FINREP Florida October 23 - 24, 2024
2024 FINREP Forum
Everything You Need to Know About Financial Reporting for Insurance Companies
Agenda
Wednesday
12:30-12:40 pm
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Stephen Andrews, CPA
Shareholder, Tax Services, Thomas Howell Ferguson P.A. CPAs

Since 2010, Stephen has been providing tax compliance services and consulting services for multiple entity types. His responsibilities include coordination of the insurance tax compliance practice, which includes federal and multi-state tax return compliance, premium tax compliance, income tax provisions on the statutory basis of accounting, consolidated income tax provisions on the GAAP basis of accounting, and representing taxpayers during the examination process with the Internal Revenue Service and state departments of revenue.
He has experience assisting clients with planning issues including: effective tax rate analysis, multi-state tax planning and analysis, distribution and dividend planning, and research for various other tax issues.
12:40-1:05 pm
Political/Election Update
Katie Webb, Esq.
Shareholder, Colodny Fass

Katie Webb, Shareholder at Colodny Fass, manages the Lobbying and Governmental Consulting Division in Tallahassee. A member of the Florida Bar, Ms. Webb has significant experience representing clients in a wide range of legislative and executive branch issues, including insurance and funding issues relating to appropriations, such as PECO funds, Capital Outlay and the Florida Education Finance Program. Before joining the Firm, she served a fellowship in the Florida House of Representatives' Insurance Committee, working in the areas of legislative drafting and bill analysis.
1:05-1:30 pm
Economic Update
Keith Richard, Ph.D
Vice President of Research, Florida Chamber Foundation

Dr. Keith Richard serves as the Vice President of Research at the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation. His team delivers research-driven insights to support a robust business community and effective state governance, ensuring Florida’s diverse and sustainable economic growth. Keith oversees various research projects that support the Chamber’s 2030 Blueprint Goals, leads analyses to track economic trends, and serves as a liaison to the business community to translate data into actionable strategies that drive economic development and innovation.
In his previous role, Keith served as the Vice Chancellor of Workforce Innovation for the Florida Department of Education and was the Education Commissioner’s designee as the agency’s Economic Development Liaison.
1:30-2:20 pm
Actuarial/Solvency Update
Arthur Randolph, II, FCAS, MAAA, CPCU, ARE, ARM
Principal and Consulting Actuary, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.

Art has been in the insurance industry since 1998 and has been consulting since 2001. His consulting career has focused on medical professional liability (MPL), homeowners, commercial property, workers' compensation (WC), commercial and personal automobile, general liability, commercial multiple peril and title exposures.
Art provides actuarial consulting services to property and casualty (re)insurers, self-insured entities, risk retention groups and captive insurers. His core services include reserving, ratemaking, risk transfer testing, funding allocations, and developing experience rating plans.
Art serves as appointed actuary and/or loss reserve specialist for numerous (re)insurance carriers, captive insurance companies and self-insured entities. He advises numerous self-insured entities and (re)insurance companies on matters related to financial reporting of unpaid claim liabilities, routinely presenting to boards of directors and executive committees charged with financial reporting.
Art performs rate level reviews for a variety of coverages, including preparing and submitting filings and responding to insurance department inquiries. He establishes proper funding allocations among members of risk sharing groups, and conducts valuation analyses of merger and acquisition targets. Art also performs alternative risk financing feasibility studies and retention optimization studies, including financial performance modeling, as well as classification relativity studies to ensure price equity between classes and overall rate level adequacy.
In addition, he develops experience rating plans for MPL and WC (re)insurers, including post-implementation parameter testing. Art also assists (re)insurance companies with new product development and expansion into new territories, states and risk classes.
1:30-2:20 pm
Actuarial/Solvency Update
Christopher J. Schubert, FCAS, MAAA
Senior Consulting Actuary, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.

