The Voice of Insurance

Ep181 Jean-Jacques Henchoz CEO Hannover Re: True partnership has a price

Today’s guest is exactly the right person to have on the show at exactly the right time. The reinsurance world is about to head down to Monaco for its annual global Rendez-Vous. So ahead of that, speaking to the CEO of the reinsurer that according to AM Best is now the second largest writer of gross non-life reinsurance premium in the world, producing almost $26bn in P&C top line, has got to be a good call. A business of that scale has visibility into every nook and corner of the insurance value chain.So I am delighted to be welcoming Jean-Jacques Henchoz CEO of Hannover Re back to the podcast. But not just because of Hannover Re’s scale and strategically important position in the market, but also because of its, and Jean-Jacques’, straightforward approach to communication. Hannover Re is a massive player but it has always spoken to the market in a very direct style that has always struck me as being far more intimate and approachable than its more formal peers. I think that reflects the down-to-earth, no-nonsense nature of this still fast-growing and high performing business and it makes for a very valuable listen.From this conversation I think we can expect a much less dramatic and far more stable renewal season than the radical and revolutionary one we have just had. Jean-Jacques calmly answers all my questions, with no omissions or deviations and exudes all the smarts, coolness, stability and continuity that all cedants are really buying into when they seek out a major reinsurer like Hannover Re’s support. In fact I don’t think I have met a CEO yet who better personifies his company’s brand. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com/

Special Ep Arun Balakrishnan CEO Xceedance: AI and Insurance - everything you need to know

Today’s guest is an insurance technology entrepreneur with a great story to tell. Arun Balakrishnan started his career at sea but went back to business school, became an internet entrepreneur and ended up captaining Berkshire Hathaway’s foray into the Indian insurance market.Ten years ago he founded Insurance technology firm Xceedance and the growth has been rapid.But that’s just a bit of background because the main purpose of today’s podcast is to talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and in particular the generative AI that has exploded onto the world’s consciousness in the past six months.When something has been this hyped having someone like Arun on the show is an absolute godsend. Arun is a great explainer and first helps educate me about what the terms bandied around in AI really mean. Then we start to get to work on decoding what the best applications are going to be in the insurance world. This is fascinating stuff and we soon get down to the fundamentals of what machines and humans are really best at. I won’t spoil anything by saying that the humans in insurance really shouldn’t worry about being made redundant by this new technology – there are some things that AI can’t do well, and even if it could, we probably wouldn’t want it to do them for us.This is far more about improved accuracy and vastly increased productivity. Arun says we should think of it a bit like being allocated a smart intern, apprentice or an indefatigable underwriting assistant.Arun is a great teacher and I can highly commend this episode to anyone feeling bewildered or daunted as to how to start to engage with this exciting new technological development NOTES, ABBREVIATIONS AND FURTHER READINGArun mentions Word2Vec, which comes from ‘word to vector’, a technique whereby words are transformed into a numerical representation – ie. a vector, and is at the heart of the development of this new form of Artificial Intelligence.Another concept mentioned and worth reading up about further is Zero-Shot classification, which is all about creating a tool that can do a job that it hasn’t been specifically trained to do. An example might be for the AI to have learned a lot about football and then use this insight to classify an article about basketball, upon which it has never been trained.LINKS & CONTACThttps://xceedance.com/
As Arun said, you can contact him directly on arun@xceedance.com

Ep180 Craig Kingaby CEO Meridian & Mark Heath CEO Acies: Playing our own game

The older we get the more we lament the passing of the great personalities in the marketplace. Over an after-work drink we tend to reminisce about the entrepreneurial characters of old and how we wish there were more of their kind today. I know I do.Well, today’s guests are proving that this is a myth caused by old age because they are some of the most singular insurance people I have had on the programme to date.Craig Kingaby CEO of Meridian (Left) and Mark Heath CEO of Acies MGU (Right) both have vast London market and international insurance and reinsurance experience but what the Meridian business are trying to achieve is something different and a little special.For instance, they are trying to build a London-based diversified specialist insurance group, but one that is almost sitting outside the market. They have big growth plans and are moving fast but are doing so because the opportunity is in front of them, not because they have to satisfy the ambitions of impatient investors and hit target numbers. They don’t have an eye on an exit, but instead on building a generational business which will stop growing if it ever hits conflicts that might affect its clients.They are largely self-funded and wholly management controlled and they have even decided to spend a lot of time building their own technology platform. I told you that they’re a bit different. They’re also ideal interviewees because they can sign off on their own quotes.So what follows is one of the most frank exchanges about how to build a differentiated broking and MGA business I have ever had. This is a duo that has spent decades learning how things should and shouldn’t be done and becoming experts in the insurance game – the thing is that now they have decided to play their own game. Craig and Mark are great communicators and I think they are onto something interesting, so listen on for a very refreshing and challenging chat about what this new game is all about.Mark speaks first.NOTES: Craig mentions a Marcus at insurance placement platform, Whitespace. That’s Marcus Broome, its chief platform officer.
LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com/

