PEKIN INSURANCE
Amy Bingham joined Pekin Insurance three and a half years ago after spending over 20 years with a large US carrier. Her mandate was clear: help Pekin grow and transform through modernised technology capabilities. Little did she know that her technology strategy would be key to helping her new company navigate the greatest period of intense operational and financial strain since its founding in 1921.
It wasn’ t just Pekin, though. In 2023, the insurance sector at large was facing unprecedented challenges, with climate-related risks and macroeconomic pressures dovetailing to create a perfect storm. Guy Carpenter, a global risk and reinsurance specialist, reported 28 separate billion-dollar disaster events in the US – among the highest on record.
For Pekin Insurance, the primary threat came from a series of severe convective storms concentrated in the centre of the US. These thunderstorms, often accompanied by high winds and hail, destroyed cars, homes and commercial properties indiscriminately. Inflation and rising replacement costs compounded the financial damage.“ Our biggest impact is typically severe thunderstorms, primarily those that have hail damage coupled with very high wind impacts,” Amy reveals.
The severity of the crisis extended beyond individual companies. AM Best, the American credit rating agency focusing on insurance, downgraded the entire personal lines industry outlook from stable to negative.
“ In a one-year time span, we went from having the worst loss year to the most profitable in almost two decades”
AMY BINGHAM, CIO, VICE PRESIDENT, PEKIN INSURANCE
However, Pekin managed to maintain its A-minus excellent rating, providing a crucial foundation for its recovery efforts going forward.
How Pekin Insurance bounced back By the second quarter of 2023, Pekin’ s leadership team knew they needed to take some swift action, implementing a series of sweeping measures to address the mounting losses and growing financial instability.
The firm temporarily halted all new business across personal lines for home and vehicle insurance – a policy which remained in place for an entire year. Pekin also decided to remove itself from geographical markets that it viewed as particularly high-risk, exiting all personal lines in Iowa while maintaining commercial lines and life operations.
The team also withdrew themselves from several high-risk product segments, ended relationships with unprofitable agencies and made the difficult decision
70 September 2025