If, like me, you kept a weather eye on the Olympics while working Monday, you probably saw occasional images of an unlikely figure leaning back in a chair, looking like he was trying to take a nap amid the chaos around him. That was Stephen Nedoroscik, a member of the U.S. men's gymnastics team, who was readying himself for about 20 seconds of supremely important effort.
His four teammates were going to perform the first 17 routines that were part of the team competition. Then they were going to turn to Nedoroscik, the only American to ever win a world championship on the pommel horse, and ask him to bring them home on his specialty. At stake: the team's first Olympic medal in 16 years.
He delivered. Big time. His teammates knew it, too, long before they saw the score that put them well ahead of the fourth place team. They were jumping up and down even as he began his dismount, and they mobbed him as soon as they could get to him.
Social media mobbed him, too. My daughters tell me that for a while their various feeds were 80% about Nedoroscik.
How did Nedoroscik even get the change to be the hero? The 25-year-old began to specialize in the pommel horse way back in high school, when he found he wasn't progressing in the other events. That specialization is the only way he could have made an Olympic team.
And what does his success have to do with insurance? More than you might think. I'll explain.
Nedoroscik is a quirky fellow... some of it by necessity: He has a disease that renders his eyes permanently dilated. Glasses let him deal with day-to-day life, but on the pommel horse he has to operate by feel. He's also an amiable nerd, an electrical engineering major who solves the Rubik's Cube in less than 10 seconds.
But his decade of specialization has parallels in insurance, where many MGAs and excess and surplus carriers have thrived in recent years. My theory is that insurers will be able to specialize more and more because we're gathering better and better data, letting us become far more precise than was possible with traditional risk pools.
If you're intrigued by the possibilities, I commend to your attention the interview I did recently with my longtime friend and colleague Andrew Robinson, the CEO of Skyward Specialty, which has been extremely successful with a "rule your niche" strategy. (In case that interview doesn't set your heart racing, here is a link to Nedoroscik's medal-clinching routine.)
Not that specialization is easy. In fact, Andrew predicts a shakeout in specialty lines because he sees a lot of junk as well as some excellence.
The key is to start with "a peril, an industry area, a line of business or some combination of the three" that isn't awash in competition, Andrew says — like, for instance, the pommel horse, probably the least glamorous of the men's gymnastics events. And that's just the start: You then have to figure out a way to become world-class, like Nedoroscik, at understanding and serving that market.
After you figure out those issues, you can start working on your Rubik's Cube skills.
Cheers,
Paul