Chris Parrillo spent the first four years of his career as a Certified Nursery and Landscape Professional, but is now in his seventh year in the insurance industry. He started working in insurance in 2014 at AIG as an Environmental Underwriting Analyst, and since then he has continually evolved and strengthened his underwriting expertise. Over the last six years, he has developed property & casualty expertise in small and middle market commercial insurance.
In his most recent position, he served as Product Innovator at Blackboard Insurance, where he spearheaded the strategy development and execution for Commercial Auto. In that role, he dedicated extensive focus to establishing underwriting rules and alerts to trigger underwriting actions in the proprietary application. Now, at Joyn Insurance, he ensures that the company’s insurance products use consistent digital rules and leading-edge third-party data in the underwriting process.
This is critical, as Joyn’s underwriting and submission processes have been engineered specifically to take what brokers and their customers loathed about the insurance process and removing these pain points. For example, because Joyn’s intake engine digitizes documents and external data, using technology to extract information regardless of the format in which it’s submitted, Joyn can respond to brokers within 48 hours to indicate if the submission is in progress or declined.
In addition to a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Planning and Design from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Chris also has a Master of Engineering degree from Clemson University. He is a Certified Risk Manager and holds certificates in System Analytics and Risk Engineering.
What do you do at Joyn Insurance?
As Joyn’s Digital Underwriting & Loss Control Lead, I’m continuously seeking new ways to augment the underwriting process with leading edge data and insights. These data points provide greater transparency to Joyn’s brokers and insureds. They also allow Joyn to significantly reduce the amount of time needed to underwrite an account by eliminating inefficiencies. These are both key value propositions for Joyn and among the many ways that Joyn stands out from its competition.
I also have a deep background in both the insurance and contracting industries, which I use to help businesses increase their resilience and reduce their losses.
Why did you choose to work at Joyn?
I spent two and a half years building another company, Blackboard Insurance, from the ground up and in that short time, I saw firsthand how we were able to change the industry for the better. We integrated a level of broker support that you won’t find anywhere else; that supported my decision to be part of Joyn’s founding team and continue to change the industry.
How do you stay current on the state of the insurance industry?
I try to spend at least two hours every week on learning. Some weeks that means listening to InsurTech-related webinars. Other weeks it is pursuing continuing education credits. Both of those help me stay up to date on insurance trends and the InsurTech industry.
There are some really great news services as well, both free and paid, that I enjoy reading to find out what some of the other players in the space are doing. Many companies are doing great things to evolve and develop new products that meet the demands of their customers, so those newsletters really help me stay current.
Unrelated to the insurance industry, I really like following technology news to stay up to date on the latest releases. Then I start thinking about how it can be adapted and used to innovate in insurance. For example, Internet of Things (IoT) devices were not specifically developed for the insurance industry, but many insurance companies have started using them to reduce their exposures, provide additional value, and give peace of mind to their customers.
I’m really always looking for ways to improve myself and the organization so we can stay competitive in the marketplace. We have tight deadlines we have to meet like any organization with a startup mentality, but at the same time one of Joyn’s goals as a company is to stay at the bleeding edge of the industry and build the best products and services.
What do you do for fun outside of work?
I love detailing cars or working on my property with my wife, two young kids, and two dogs. My passion for cars started early in life and it has driven a special interest in auto insurance and telematics. I also love technology, which started at a young age when the first iPod was released. People know that I usually have the most recent technology so they come to me for assistance with technology purchases. And of course, as I mentioned, that passion does spill over into my work since it helps me continually push the limits of insurance and integrate the newest technology in the underwriting process.
