Tara Green

The best career advice I've ever received was to not allow rejections deter me from continuing to pursue promotional opportunities. There have been many times throughout my career where I've gone for a role and was not selected, and it's very easy to lose confidence and become stagnant in your current role rather than continue to take the feedback and build your skill set so that you can be that best candidate next time. I received this coaching and feedback very early on in my career, and because of that, it's really allowed me to grow and develop and get to where I am now. Instead of letting rejection stop me, I learned to use it as motivation to improve and keep pushing forward.

One of the biggest challenges in my field right now is job security for both myself and my staff. In my company specifically, we've pulled back a lot on writing new business in New York, particularly downstate in the boroughs. Because of that organic churn, we're not replacing staff because we don't have as much work coming in and we don't have as many policies in force. I'm really focused on navigating that, keeping my staff motivated, and making sure that as we do start to grow again, we have a pulse on staffing needs and we're getting ahead of that so we're fully prepared once we do start to grow. Another huge challenge is legal abuse. We live in a very litigious world, and plaintiff attorneys are becoming extremely creative. There are nuclear verdicts happening all of the time, and all of this impacts the insurance industry and prices for customers - how much you pay in premium for your auto insurance and for your home insurance. Being able to really effectively navigate the litigation process and be conscious of expenses being incurred, while also ensuring that we're paying what we owe and we're not overpaying, is critical. Attorneys are really pushing these cases through litigation, knowing that a lot of times, if a case is taken to verdict with certain components, it could render a higher award. Having to navigate that and making sure your staff understands how to do that is very complex. The legal abuse aspect is probably one of the biggest challenges that the insurance industry is facing right now, particularly in personal lines and commercial lines, because of just the volatility in many different states where that's happening.