The Voice of Insurance

Ep293 Mark Christer CEO Wakam UK: Fixated on Velocity

As regular listeners will know, the Voice of Insurance usually interviews people from the global wholesale, speciality insurance and reinsurance end of the market, insuring the type of risks that tend to have to cross borders to find the right type of coverage. Today’s podcast is a slight departure from the norm because I am talking to someone who is working in the general insurance space in the UK. But they are doing so from a wholly original wholesale and tech-enabled angle that also incorporates one of the hot trends of the past few years – embedded insurance.Mark Christer is CEO of Wakam UK, a firm that uses the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) and MGA models to go to market in niche lines of business where it can stay under the radar of the volume and scale players in the UK’s hyper-competitive market. Wakam UK is the UK subsidiary of the rebranded French insurance group which can boast an illustrious 200-year history as France’s oldest private insurer, La Parisienne.Mark came into insurance because of his work in IT and has enormous experience in the UK market He is the former managing director of personal lines for RSA in the UK, where he looked after the high-profile digital brand More Than.Given Mark’s background it is perhaps unsurprising that Wakam UK is aiming to bring technology, including AI, to speed up the insurance process and go live with new prospects within weeks rather than months. Wakam UK already had reasonable scale in its legacy form, but in its new tech-first guise seems likely to achieve substantial growth. I think regular listeners will learn a lot from Mark and find a lot in common with him. In a world of hype, here is someone with all the experience and knowledge to make the promise become reality.His enthusiasm and positive energy is infectious, so I can highly recommend a listen.LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep292 Miguel Rosa CEO Mapfre Re: Write the Client

Today’s podcast is with the CEO of a reinsurer that wrote just under $8 billion dollars of Gross premiums in 2025. Miguel Rosa runs Mapfre Re, a Global Top-20 reinsurer with a reputation for long-term strategic thinking and consistency in an often unstable market. As the reinsurance market softens, at a significantly faster rate than many reinsurers were expecting, it is fascinating to hear Miguel’s view on the prospects for profitable growth in 2026 and beyond. With 2 decades of reinsurance experience, topped off with three years in motor insurance Miguel brings an exceptionally well-rounded perspective to his role. In this podcast we look at the dynamics affecting the reinsurance market and the growth opportunities remaining within it, but we also broaden the discussion out to include more specific themes such as the opportunity in MGAs and AI, both as an aide to operational efficiency and more skilful underwriting, but also as an emerging peril in and of itself. Miguel is great company and the time will pass extremely quickly. I learned a lot and I think you will too. LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep291 Jonathan Tritton MD Burns & Wilcox Global Solutions: Seeking Harmony in the Value Chain

I really enjoyed today’s interview because it outlines what is quite an original proposition in a very competitive marketplace. Jonathan Tritton is the Managing Director of Burns & Wilcox Global Solutions, which is the London and International wholesale broking arm of the US-headquartered Kaufman Group. The group has been formed via the coming together of the Chesterfield and Lochain Patrick broking businesses.So far, so familiar, you might say – a US-led broking group with London operations is hardly a big deal. But Jonathan is a recent joiner and the pitch he makes for his new employer is compelling. As the insurance value chain becomes more technologically advanced and much more efficient at allocating the right risks to the right distribution channels and the right forms of underwriting capital, despite the headwinds of the softening market, Jonathan is very optimistic about the growth prospects for his business unit.With a good combination of, sufficient scale and resources to be in the game and an enormous amount of room to grow, Jonathan’s optimism has an authentic ring to it.In this podcast specific growth plans, the digitisation and facilitisation of the market and Jonathan’s ambitions for a Lloyd’s syndicate as well as his thoughts on AI all get a full airing.Jonathan has been on the podcast before and is a very relaxed, eloquent and energetic interviewee, so this is an episode that will fly by. LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep290 Jacqui Ferrier CEO Carbon Underwriting: Sorting Wheat from Chaff

Today’s podcast is all about catching up with a business that was last on the show five years ago.And we’ve got an awful lot of catching up to do. Back then Carbon Underwriting was on the show because it was one of the first crop of Syndicates in a Box at Lloyd’s, laying out interesting ideas on how to modernise and optimise the underwriting of delegated authority business.Now it has matured into a carrier with GWP in the hundreds of millions that has built its own proprietary core systems and developed a broad and diverse capital ecosystem to support its underwriting. The last five years have also been transformative for the delegated underwriting sector, with explosive growth combining with strong results. That’s why this interview with Carbon CEO Jacqui Ferrier is so interesting. As the market turns and a potential reckoning may lie in wait for the unwary or unprepared, Jacqui is a rare domain expert with her feet firmly on the ground and her eyes fixed on detailed underwriting data.The secrets of outperformance in delegated underwriting are all discussed here in the open for anyone who cares to listen. Fast ingestion of data, swift analysis and feedback, as well as absolute transparency with all stakeholders are key featuresJacqui can afford to be so open and candid about what constitutes Carbon’s edge, in part I think because what she and her team have managed to build is the sort of thing that is easy to talk about in theory but extremely hard to execute in practice.Jacqui is great company and there is a huge amount of underwriting experience and expertise packed into the next 45 minutes. What’s more, the possible future strategic directions for Carbon as it continues to scale are a revelation. NOTES & LINKSAPI stands for Application Programming InterfaceHere is a link to the first Episode I did with Carbon, almost six years ago:https://www.thevoiceofinsurance.com/podcast/episode/3878ea54/ep-42-coverholders-in-a-box-stephen-card-of-carbon-underwritingWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep289 The Rt Hon. The Lady Mayor, Dame Susan Langley, DBE: Speaking Truth to Power