Special Ep Amrit Santhirasenan CEO hyperexponential: How to win at the team sport of underwriting

Today’s guest is someone pretty unique for our sector because he’s a software engineer who became a senior actuary and then founded his own insurance-focused technology business.Amrit Santhirasenan, Co-founder and CEO at hyperexponential’s story is a classic of the entrepreneurial genre: Frustrated with a lack of an insurance-specific decision-making platform to bring together underwriters, actuaries and the exponentially growing datasets that an increasingly digital world is producing, Amrit decided to build his own. The longer I am around, the more I find that an unorthodox combination of skills and experience often unlocks extra value and Amrit is a great example of this. He’s also not a stereotypical actuary because, amongst his many talents, he has the sort of communications skills that would put many top brokers to shame. So this podcast is an incredibly eloquent summing up of hyperexponential’s business model and a wider and very detailed examination of the state of insurance today. Ironically you could argue that underwriters and actuaries used to work closer together until technology started to get in the way. Amrit is on a mission to bring back a much tighter feedback loop between the actuaries who interrogate the data to uncover insights and the underwriters who have to take those insights and turn them into decisions out in the real world.Pricing is at the intersection of all the most exciting things that are happening in insurance today – it’s where data, brain power and market savvy all come together to try and give carriers an edge over their competitors.Amrit’s great company and a dream guest, so technologists and technophobes alike do listen on as we set the world to rights. You certainly don’t need any tech knowledge to get the benefit of Amrit’s insights.LINKS:www.hyperexponential.com

Ep179 Antony Erotocritou CEO Ardonagh Specialty: We’re not slowing down

Today’s guest is someone with a fascinating story to tell. Today Antony Erotocritou is the CEO of Ardonagh Specialty but he has ridden the Ardonagh story all the way from its origins in the debt-for-equity swap for troubled UK retail consolidator Towergate in 2015.Ardonagh has since been on a journey to build its specialty and international operations, which included 2021’s transformational deal to buy the newly-formed Corant Global Group, comprising the brokers Ed and Besso.The organic and inorganic investment continues at high speed. Over the last eight years, perhaps the only part missing from this story has been a clear narrative from the broking group itself. It has given the impression that it is too busy with its head down to worry about what others might think of it. Ardonagh seemed happy to leave a vacuum that many of its peers have been eager to exploit. It’s fair to say that media coverage of the group in the past few years has been chequered, with as many negative stories of team defections as positive ones around new hires or acquisitions.Well, this podcast gives me the sense of being the start of the group getting out on the front foot. Ardonagh Specialty has consolidated its many brands into Price Forbes and Bishopsgate and Antony has a very positive growth story to tell. As a former CFO he is absolutely on top of the numbers and strategy and we have a very detailed discussion about the economics of scaling up an expansive broking platform. He’s excellent company and as someone who arrived to rectify one of UK broking’s most serious mis-steps, here is someone who knows in great detail how expansion should not be done. Here we learn how he thinks it should be done properly and given his unique experience, it’s really worth hearing him out. There’s a lot to learn and plenty of myths to be exploded.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com/

Ep178 Tony Ursano of Insurance Advisory Partners: A ton of fun!

