can highlight a strong recovery year.


I raise these points because delivering meaningful insights is more that pulling data and dropping them into a nice chart. It requires a deep understanding of operations, data sources, how the data is captured, and finally, your audience. No easy task - even with AI!


When coaching analysts and leaders, I have a unending list of books I recommend, but here are a few of my favorites:



Wheeler's book is an absolute must read for analysts as well as business leaders. We have more data than ever, but it does not seem data literacy has kept pace.


I love talking about insurance data and insights. If you have thoughts on this topic, please share them!

 
 
 

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