Today’s podcast is a first for the Voice of Insurance as this is the first time I have had an interview with a sitting Lady Mayor of London. Sue Langley or, the Right Honourable, the Lady Mayor, Dame Susan Langley, DBE, to give her her full and formal title, has worked in the insurance industry for 28 years, with senior roles at Hiscox, within the Corporation of Lloyd’s and latterly as Chair of the board of Gallagher UK.I have known her for over 20 of those years and throughout that time she has always been strong, direct, completely straightforward and down to earth. So that’s why it was such a pleasure to meet her in her incredibly high-profile, but often misunderstood 800-year-old role.Many of us might go our whole careers working in the City of London but remaining almost wholly ignorant of the workings of some of its most longstanding institutions.So our talk demystifies what the Lord or Lady Mayor position means in 2026 and reveals how Sue discovered the path to becoming its 697th incumbent.Ostensibly an apolitical role, nonetheless the modern Mayoralty has tremendous soft influence in the corridors of power, and as the UK’s effective ambassador for Financial and Professional Services, Sue gets to travel the globe representing all of us. In this podcast we will learn what’s on top of Sue’s agenda for her year in post and I am sure what she says will give all the insurance practitioners listening plenty of good cheer.I am also pleased to report that holding this great office hasn’t changed Sue in the slightest, in fact it is Sue who is doing a lot to make the role more relatable and relevant to our times.Sue is also a physical representation of how the past decade has witnessed the Insurance sector stand up and be counted and start to take its rightful place in the Civic affairs of the City and country in which it trades. Sue certainly won’t be the last Lord or Lady Mayor to be sourced from within the Insurance community and we should take a lot of encouragement from this. So listen on to what is a really informal, enjoyable and enlightening discussion.NOTES & LINKS: More information on Sterling 20 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britains-biggest-pension-funds-back-regional-growth-driveAnd you can get involved in the Lord Mayor’s Appeal here: https://www.thelordmayorsappeal.org/We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep288 Gabriel Holschneider, XS Global: Reinvesting every dollar to compound growth

Today’s episode is unique because my guest is pretty unique. Gabriel Holschneider was working as a lawyer 20 years ago when he uncovered a passion for, and an obsession with, captive insurance and started a consultancy and a very small reinsurer with his own money. Then ten years ago he founded an MGA group called XS Global. In 2026 that group is the biggest MGA in Latin America, is fully globalising and is set to write over a billion dollars in gross premiums, often from hard-to reach locations or via niche classes that others find difficult to underwrite. Gabe is a remarkable personality and is building something that is clearly out of the ordinary. I have interviewed lots of people behind fast-growing MGA groups but none of them quite like this, and that is partly because this is a business that wasn’t born out of the traditional Anglo-US axis, where so many of its peers are to be found.It’s refreshing and different.So listen on as Gabe explains the rationale behind the group, the main differentiation points in its modus operandi and where he expects the venture to be heading in the coming years. It’s a breath of fresh air and I can highly recommend a listen.LINKS:XS Global https://xsglobal.com/Eureka Re https://eurekare.com/We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Sp Ep Beazley Predictions: Exploring the risks shaping 2026 and beyond

