The Doctors Company’s medical professional liability actuarial team makes our financial strength and success possible, giving us the financial resources to protect you today and for many years to come. Get to know our actuarial leaders who work hand in hand with our Underwriting team to ensure our coverage is priced appropriately and responsibly.
What Does an Actuary Do?
The pricing and quoting process includes underwriting and actuarial, or the science behind underwriting.
As a most basic concept, actuarial analysis is the process of using what is already known (historical data) to estimate the unknown (probability of a risk occurring) and its associated economic cost. An actuary is essentially supposed to forecast the future, estimating future risks and potential costs of claims.
Actuaries are problem solvers who use actuarial science to define, analyze, and resolve the financial, economic, and other business applications of future events.
Actuarial responsibilities typically include:
- Making sure the company properly defines and carefully evaluates insurance risks
- Charging a fair price to assume the risks
- Having the appropriate amount of money set aside to pay claims and expenses as they happen while operating profitably as a business
These responsibilities are critical for the financial health of the company because when actuaries calculate the cost of insurance policies the company issues, they are committing the company financially for many future years. Such a big commitment is why the company’s financial solvency depends greatly on the actuaries’ judgment and calculation.
The Doctors Company is financially sound, A rated by AM Best and Fitch Ratings, and consistently named as a Ward’s 50 top-performing insurer—and our Actuarial team members ensure this happens year after year.
What Sets Our Actuaries Apart
Nine of our actuarial professionals are members of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS)—the world’s only actuarial organization focused exclusively on property and casualty risks. Becoming a member takes an incredible amount of time, dedication, and effort. Thousands of hours of studying is required to pass 7 to 10 exams (depending on the membership level), which is generally completed over the course of 5 to 10 years. Being able to wear this badge of honor certifies you as an expert in the field.
These experts have a total tenure at The Doctors Company of 57.5 years, and a whopping 131 years of total industry experience. Meet our Actuarial team leaders–some of the faces behind these accomplishments.
Senior Vice President and Chief Actuary
Richard Soulsby, FCAS, MAAA, is Senior Vice President and Chief Actuary of TDC Group. In his role, he is responsible for all aspects of actuarial work within the company, including pricing, reserving, and corporate studies. Prior to joining The Doctors Company in 2014, Mr. Soulsby spent most of his career as a Consulting Actuary at Milliman, Inc., based in their New York office, where his work involved pricing (insurance and reinsurance), reserving, due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, product development, and regulatory financial exams, with clients ranging in size from small captives to the world’s largest insurance groups. Before going into consulting, Mr. Soulsby started his career as a property and casualty actuary at Transatlantic Reinsurance Company.
Actuarial Team Leaders
Don Doty, FCAS, MAAA, is Vice President, Actuary, at The Doctors Company, working out of the Napa headquarters. For much of his time since joining the company in 2014, he has served as the department’s Lead Reserving Actuary, assisting with quarterly reviews of not only The Doctors Company, but each of TDC Group’s strategic business units as well, and helping complete statements of actuarial opinion for the majority of the group’s statutory entities. He has also managed recurring actuarial studies such as demographics, dividends, expenses, and return on equity. Mr. Doty and his team are also heavily involved in the department’s substantial data processing efforts, which support reserving, pricing, reinsurance, regulatory compliance, and management reporting.
During Mr. Doty’s 20-plus years of experience, he has held positions at Allstate, Navigant Consulting, and CNA, where his roles have included admitted pricing, excess and surplus (E&S) pricing, financial analysis, and reserving.
Mr. Doty earned his bachelor of science degree from Marian University, majoring in mathematics with minors in computer science and philosophy. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Courtney Mutch, FCAS, MAAA is Vice President, Actuary, at The Doctors Company. As the Lead Pricing Actuary for MPL, Ms. Mutch oversees a team of actuaries and analysts who prepare state rate reviews for all states, prepare filings for and respond to regulatory objections, individually price large accounts, research pricing for new products, and prepare annual pricing studies to help support The Doctors Company’s other pricing work. Ms. Mutch joined The Doctors Company in 2014, starting as an Assistant Actuarial Analyst. Prior to joining The Doctors Company, Ms. Mutch worked as a Business Analyst in the insurance industry. She earned her bachelor of arts degree from Scripps College in Claremont, California, with a dual major in mathematics and economics. Courtney is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Mahsa Moallempour, ACAS, MAAA, is Assistant Vice President, Actuary, at The Doctors Company, where she has served since 2014. She began her actuarial career in 2011 as a trainee at Plymouth Rock Assurance in Boston, Massachusetts, focusing on auto and homeowners insurance. Her career has steadily progressed through roles as Senior Actuarial Analyst, Actuarial Supervisor, Manager, Director, and now Assistant Vice President.
