JR

Julie Rochman

Things Julie Says on Podcasts

“The whole house blew out the back door of the test chamber. It was literally in a pile in a field.” — Julie Rochman, Planet Money “Antitrust law is at the center of all things property casualty insurance. All meetings start with what I call the antitrust invocation. Before anybody says anything, there's a lawyer from outside who says we are forbidden to talk about company operations and business practices. If anybody gets anywhere close to that line, we will stop the conversation immediately. Occasionally you will see a whole bunch of people stand up around a table and go, ah, no!” — Julie Rochman, Planet Money “Property casualty insurance is the oxygen of commerce. We live in an entrepreneurial economy, and the whole basis of an entrepreneurial economy is risk-taking, and you have to lay off or spread risk. No one person can handle all of the financial and physical risks involved in most businesses.” — Julie Rochman, Planet Money

Where to Find Them

Julie Rochman has been a guest on Planet Money .

Recently: “Inside the insurance industry’s destruction lab” on Planet Money (November 2026).

What They Said

“The whole house blew out the back door of the test chamber. It was literally in a pile in a field.” — Julie Rochman, Planet Money

Rochman recalls the lab's first demonstration in 2010, when two houses faced simulated hurricane winds. The house built to standard code blew apart while the fortified one survived.

Planet Money · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →
Planet Money Around 19:30 into the episode
Speaker 4

It is.

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

…standard code and one was built with extra fortifications. They then programmed the giant wall of fans to reproduce the wind patterns of a hurricane. And when they turned it on, something unexpected happened to the unfortified house. You can actually still see this in a video they took at the time.

Speaker 4

The whole house blew out the back door of the test chamber. It was literally in a pile, you know, like in a field in the pile.

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

Julie and the IBHS scientists hadn't expected the house to completely blow away, but they still were able. learn how small differences in construction could lead to vastly different outcomes. The house that survived, it had been built with fortifications that cost less than 5% more than the house…

Speaker 4

Antitrust law is at the center of all things property casualty insurance. And all meetings start with what I call the antitrust invocation, where, you know, before anybody says anything, there's a lawyer or somebody acting as the antitrust counsel from outside. They will specifically say at the…

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

no, no, the floor is lava. Yes,

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Antitrust law is at the center of all things property casualty insurance. All meetings start with what I call the antitrust invocation. Before anybody says anything, there's a lawyer from outside who says we are forbidden to talk about company operations and business practices. If anybody gets anywhere close to that line, we will stop the conversation immediately. Occasionally you will see a whole bunch of people stand up around a table and go, ah, no!” — Julie Rochman, Planet Money

The host asked how antitrust law hangs over a lab funded jointly by rival insurers. Rochman describes the legal ritual that lets competitors share research without colluding.

Planet Money · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →
Planet Money Around 20:14 into the episode
Speaker 4

The whole house blew out the back door of the test chamber. It was literally in a pile, you know, like in a field in the pile.

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

…of legal tightrope. Because under U.S. antitrust law, which is meant to promote competition, competitors are strictly forbidden from coordinating on things like their pricing strategies or market segmentation because of the risk of collusion. How does the specter of antitrust law hang over this?

Speaker 4

Antitrust law is at the center of all things property casualty insurance. And all meetings start with what I call the antitrust invocation, where, you know, before anybody says anything, there's a lawyer or somebody acting as the antitrust counsel from outside. They will specifically say at the start of every meeting, we are forbidden to talk about, you know, company operations and business practices. If anybody gets anywhere close to that line, we will stop the conversation immediately. And fortunately, I haven't seen a lot of people stopping those conversations over 40 years, but occasionally you will see a whole bunch of people stand up around a table and go, ah,

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

no, no, the floor is lava. Yes,

Speaker 4

the floor is lava.

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

Now, it's true that the research IBHS does provides all these companies with a common body of knowledge they can use to tweak their business models, but each of them is also creating super secret formulas from their own specialized data sets to try to determine whether to offer coverage and how…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Property casualty insurance is the oxygen of commerce. We live in an entrepreneurial economy, and the whole basis of an entrepreneurial economy is risk-taking, and you have to lay off or spread risk. No one person can handle all of the financial and physical risks involved in most businesses.” — Julie Rochman, Planet Money

Rochman, former head of the insurance-funded research group behind a disaster-testing lab, explains why she was drawn to property and casualty insurance. It is her short case for why insurance underpins the economy.

Planet Money · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →
Planet Money Around 09:12 into the episode
Speaker 4

so i'm an insurance geek i always tell people i'm bilingual i speak insurance and i speak english

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

…household her dad was an insurance broker and after grad school she moved to dc and ended up falling into the family business julie says she was drawn in particular to the property casualty part of the insurance industry which covers things like commercial and residential property and car insurance

Speaker 4

property casualty insurance is the oxygen of commerce right we live in an entrepreneurial economy the whole basis of an entrepreneurial economy is risk-taking and you have to lay off or spread risk no one person can handle all of the financial and physical risks involved in most businesses the

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

whole modern global economy couldn't have even gotten started without the idea of pooling risk julie explains that is when early corporations like the east india company or hudson's bay company started undertaking these expensive super risky colonial expeditions across the sea investors would front…

Speaker 4

that's what lloyds of london was it was a coffee house and so coffeehouses where rich people gathered became marketplaces where somebody would say oh your ship is leaving tomorrow um what's on it oh it's gold it's going to the new world to pay for the tobacco and sugar that's coming back oh okay…

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

the u.s julie explains the modern insurance industry developed around a different kind of risk

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Money & Markets