HOLOMUA Volume 26 Issue 9

Lance Kawano | SVP, FiRMS President

Hawaii is facing significant headwinds due to federal funding cuts, inflation driving up the cost of basic necessities, and post-wildfire strain to our community. FICOH is helping our community in two significant ways. First, FICOH made two Low Income Housing Tax Credit Investments to fund two low income housing projects on Maui (one in Lahaina already occupied, and one in Kihei). These projects will provide much needed low income rental apartment units to the local community. In addition, FICOH’s Foundation donates $300,000 to $500,000 per year to help numerous Hawaii nonprofit organizations. Given the current situation, our Foundation is more focused on donating to non-profits that will help families survive through this tough time by providing basic needs such as food, housing, mental health, and financial stability.

Todd Yamanaka | VP, Personal Lines & Customer Service

Glad we dodged Kiko! Keep knocking on wood everyone… Thank you to all the departments that helped with the PL insurance-to-value project as all internal work has been completed for our final month of October. The timing is perfect since we’re almost ready to start evaluating a new aerial roof scoring application. If the AI-based scoring model proves dependable, this will become a new tool to better underwrite our single family dwellings. We also bid a fond Aloha to our remote underwriter, Joanna Miller who has moved to a national insurer with offices across the mainland. With this change, a new on-island underwriter will be joining our team next week. CUW Support achieved a new milestone at the beginning of the month with the introduction of selected AOAO submissions to the direct release lines of business! Thanks to the team for working closely with CUW on this strategic expansion.

Kevin Kurosu | VP, Commercial Underwriting

We’ve lost a few large property renewals this year because of the competition from the surplus market. Despite this, we are still well on track to beat the commercial plan this year. The commercial team continues to make strong progress with our insurance-to-value and small business initiatives. We are excited to welcome Kylie Marston to the CUW team! She has been quickly learning all things FICOH and CUW and has already begun jumping in to help with commercial renewals! Lastly, we currently have openings in Commercial Underwriting and Risk & Safety Management. The management team has been actively interviewing candidates to fill these roles. Thank you to the entire team for keeping things moving forward. Your efforts help us to continue delivering great service to our agency partners and insureds!

Cnt’d on next page