Chris Varley, chief data and analytics officer, Allianz
Describe your career to date
Having completed a degree in economics, I joined the Zurich insurance company graduate training scheme, which led to me specialising in pricing and analytics, initially focused on the personal lines (motor, home) and SME (small business) market segments. This gave me a solid foundation in predictive analytics and allowed me to gain a broad and deep appreciation of the idiosyncrasies of insurance domain data.
I then spent a few years at Zurich as the pricing/analytics lead on a large enterprise transformation programme, which allowed me to broaden my knowledge across the wider data topic and associated technologies, as well as learn a lot about large-scale change implementation.
After a period leading the modernisation of our underwriting technologies and analytical capabilities, I decided to make the leap into consulting, operating as the commercial lines lead for the insurance consulting and technology arm of Willis Towers Watson, based in London. This allowed me to work across a broad cross-section of the insurance industry, gaining detailed insight into best practices and learning more about the full breadth of analytical use cases in the insurance domain – and I got to experience working across Europe and the US.
I had always anticipated a move back to an insurer when the time was right and in 2021 I was delighted to take on my current role, establishing and leading the commercial data and analytics function for Allianz UK. As I approach my first anniversary in the role, I am pleased I made the right decision.
What stage has your organisation reached on its data maturity journey?
I would say that we are in a period of transition, where we have come a long way in a relatively short period of time in terms of understanding and having a broad appetite for more data, more analytical insights and more insight-led decision making. While we have made impressive progress, there is still plenty of road ahead on our journey to realise our potential: leveraging data and analytics can be transformational for our customers and our wider business objectives.
Tell us about the data and analytics resources you are responsible for
My role reports to the Allianz Commercial CEO, which was a significant part of what attracted me to the role; I strongly believe that data and analytics needs to be a core part of the business and integral to how key business decisions are taken. I lead a team of around 150 professionals across the data and analytics domains, including pricing – mostly in the UK, supplemented by a small but highly talented team in India. I am also responsible for a first-line regulatory standards function, reflecting the increased role that data plays in both how our regulator’s set expectations and how we demonstrate our commitment and alignment with those requirements.
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