At The Doctors Company, Ms. Moallempour initially focused on state review pricing before transitioning to large account pricing in 2019, where she now serves as the Lead Actuary. Her responsibilities include developing pricing models for complex healthcare risks, including physicians, hospitals, healthcare ancillaries, and dentists. In 2020, her role expanded to include oversight of all large account pricing requests and the development of sophisticated models for loss portfolio transfers, novation, and fronting arrangements.
Ms. Moallempour holds a master’s degree in actuarial science from Boston University and a bachelor of science in applied mathematics with a minor in computer science from the Polytechnic University of Tehran. She became an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society in 2021.
With over a decade of experience in actuarial science and insurance operations, Ms. Moallempour is known for her collaborative approach and cross-functional leadership. She works closely with The Doctors Company’s Underwriting, Claims, and Finance teams, and is a valued contributor to the Actuarial Department’s strategic initiatives.
Scope of Actuarial Work
- Reserving: This is the process of evaluating, reviewing, and estimating unpaid claims. The accuracy in estimating unpaid claims is absolutely critical to an insurer because the insurer may not know the true cost of products sold during a financial reporting period until several years down the road. An insurer sells its promise to pay a policyholder or an injured party on behalf of the policyholder in the event of an occurrence covered by the insurance policy. For some insured events, the insurer is able to quantify the exact costs of settlement. For other insured events, the insurer may not know the ultimate cost for years, and possibly decades. Even with such challenges, the insurer has to report its financial results on a regular basis. Claim reserves represent the insurer’s estimate of its current liabilities for claims that occurred on or prior to the financial statement reporting date but that have not yet been paid.
- Pricing: Actuarial pricing is the process used to determine a fair price to set an insurance premium. It involves assessing the potential risk of insuring a person or entity and finding the premium that covers all forecasted losses and company expenses, while providing appropriate surplus growth. Actuarial pricing relies on the probability of a loss occurring when covering a client's policy claim. Additionally, it helps insurers establish policy premiums that can account for any losses from an associated financial risk. This also ensures companies can provide payments to policyholders when they make claims.
- Advanced analytics: Although the definition of advanced analytics is constantly evolving due to rapid data and technology breakthroughs, the essence of actuarial advanced analytics is predictive modeling, which is achieved through combining traditional actuarial science with modern data science techniques to analyze complex risks and large exposures, improve predictions, and drive informed business decisions. Data science tools and methodologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, and interactive data visualization are often used to uncover deeper insights, leading to enhanced predictive accuracy and risk management strategies.
- Reinsurance: This is where actuaries design, price, and manage reinsurance contracts—or insurance policies for insurers—to transfer risk and ensure the carrier’s financial stability. Actuaries use data analysis, modeling, and forecasting to evaluate potential losses, determine appropriate pricing for transferred risk, and ensure the reinsurance transaction effectively meets the financial and risk management needs of both the reinsurer and the primary insurer.
- Industry/environmental: In professional liability insurance, actuaries will analyze and manage industry environmental risks to help the insurer understand, quantify, and mitigate their financial impacts. Actuaries use math, statistics, and risk management principles to model the financial consequences of influencing factors, such as social inflation, tort reform, and peer companies.
- Acquisition due diligence: This involves examining the financial assumptions, historical results, and future projections of a company to validate making an acquisition. It involves a thorough review of the company's underwriting assumptions, pricing, reserving, and risk management practices to make sure the acquiring company understands the true value and associated risks of the deal, so it can make an informed decision of whether or not it makes financial sense to move forward with the acquisition.
What Our Actuaries Can Do for Larger Healthcare Organizations
With the industry’s largest claims database, The Doctors Company is in an unparalleled position to collaborate with you to develop creative solutions for larger, more complex risks. Other carriers that have less data to work with may become overwhelmed attempting to price multidisciplinary and/or multistate accounts with confidence and precision. Our dedicated team of credentialed actuaries and veteran underwriters are here to support larger healthcare organizations through a data-driven approach that will ensure your insurance needs are met with adequate coverage and protection.