Chris has considerable experience in assignments involving loss reserving, rate filings, risk classification reviews, funding studies, loss cost projections, captive feasibility studies, risk transfer studies, captive application reviews and financial examinations. He has focused on analyses involving homeowners and dwelling fire exposures, as well as medical professional liability, lawyers professional liability, workers’ compensation, commercial property, commercial and personal automobile, and title exposures, among others.
Prior to consulting, Chris worked for a leading primary insurance carrier, leading ratemaking studies and setting the loss and expense reserves for their personal automobile liability, motorcycle and umbrella lines of business.
Currently, Chris serves as project manager for self-insurers and traditional insurance companies, performing both interim and year-end reserve analyses. He also serves as project manager on loss reserve, ratemaking, risk transfer and funding studies for captive insurance companies, risk retention groups and self-insured entities. Chris also leads the firm’s research initiatives regarding title insurance, farm bureau insurance companies, property insurance markets (including Florida and Texas), and workers’ compensation frequency and severity trends by state.
Chris assists with preparation of Statements of Actuarial Opinion and Actuarial Opinion Summaries. He also provides consulting services to state insurance departments, including captive application reviews, loss reserve analyses and risk-focused financial examination support. In addition, Chris also brings experience in the trucking industry for alternative markets, including development of trucking insurance loss reserves, funding, retention and deductible analyses.
2:20-2:45 pm
FHCF Update
Gina Wilson
Chief Operating Officer, Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund

Gina Wilson currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF), which is administered by the State Board of Administration of Florida (SBA). She is also President of the SBA Finance Corporation, a statutorily created public benefit corporation created for the purpose of facilitating the issuance of bonds to pay reimbursements for catastrophic hurricane losses sustained in Florida. Ms. Wilson serves on the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology, which was created as a panel of experts by the Florida Legislature for the purpose of providing guidelines and standards in the review and evaluation of hurricane and flood computer models used to project losses in residential property rate filings. At the SBA, she has the additional responsibility of overseeing the Reinsurance to Assist Policyholders Program, the Florida Optional Reinsurance Assistance Program and the Insurance Capital Build-up Incentive Program.
Ms. Wilson has been a member of the FHCF since October 1996, serving as the Director of Examinations and the Senior Director of Operations and Examinations prior to becoming Chief Operating Officer. Ms. Wilson worked for the Florida Department of Insurance prior to joining the FHCF and has also worked as an auditor in the private industry. Ms. Wilson has her Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting, and the professional designations of Certified Public Accountant, Certified Public Manager, Associates in Reinsurance, and Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter.
3:15-4:05 pm
Citizens Update
Andrew Woodward, CFA, CPA
Vice President - Controller, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation

Andrew is the Vice President - Controller for Citizens and has over 20 years of financial and accounting experience within the insurance industry. His primary duties at Citizens include directing the accounting policy of the organization, oversight of financial reporting and related regulatory filings, budget, treasury and investment operations, and management of the external audit process. Prior to joining Citizens, Andrew served as an assurance services manager with a public accounting firm providing audit, advisory and consulting services to a variety of Florida‐domiciled insurance carriers primarily within the property and casualty sector. Andrew holds a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from Valdosta State University and a Master's degree in Accounting from Auburn University. Andrew is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Florida and is a CFA® Charterholder.
4:05-4:55 pm
Industry Update - Academic/Risk
Charles Nyce, Ph.D.
Department Chair and Dr. William T. Hold Associate Professor of Risk Management & Insurance

Charles Nyce is the Dr. William T. Hold Professor of Risk Management and Insurance and department chair of the RMI program at Florida State University (FSU). He has been at FSU since 2009 when he joined as the Associate Director of the Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center.
His main research areas are catastrophic risk pricing/financing and traffic safety/auto insurance. He joined the Center in 2009 after serving as Senior Director of Knowledge Resources for the American Institute for CPCU. He has authored numerous articles on a variety of risk management and insurance topics, including the relationship between insurance premiums and housing values, mitigation, demand for insurance, distracted driving, and catastrophic risk financing. He has his PhD from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has taught risk management and insurance at LaSalle University, the University of Hartford, and the University of Georgia.
4:55-5:00 pm
Wrap-Up
Brandon Mott, CPA
Shareholder, Assurance Services, Thomas Howell Ferguson P.A. CPAs

Since 2007, Brandon has been working with auditing insurance, governmental, not-for-profit, and commercial entities, as well as employee benefit plans. Brandon has extensive experience providing assurance and consulting services to insurance companies and related entities. A graduate of Carson-Newman College with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, Brandon has specific experience documenting the major transaction cycles for insurance companies, assessing control risk, and design and implementation of the control tests of the premiums, claims, reinsurance, and treasury transaction cycles.
Brandon also has experience related to inventory tracking, observation, and reconciliation. He has provided a range of services which include financial statement audits, internal control studies, agreed-upon procedures, reviews, and compilations. His responsibilities as an auditor consist of planning, fieldwork, and report preparation in the areas of financial and compliance audits.
Thursday
8:15-8:25 am
Welcome and Introductions
Catherine Stout, CPA
Director, Assurance Services, Thomas Howell Ferguson P.A. CPAs

