Solve Your Toughest Insurance Challenges with Confidence
We help carriers, distributors, and insurtech startups turn complex problems into market-ready solutions—combining actuarial insight with product, software, marketing, and operational expertise in one trusted partner.
Welcome to Problem Solving Enterprises
Every insurance organization runs into roadblocks—projects so messy or complex that they slow innovation and drain internal resources. At PSE, we call these “dirty jobs.”
For more than 30 years, we’ve stepped in when carriers, distributors, and insurtech startups face the work no one else wants to tackle—whether it’s ambitious product development, untangling legacy systems, navigating regulatory hurdles, or reviving stalled projects.
Our team blends deep actuarial and industry expertise with hands-on execution—so those tough jobs get done and your biggest ideas can move forward.
Our Services
We offer expertise in four core service areas, designed to help you overcome barriers and focus on what matters most:
Actuarial Consulting
With 40+ years of actuarial experience, we help carriers, distributors, and insurtech startups navigate complex risks, design and price innovative products, and accelerate speed-to-market.
Administrative Solutions
We streamline day-to-day operations, reduce costs, and free your team to focus on higher-value initiatives.
Software Development
From custom tools to fully integrated platforms, we build capabilities that fit your workflow and drive measurable results.
Marketing Consulting
Strategy, messaging, and precise execution to reach the right audience—full program or targeted support.
Your Edge for Innovation and Execution
We Take on the Dirty Jobs
We tackle the complex, messy, or time-consuming work—from regulatory hurdles to legacy upgrades—so your team keeps moving.
We Clear the Path for Innovation
We remove obstacles and deliver end-to-end solutions so your people can focus on growth, customers, and better products.
We Bring Decades of Proven Expertise
30+ years in insurance and 40 years of actuarial depth across strategy, operations, technology, and marketing.
We Stay Through Execution
We work alongside your team to implement, test, and refine—so the results last long after launch.
We Open Doors Across the Industry
Tap into our network of carriers, distributors, and insurtech leaders to accelerate solutions and unlock opportunities.
How We Turn Strategy into Action
Discovery
We dig into your challenges, goals, and hidden roadblocks—so we’re solving the right problem from the start.
Solution Design
We map out a practical plan that fits your timeline and resources, blending strategy and technical know-how.
Execution
We roll up our sleeves and work alongside your team to deliver—handling the tough, messy work that slows most projects down.
Ongoing Support
We stay engaged after launch, adapting as needs change and ensuring results stick.
Projects We’ve Managed
Carriers
- Innovative product design: Created and priced patented term life products with accelerated underwriting.
- Legacy block remediation: Solved complex regulatory and administrative issues for closed blocks from the 1980s–1990s.
- System conversions: Guided development of a new UL administrative system and conversion of 100,000+ policies.
- Cost-saving process redesign: Overhauled variable performance reporting—saving hundreds of thousands in admin costs for 15+ years.
- Compliance & illustrations: Supported multiple carriers with post-issue illustration and actuary requirements.
- New market entry: Designed, priced, and filed an entire life insurance product portfolio for a company new to the life market.
- Dividend scale modeling: Reverse-engineered three-factor dividend formulas to revise closed-block scales.
- Specialized workarounds: Built 7702/7702A, compensation system, and new-product processing solutions.
Distributors
- Prototype product development: Helped brokerage organizations bring new life insurance concepts to carriers.
- Worksite innovation: Partnered with a leading worksite marketer to launch patented products.
- Multi-carrier applications: Created universal applications for large direct-marketing organizations to streamline sales.
- Post-issue sales tools: Enabled administration companies to provide post-issue illustration capabilities.
Insurtech
- Carrier negotiations: Guided several start-ups through critical carrier partnerships.
- Financial modeling: Helped an underwriting vendor quantify the economic value of its offering.
- Product evaluation: Assessed unique short-term insurance products for an innovative insurtech.
- Mentorship & growth: Participated in the Society of Actuaries mentoring program for insurtech founders.
- M&A and IPO support: Evaluated products and business models for acquisitions and supported a founder through an IPO for a financial modeling platform.
- Operations & software: Managed software development and insurance operations for a mid-market RIA financial planning firm.
The Team
Chuck Ritzke, FSA, MAAA
Founder
Chuck has over 40 years of actuarial experience working in life insurance. His work has focused on product development, marketing, software development, actuarial consulting, and general problem-solving for insurance organizations. Prior to founding Problem Solving Enterprises in 1995, Chuck held various actuarial, marketing, and administration management roles at Zurich Life and Bankers Life and Casualty.
Chuck is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries and he is actively involved in committee work. Chuck is also currently on the Board of Directors of the Intercompany Marketing Group (ICMG).
Chuck attended Rockford College (B.S. Math), LSU (Math Grad Work), and University of Illinois (M.S. Math).
Doug Robbins, FSA
Consulting Actuary
Heidi Zona, ASA
Consulting Actuary
Barb Ritzke
New Business and Client Relations
Deb Howver
Compliance Analyst
Kim Schuring
Business Administration
Schedule A Call
Let’s chat about your challenges—no pressure, no obligations. Just a quick conversation to explore how we can help.
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