Recorded live at the 2026 RPM Seminar in Chicago, this episode of Almost Nowhere explores a question that sits at the center of modern actuarial practice: what does pricing sophistication actually mean?

While many North American conversations focus on modeling techniques, filing requirements, and implementation challenges, some international markets have pushed much further into demand modeling, elasticity, customer lifetime value, experimentation, and real-time deployment. To understand what that looks like in practice, Alicia Burke and Jeffrey Durham sit down with pricing actuary Piotr Lebiedz, whose experience spans some of Europe's most competitive insurance markets.

The discussion covers:

• Why competition and regulation shape pricing innovation differently around the world
• What U.S. actuaries can learn from pricing practices in Poland and the UK
• The real strengths and limitations of GBMs versus GLMs
• How demand modeling and elasticity can improve business decisions without crossing regulatory lines
• Why deployment speed may matter more than model complexity
• The debate around customer lifetime value and whether insurers can truly predict it
• How AI and agentic workflows could reshape pricing teams in the years ahead

Along the way, Piotr challenges the idea that sophistication is simply about building more complex models. Instead, he argues that the most advanced organizations focus on people, processes, governance, and speed—using the right tools for the right problems rather than chasing complexity for its own sake.

For actuaries, pricing leaders, and insurance innovators, this conversation offers a rare look inside markets where pricing strategy has become a true competitive weapon.