When a Storm Hits, the Camera Is Already Rolling. Is Your Spokesperson Ready?
Media training for insurance is specialized coaching that prepares executives and spokespeople for catastrophe response, rate questions, and regulatory scrutiny. Insurance executives face a unique media challenge: your company is most visible when customers are most distressed. Rate increases, claims denials, catastrophe response, and regulatory scrutiny all happen in public. Jess trains insurance leaders to communicate with empathy, clarity, and credibility, exactly when it matters most.
Why Insurance Communication Is High Stakes
No industry is more scrutinized in the aftermath of a crisis than insurance. After a hurricane, wildfire, or major health event, the cameras are on your executives before the damage is even assessed. Add in rate increase controversies, state regulatory hearings, and social media outrage over claims handling, and you have an environment where the wrong word in one interview can become national news.
Jess has trained executives to navigate exactly these situations, building messages that hold up under aggressive questioning and land credibly with policyholders, regulators, and investors at the same time.
What Insurance Executives Face in the Media
Rate Increase Scrutiny
Premium hikes attract aggressive coverage. Your executives must explain actuarial reality to reporters and consumers who want simpler answers and are looking for someone to blame.
Catastrophe Response Coverage
After a hurricane, wildfire, or flood, policyholders and journalists are watching every statement your company makes. Speed, empathy, and accuracy are all required simultaneously.
Claims Denial Stories
A single denied claim can go viral. How your spokesperson responds on camera determines whether the story ends there or escalates into a national narrative about your company's values.
State Regulatory Hearings
Public rate filings and regulatory proceedings generate media coverage. Your testimony shapes public perception whether or not reporters are in the room.
What Jess Trains You to Do
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Lead with Empathy
Communicate genuine concern for policyholders in crisis moments without creating legal exposure or undermining your claims position.
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Explain Complex Pricing
Turn actuarial and risk data into accessible language that satisfies journalists and builds understanding with consumers and regulators.
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Manage Crisis Narratives
Control the story in the critical first hours after a catastrophe or controversy, rather than playing defense against the framing someone else set.
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Build Spokesperson Depth
Train your full communications team, regional VPs, claims directors, regulatory affairs officers, so every spokesperson is ready when called.
"Jess gave me easy to use strategies to change my appearance. I realized how body language was influencing my message."
Michael S. Jensen, President, AIG Europe
Common Insurance Media Scenarios We Prepare For
- Post-Catastrophe Press Conference: A major hurricane makes landfall and your company insures thousands of affected homeowners. Your CEO steps up to a microphone 12 hours later. What do you say, and what do you absolutely not say?
- Rate Increase Announcement: You're raising premiums 18% in a key market. A local news team wants a quote. Your spokesperson needs to explain the math while demonstrating you understand what this means for families.
- Claims Denial Viral Story: A policyholder's denied claim video has two million views by morning. Your communications team needs to respond in a way that doesn't make the story worse while protecting the company's legal position.
- State Insurance Commissioner Hearing: You're testifying before a state regulatory body on proposed rate changes. Media coverage will follow. Every answer is on the record.
Presentation Training for Insurance Teams
Insurance leaders present constantly: to brokers and producers, to a board, to a reinsurer, to a state regulator at a rate hearing, and to their own field force in the days after a catastrophe. Media training covers the camera. Presentation training covers the room.
Jess Todtfeld trains insurance executives and client-facing teams to structure a presentation around the decision they need, explain pricing and coverage in language that does not sound defensive, and hold a skeptical room. Sessions are recorded so presenters can fix what they cannot feel while they are presenting.
The Broker and Producer Presentation
Distribution partners choose the carrier whose story they can repeat to their own clients. Presenters practice leading with the differentiator, cutting product detail to what a producer will actually use, and answering the pricing question without hedging.
The Rate Filing Hearing
A rate hearing is a presentation to a regulator with a public gallery behind you. Executives rehearse explaining an increase in plain, defensible terms, supporting assumptions under questioning, and staying composed when the room is unhappy.
The Board and Reinsurance Presentation
Boards and reinsurers commit capital based on how confidently the case is made. Leaders practice compressing loss data into a narrative and leaving room for the questions that drive the decision.
The Catastrophe Briefing and Field All-Hands
After a storm, the internal presentation to adjusters, agents, and staff sets the tone for everything policyholders hear next. Leaders practice speaking with empathy and specificity, without a script between them and the room.
Go deeper: presentation training for insurance professionals, the high stakes presentation training methodology, the full presentation training program list, or presentation training questions answered.
Insurance Media Training Questions
Can you prepare spokespeople for catastrophe and claims-response interviews?
Yes. Catastrophe response is the defining media moment for insurers, and it anchors this training. Spokespeople run recorded practice exercises set in the hours after a storm or wildfire, learning to lead with empathy, give concrete claims guidance, and avoid the defensive sound bite that goes viral.
Do you cover rate increases and regulatory hearing questions?
Yes. Executives practice explaining rate increases in plain, defensible language and rehearse testimony for state regulatory hearings. The sessions focus on answering aggressive questions about affordability and claims handling credibly, so the same message lands with regulators, policyholders, and reporters at once.
How much does insurance media training cost?
Media training typically ranges from $1,000 to $15,000 per engagement depending on group size and scope. A focused session for one spokesperson sits at the lower end, while multi-day team workshops with recorded practice sit higher. See our media training questions page for a full breakdown of what drives pricing.
Who leads the training?
Every session is led by Jess Todtfeld, founder of Success in Media. Jess spent 13 years as a television producer at NBC, ABC, and Fox, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most media interviews given in 24 hours: 112 completed, 96 officially certified. He has trained insurance executives to communicate with empathy and control when the cameras arrive.
Insurance Presentation Training Questions
Do you offer presentation training for insurance teams as well as media training?
Yes. They are separate programs and carriers often book both. Media training prepares spokespeople for reporters, catastrophe coverage, and regulatory scrutiny on camera. Presentation training prepares executives and client-facing teams for broker presentations, rate hearings, board meetings, and field briefings.
Can you train our distribution and client-facing teams, not just executives?
Yes. Group training for producers, relationship managers, and client service teams is one of the most impactful formats. Each participant presents, gets recorded, and receives individual feedback on structure, delivery, and how they handle the questions that cost deals.
Can you prepare an executive for a rate filing or regulatory hearing presentation?
Yes. Regulatory presentations are rehearsed under realistic conditions: a clock, a panel, and questions that arrive out of order. Executives practice presenting the rationale in plain language, defending assumptions without sounding evasive, and holding steady in front of a public gallery.
Case Study
Eight years keeping AIG's country presidents on message
During a recorded exercise, a senior AIG leader caught himself going off message on camera. He redid the answer with a short response followed by a pivot back to his core message. Two years later he wrote to say he had never taken the bait in a real interview since. Jess trained AIG country presidents for eight years.
Read the full case study
Let's Prepare Your Insurance Team Before the Next Crisis
The best time to train your spokespeople is before the cameras arrive. Jess builds the message frameworks and interview skills your team needs to handle any media situation with confidence.