John Romano serves as a principal in the firm’s financial services risk advisory practice, with more than 20 years of experience serving the financial services industry. He leads the insurance regulatory practice and internal audit risk advisory services for insurance organizations and provides services to financial institutions including banks and credit unions. In his role, he and his team help financial services clients and state regulators successfully address a variety of ongoing challenges and requirements. John and his team collaborate with clients to assess and improve enterprise risk management, governance, risk and controls through the integration of agile principles and methods.
John has provided services to state regulators, including in-charge and supervisory responsibilities with NAIC regulatory financial examinations, market conduct and financial analysis, consent order and holding company filing reviews. In addition, John provides training to state regulators on examination processes, enterprise risk assessments and emerging trends.
His expertise spans life insurance, property and casualty insurance, health insurance, and reinsurance, including expertise with third-party administrators, and managing general agents, and credit unions. Before joining Baker Tilly in 2008, John held financial advisory, hedge fund accounting and internal audit positions in publicly traded companies in the financial services and healthcare industries.
- Executive leader on multiple internal audit engagements for insurance entities and financial institutions, acting as chief audit executive or internal audit director in co-sourcing and outsourcing capacities
- Helped clients implement and optimize internal audit functions ensuring stakeholders and audit committee members receive value driven results and assurance from internal audit
- Served as examiner-in-charge and Supervisor conducting National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) risk-focused examinations for some of the largest national property and casualty, life and health insurance groups in the U.S. for state insurance departments
- Implemented MAR and SOX programs for various P&C, life and annuity, and health plans; also partnered with clients to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their existing processes
- Assisted clients with enterprise risk management (ERM) assessments, ERM implementation and ORSA analysis and compliance considerations
- Conducted multiple claims audits with a specific focus on workers’ compensation, medical malpractice and general liability claims
- Contracted by insurance regulator to review applications for licensure of prepaid health plans and provide recommendations for approval, including concerns on financial feasibility, capitalization or solvency
- Collaborated with client teams providing process efficiency recommendations and improvements as part of the internal audit and consulting engagements to companies across various industries
- American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
- Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA)
- Insurance Accounting & Systems Association, Inc. (IASA) mid-Atlantic chapter, vice president
- Pennsylvania Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (PAMIC)
- Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA)
- Society of Financial Examiners (SOFE)
- “Agile Auditing: An introduction and basic application methods”, Institute of Internal Auditors – Philadelphia Chapter Fall 2018 Conference
- “Internal audit: Maximizing your role in the NAIC state examination process”, AHIA National Conference, August 2018 and Baker Tilly webinar, 2017
- “Driving Value through continuous risk assessment and Agile plan delivery”, Baker Tilly webinar, 2018
- “Model Audit Rule: Diagnosing your program’s reliability and resources”, Baker Tilly webinar, 2018
- “The Model Audit Rule: Diagnosing your program’s reliability, resources and reengineering processes”, co-author
- “Internal Audit: Value Optimization for insurance organizations”, co-author
- “NAIC Examinations: Lessons Learned”, IASA National Conference, 2018
- Published in Your NY Connection Magazine and co-authored “Vendor Risk Management”
- “Enterprise Risk Management”, Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants Insurance Conference (2017)
- “Pennsylvania adopts Corporate Governance Annual Disclosure (CGAD) filing requirement: A quick guide for your journey to compliance”, co-author
- “Just outsource it! Aligning the risk management process to your organization's culture and strategy”, author
- “NAIC risk-focused examinations: Insurers, be prepared for your next examination”, author
