Bill Panning

Bill heads the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) practice at Willis Re, where he advises insurers and other financial firms on issues pertaining to ERM.  Current and past ERM clients include Progressive Corporation and United Grain Growers (now Agricore United), where his consulting team headed a project that became the subject of case studies at the Harvard Business School and the University of South Carolina.  In April 2006 Bill became the first recipient of the ERM Research Excellence Award, established by the Actuarial Foundation to recognize excellence in contributions to the growing body of knowledge and research in ERM, for his paper on Managing the Invisible: Measuring Risk, Managing Capital, Maximizing Value.  In November 2006 he was awarded the Charles A. Hachemeister prize by the Casualty Actuarial Society for his paper on Estimating Loss Reserve Uncertainty.  Three of his papers have been selected by the Casualty Actuarial Society for their examination syllabus, two have been selected by the Society of Actuaries, and another won a Graham & Dodd Award of Excellence as one the best articles published in the Financial Analysts Journal. 

After teaching at the Wharton School and other universities, Bill held positions as the principal property-casualty investment strategist at Aetna, as Director of Asset-Liability Management and Director of Investment Risk Management at The Hartford, as Senior Portfolio Manager (of $4 billion) and head of portfolio analytics at an investment firm, as Chief Operating Officer of Willis’ Advanced Risk Management Services division, and as Chief Investment Officer and co-President at Integrity Life.  After the sale of that firm he joined Willis Re in March 2000 to help build its analytical capabilities.  Bill holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from the University of Kansas.

In May 2007 the Reinsurance Association of America (RAA) and the Insurance Education Institute (IEI) presented Bill with their Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to educating insurance professionals and improving the way in which risk is measured, understood, and managed.  He has also been selected by his peers as a Charter Member of Risk Who’s Who.