Major League Baseball insurer to headline 2025 Simon Lecture
John Scotti, managing director at the insurance brokerage and consulting firm NFP, will be the keynote speaker at the 2025 Ronald H. and Mary E. Simon Lecture on Friday, Nov. 7, at the Graduate East Lansing hotel. The event is hosted by the Michigan State University Actuarial Science Program.
The theme for the lecture is the intersection between insurance, sports and analytics. Scotti’s talk is titled “How I Built a Business That Handles the Majority of Life, Accident and Health Insurance for Major League Baseball.”
Scotti will present on his decades of experience in the insurance industry, including providing unique insurance solutions and employee benefit programs to Major League Baseball (MLB) and Minor League Baseball (MiLB) and their affiliates. He is the founder of Team Scotti, a national insurance broker that was acquired by NFP, an Aon company, in 2019. Team Scotti played a critical risk management role for MLB, including securing high-limit disability insurance for key players, written on behalf of teams, as well as servicing their group health benefit needs.
“On behalf of Ron and Mary Simon, I’m pleased to announce John Scotti as the 2025 Simon lecturer,” said Albert Cohen, director of the actuarial science program at MSU. “John’s lecture will be of interest to those in insurance, sports analytics, data science, kinesiology and journalism. These are some of the areas that overlap with insuring athletes, teams and events.”
The 2025 Simon Lecture will also feature a presentation from Joey Larabee, an MSU student in the Master of Science degree program in Data Science. Larabee, from Eden Prairie, Minn., received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Colorado College in 2020 and served as a sports analytics intern with Tokio Marine HCC in Houston, Texas, as part of the organization’s 2025 summer internship program.
The 2025 Simon Lecture is sponsored by Auto Owners Insurance. The event will be held in the Shadows Ballroom at the Graduate East Lansing with the program scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. There is no cost to attend the event; however, registration is required.
About the Simon Lecture
The Ronald H. and Mary E. Simon Lecture is an annual event to enrich Michigan State University’s Actuarial Science Program by bringing in industry leaders and academic experts to discuss topics related to actuarial science, risk management, and finance. The event, which began in 2012, is supported by the Simon family, prominent supporters of the MSU Actuarial Science Program.
If you are interested in donating and sponsoring future editions of the Simon Lecture, please contact Jessie Pung, senior director of development for the MSU College of Natural Science, at pungjes1@msu.edu. For general questions, please contact Alyssa Garber at cappiel6@msu.edu.
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