Underwriting Update from Principal

With the departure of chief underwriter and AVP Neal Halder, I am pleased to announce that effective immediately our interim chief underwriter will be Nate Berns, a familiar face who is known to many of you as a great business partner in handling many of your large case submissions. Nate is a 19-year Principal^® veteran and has worked on the new business and underwriting team his entire career. He has been closely involved with a number of key strategic initiatives during his time on the team, including the rollout of accelerated underwriting, managing reinsurance relationships, and more recently working to maximize our digital capabilities in the collection of underwriting information to drive decision-making. Nate is a very capable leader and underwriting expert, and his understanding of our process, staff and talent from the inside and out, makes him the ideal candidate. 

I also would like to take a moment to remind everyone about our Business Solutions Enhanced Underwriting (BSEU) program and the opportunity that we have to leverage digital health data for higher face amount policies. We’re seeing great interest and I encourage you to make it available to your business customers.

I look forward to working with Nate and others on the underwriting team more in depth as we take this opportunity to explore the best long-term solution for our organization going forward.  

Thanks,

Nate Schelhaas
SVP—Head of Life Protection Solutions
Principal Financial Group