When the well-known banker J.P. Morgan was asked by a reporter to predict the future of the stock market, he gave this now-famous three-word reply: “It will fluctuate”. Here was someone wise enough to know that making predictions is a hazardous occupation at the best of times, and doubly so if those predictions relate to often fragile and volatile financial markets.But what the evasive and inscrutable Mr Morgan perhaps failed to realise is that the thought process required to produce a prediction is a very valuable exercise in and of itself. After all, you can only make a prediction if you have a very clear understanding of where you are, what is surrounding you and the nature and strength of the forces and influences that are being exerted upon the objects of your observation.The ultimate value of a prediction doesn’t lie in its accuracy, but the clarity of vision and quality of analysis and understanding that has gone into making it. What a successful prediction ultimately requires is a large slice of luck, whereas an insightful piece of analysis always carries substantial inherent value, and paints a useful picture of underlying truths, no matter the eventual outcome. With this in mind, I have interviewed six experts with a highly eclectic set of skills and specialist knowledge, ranging from Geopolitics at the highest macro level, all the way down to highly specific perils that affect individual companies and the directors and employees who work for them. These perils might be state-sponsored, man-made, environmental, political, legal, cyber-related or indeed from beyond the earth’s orbit entirely. They will all combine to paint a valuable picture of the state of the world today and the forces and trends likely to shape it, and the global insurance sector that serves it, in 2026 and beyond.My six bold predictors are: Beazley’s Strategic adviser in Cyber and AI, Alex Creswell, CEO of Beazley Furlonge Ltd and Beazley’s Group Head of Specialty Risks Bethany Greenwood, Head of Space Denis Bensoussan, Environmental Liability Focus Group Leader Jenny Han, Mandeep Gosal, Vice President of Global Professional Services at Beazley Security and, completing our line-up, Beazley’s Global Cyber and Tech Claims Leader, Marcello Antonucci.That’s a formidable group and a huge collective resource of expertise. So, listen on as we distil that collective wisdom and turn it into a useful and insightful podcast.NOTES & ABBREVIATIONS: IRGC is Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard CorpsLINKS:More 2026 predictions from Beazley’s experts can be found here: Predictions 2026 | Beazley

Ep287 Nick Abraham, Amwins Global Risks: A focus on Specialism

As the global insurance market becomes more competitive, the first place to notice the change is usually the wholesale segment, because it’s always at the margins where all the most dynamic pricing action occurs. But whilst falling rates can prove a headwind to growth, as long as submission flows hold up and deals keep being done a more competitive market can be a more attractive one for new business because it is more welcoming to innovative ideas.Today’s guest is perfectly placed to see what is happening because he runs a business with around $4 billion dollars of wholesale premiums running through it. So that’s why I’m delighted to welcome Nick Abraham CEO of Amwins Global Risks (AGR) to the show. As the International subsidiary of one the dominant trio of major US wholesale brokers, after entering the London Market via strategic M&A, over the past decade AGR has grown its position rapidly to become a major force in the London and global wholesale markets The discussion is very rich and deep in places but it is also broad-ranging, moving from detail on AGR’s overall strategy to the specific opportunities and challenges of current market conditions and the possibility of shifting alliances relating to retail broker consolidation, all the way through to the likely long-term impact of technological change on the way wholesale business will be transacted in the futureNick is a charming and eloquent guest who is easy-going, fun and engaging. He is full of passion for the job and this shines though in our interview.All this makes for a really enjoyable and informative Episode. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep286 Terry McLean SageSure: Go to where there is margin

I interview all sorts of people on this podcast but today’s guest is a candidate for one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs to have come on the programme to date.Most people have the talent, a lot of people have the instincts and the drive, but few can combine that with the breadth of knowledge and ability to connect up the insurance value chain all the way from a homeowner right up to the most sophisticated capital markets. Today’s guest Terry McLean combines all three attributes and the results speak for themselves. His MGA group SageSure is likely to be writing US$3.6 to 3.7 billion in gross premiums in 2026, almost all of which is sourced from the cat-exposed segment of the US homeowners market. Terry embodies the pioneering spirit in that when others are walking away from a risk, his first thought is to walk towards it because that’s where margin in likely to be found. And in a class like US Homeowners that seems doomed to produce negative aggregate returns year-in year-out, margin is a very precious commodity indeed.So I would add a fourth quality to the list: bravery. Terry’s got it in abundance.So listen on for a remarkable story with an exceptional insurance entrepreneur. I guarantee that even if you are feeling your most jaded, you will finish this podcast with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep285 William Pitt, FASE: Bringing local European MGA expertise and Global Capacity together

Todays’ guest has done something that only happens once in a generation. He’s helped found a new insurance industry trade body. Most insurance trade groupings tend to feel as if they have been around forever. Rightly so, because in various shapes or forms most of them have. New bodies only tend to be born because something has changed in the market that requires them to come into existence. Here the big change is the growth in MGAs on the continent of Europe and the new trade body is called FASE, the Federation of European MGAs or more correctly in its French and Latin-language friendly version, the Fédération des Agences de Souscription Européennes. Today’s guest is FASE’s Executive Director Willliam Pitt and this podcast is all about finding out what has brought about FASE’s inception and what needs in the European MGA community it is intending to serve. William has had a remarkable career in insurance on both sides of the underwriting desk as well as in consultancy, insurance marketing and indeed insurance journalism. He is both passionate and articulate about the forum that FASE is looking to provide for the industry and the fundamental drivers behind the seemingly inexorable growth in this part of the global insurance value chain. This makes for a really informative and thought-provoking discussion. You’ll learn a lot and by the end of this podcast you’ll be wondering why FASE didn’t come into existence far sooner. NOTES: FASE's annual conference, the MGA Rendezvous will take place at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona on May 11 and 12 2026. https://fasemga.com/rendezvousLINKShttps://fasemga.com/We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com