Catherine began working in public accounting when she joined Thomas Howell Ferguson in January 2015. Her experience in public accounting includes providing assurance and accounting services. Her industries served include corporate, governmental, insurance, and not-for-profit organizations. The majority of Catherine’s career has been concentrated on serving the insurance and governmental industries. Her responsibilities consist of engagement planning, performance of fieldwork, internal control testing, and assistance with report preparation.
Catherine has experience in auditing insurance organizations, providing financial statement and compliance audits in accordance with auditing standards, audits of statutory financial statements, reinsurance accounting, reviews, compilations, designing and implementing control tests for insurance companies, compiling quarterly and annual financial statements under a statutory accounting basis, internal control evaluation and analysis, agreed-upon procedures, consulting, technical research and documentation of accounting standards, and performing SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 engagements.
8:25-9:15 am
Legislative/Regulatory Update
Wes Strickland, Esq.
Founder, Strickland Law

Wes Strickland serves as outside counsel to the Florida Property & Casualty Association. Mr. Strickland is the founder of Strickland Law, PLLC, where his practice focuses on insurance regulatory and corporate transactional matters.
With over twenty-five years of experience handling insurance regulatory law and complex corporate transactions, Mr. Strickland provides counsel to both domestic and international insurers and reinsurers, managing general agencies, insurance producers, insurance holding companies and their investors. Mr. Strickland routinely counsels clients regarding a wide array of insurance regulatory matters, including formation and startup of new insurance entities, multi-state licensing and compliance, insurance holding company act compliance, affiliated transactions, and market conduct and financial examinations.
A member of The Florida Bar, Mr. Strickland is a graduate of Florida State University College of Law and Florida State University.
9:15-10:05 am
Auto Update
Arthur Randolph II, FCAS, MAAA, CPCU, ARM, ARE
Principal and Consulting Actuary, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.

Art has been in the insurance industry since 1998 and has been consulting since 2001. His consulting career has focused on medical professional liability (MPL), homeowners, commercial property, workers' compensation (WC), commercial and personal automobile, general liability, commercial multiple peril and title exposures.
Art provides actuarial consulting services to property and casualty (re)insurers, self-insured entities, risk retention groups and captive insurers. His core services include reserving, ratemaking, risk transfer testing, funding allocations, and developing experience rating plans.
Art serves as appointed actuary and/or loss reserve specialist for numerous (re)insurance carriers, captive insurance companies and self-insured entities. He advises numerous self-insured entities and (re)insurance companies on matters related to financial reporting of unpaid claim liabilities, routinely presenting to boards of directors and executive committees charged with financial reporting.
Art performs rate level reviews for a variety of coverages, including preparing and submitting filings and responding to insurance department inquiries. He establishes proper funding allocations among members of risk sharing groups, and conducts valuation analyses of merger and acquisition targets. Art also performs alternative risk financing feasibility studies and retention optimization studies, including financial performance modeling, as well as classification relativity studies to ensure price equity between classes and overall rate level adequacy.
In addition, he develops experience rating plans for MPL and WC (re)insurers, including post-implementation parameter testing. Art also assists (re)insurance companies with new product development and expansion into new territories, states and risk classes.
9:15-10:05 am
Auto Update
Christopher J. Schubert, FCAS, MAAA
Senior Consulting Actuary, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.
Chris has considerable experience in assignments involving loss reserving, rate filings, risk classification reviews, funding studies, loss cost projections, captive feasibility studies, risk transfer studies, captive application reviews and financial examinations. He has focused on analyses involving homeowners and dwelling fire exposures, as well as medical professional liability, lawyers professional liability, workers’ compensation, commercial property, commercial and personal automobile, and title exposures, among others.
Prior to consulting, Chris worked for a leading primary insurance carrier, leading ratemaking studies and setting the loss and expense reserves for their personal automobile liability, motorcycle and umbrella lines of business.
Currently, Chris serves as project manager for self-insurers and traditional insurance companies, performing both interim and year-end reserve analyses. He also serves as project manager on loss reserve, ratemaking, risk transfer and funding studies for captive insurance companies, risk retention groups and self-insured entities. Chris also leads the firm’s research initiatives regarding title insurance, farm bureau insurance companies, property insurance markets (including Florida and Texas), and workers’ compensation frequency and severity trends by state.
Chris assists with preparation of Statements of Actuarial Opinion and Actuarial Opinion Summaries. He also provides consulting services to state insurance departments, including captive application reviews, loss reserve analyses and risk-focused financial examination support. In addition, Chris also brings experience in the trucking industry for alternative markets, including development of trucking insurance loss reserves, funding, retention and deductible analyses.
10:30-11:20 am
Reinsurance Update
Adam Schwebach
Executive Vice President, Gallagher Re

Adam is an Executive Vice President and Branch Manager of Gallagher Re’s Tampa office. He is responsible for servicing clients and production efforts in the southeast and has extensive experience working with Florida property insurance companies with a secondary focus on the InsurTech space.
He began his career with Benfield Blanch in 2004 as a servicing broker on the medical and legal professional liability team. In 2006, Adam joined Collins and relocated to Florida in early 2007 to focus on the Florida property insurance market. Collins was acquired by Guy Carpenter in 2009 and Adam joined Willis Re in late 2017, which became Gallagher Re at the end of 2021. He holds a bachelors of science in economics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the Associate of Reinsurance (ARe) designation.
11:20-11:45 am
Tax Update in the Insurance Industry
Nicholas Gilpin, CPA
Director, Thomas Howell Ferguson P.A. CPAs

Since joining Thomas Howell Ferguson in 2014, Nick has been providing tax compliance and consulting services for a large variety of Thomas Howell Ferguson’s diverse clients.
Having a broad foundation in various fields, Nick’s primary focus and professional development has been concentrated on Thomas Howell Ferguson’s large corporate clients, predominantly within the insurance industry. Specifically, Nick has experience in federal and multi-state tax return compliance, premium and excise tax return compliance, preparing income tax provisions on the statutory basis of accounting, preparing consolidated income tax provisions on the GAAP basis of accounting, and providing tax representation to both federal and state examiners.
11:45 am-12:10 pm
STAT & GAAP Update
Catherine Stout, CPA
Director, Assurance Services, Thomas Howell Ferguson P.A. CPAs

Catherine began working in public accounting when she joined Thomas Howell Ferguson in January 2015. Her experience in public accounting includes providing assurance and accounting services. Her industries served include corporate, governmental, insurance, and not-for-profit organizations. The majority of Catherine’s career has been concentrated on serving the insurance and governmental industries. Her responsibilities consist of engagement planning, performance of fieldwork, internal control testing, and assistance with report preparation.
Catherine has experience in auditing insurance organizations, providing financial statement and compliance audits in accordance with auditing standards, audits of statutory financial statements, reinsurance accounting, reviews, compilations, designing and implementing control tests for insurance companies, compiling quarterly and annual financial statements under a statutory accounting basis, internal control evaluation and analysis, agreed-upon procedures, consulting, technical research and documentation of accounting standards, and performing SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 engagements.
12:10-12:15 pm
Wrap-Up
Christopher Howell, CPA, CIA, CRMA, CGMA
Shareholder, Assurance Services, Thomas Howell Ferguson P.A. CPAs

Christopher Howell is a CPA specializing in the insurance industry. In addition, he is one of the leaders of the firm’s insurance practice.
Since 2000, Chris has been providing accounting, auditing, reporting, and consulting services to clients primarily in the insurance industry. His services provided include planning, supervising, and directing multiple audits of insurance companies, their affiliates, and parent companies. In addition, he has provided customized services including internal control advisory services and risk assessments in data privacy. He has also provided services in vendor management and underwriting.
Chris is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Task Force Panel of Experts. This panel helps resolve accounting and reporting issues for insurance entities. The panel also helps review revisions to AICPA Accounting and Auditing Guides.
Chris was previously Vice President and Controller for a start-up multi-line insurance group. There he designed and implemented all accounting and financial reporting mechanisms to facilitate decision-making and comply with financial and regulatory reporting requirements.
In addition to being a CPA, Chris has earned the designation of Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA) from the Institute of Internal Auditors. He has also earned the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation from the AICPA. Chris has also spoken on Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).
*Time slots, speakers, and topics subject to change.
For more information or to become a sponsor please contact:
Becca Gilbert
bgilbert@thf-cpa.com
850.668.8100
Net proceeds from the forum are donated to:
Florida State University, College of Business, Dr. William T. Hold/The National Alliance Program in Risk Management & Insurance, Center for Risk Management Education & Research