Today’s guest is someone I should have had on the show a long time ago, but I’m really glad has finally got an episode to himself.Tony Ursano is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of Insurance Advisory Partners and is someone who has been right at the top of deal-making in our industry for more than three decades. With roles at blue-chip firms on Wall Street and at Insurance brokers, he’s one of the few people who really excels at making the connection between the insurance industry and the global investment community and has had a hand in a large proportion of the most significant M&A transactions of the last 20 years. Because of this he is a fount of knowledge and is someone whose counsel and analysis it is always worth seeking out. For example if I ask: What will it take for investors to come back to reinsurance in significant volumes? Will higher interest rates take the shine off broker valuations? Or whether the boom in MGAs will run out of steam?With Tony I know I am going to get straight answers and a real feel for where the market is headed that comes from direct and constant experience. He’s also now his own boss and that independence just seems to make it easier for him to speak his own mind.In this discussion I asked all these questions and a lot more besides, and I wasn’t disappointed. And neither will you be. I’ve interviewed and chaired Tony many times over the years and I think our easy and good-humoured rapport comes across clearly in this conversation.So, sit back and get ready for a vintage episode with a real market player.Whether a buyer or seller - or a business looking to raise debt or equity finance or an investor looking for good opportunities in the insurance sector, Tony one is of the first people I’d advise anyone to call.NOTES:I let an abbreviation through. It was SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com/

Special Ep Paul Templar and Sebastian Prosser of VIPR: Stop throwing people at the problem

Today’s guests are Paul Templar CEO and Sebastian Prosser, Head of Account Management at insurance technology solutions specialist VIPR. VIPR started out in the London Market 14 years ago. From day one its core offering was to provide a software solution to the endless administrative problem of the ingestion and checking of data in the Delegated Authority (DA) space. With around 40% of the business at Lloyd’s transacted this way, it started life in a very fertile environment that was drowning in a mass of spreadsheets, emails and stray documents.Today it has grown enormously to be the largest player in this segment with over 400,000 bordereaux processed annually relating to around £5 billion of gross premium. This business is at the real coal face of digitisation in our industry and its development is following a ruthless logic: If you can ingest, verify and cleanse insurance data on a large scale, the next step is to start to analyse that data and gain genuine insights into the business you are writing. And once you can do all this you can also speed up the process of onboarding new partners from a compliance perspective. My chat with Paul and Seb comes as VIPR is making large strides internationally into the US and European markets on the back of significant new blue-chip investment. With digital initiatives gaining traction and prominence all over the insurance world it’s an exciting time for the market and for VIPR. Here we talk about the prospects for a far more efficient, digital and data-driven marketplace, the world of insurance software ecosystems and the exciting expansion opportunities opening up for VIPR and its clients. Paul and Seb are great company and I recommend this episode to anyone looking to learn how to climb the first rung of the digital ladder.NOTESNaturally we mention DA a lot. That’s the abbreviation for Delegated Authority.There is also TPA, which stands for Third Party Administrator (usually for claims).LINKShttps://viprsolutions.com/

Special Ep Warren Downey & Lee Anderson of Specialist Risk Group: Building a natural home for specialists

Today’s guests are Warren Downey Group CEO and Lee Anderson, Group Deputy CEO of UK-headquartered intermediary Specialist Risk Group (SRG).Warren was last on the show as part of two very early Special Episodes that SRG sponsored over three years ago.Back then SRG was just about to get a new private equity backer in the form of HGGC. Since that change of ownership the growth has been impressive, with SRG increasing its intermediated premium threefold via a combination of organic and inorganic growth.So far this makes SRG sound like it is treading a well-worn path of PE-backed consolidation, but that would be to fundamentally misunderstand what Warren and Lee are trying to do with this singular organisation.SRG is a fast-growing broking and MGA platform with very high ambitions, but it is in no way a conventional scale-up play on the hunt for market leverage and cost removal.SRG is best described as a growing collection of very specialist businesses that are all operating in niches where it is the depth of its specialist knowledge and relevance to very specific markets and not its scale that allows it to compete.Warren and Lee are a brilliant double act and this is a fascinating and fun insight into a broking group that is building something intentionally different and going out of its way to do unexpected and surprising things.From being agnostic about channels to market, doing M&A differently, running a shadow board or giving staff access to accelerated management programmes and share ownership, there is a huge amount to admire in what this duo is trying to achieve.So listen on – Warren and Lee talk about preferring to show people what they have already done as opposed to telling them what exciting, but as yet unexecuted, plans they have for the future and this podcast is full to the brim of excellent examples.And on a personal note I don’t think I have had a more fun, lively and down-to-earth duo on the podcast in a very long time – the time will fly by.NOTES: Warren refers to growth to 600 million in premium volume. That’s in £ pounds, or $785mn in US Dollars.LINKS:SRG’s website is here: www.specialistrisk.comYou can contact Warren Downey at Warren@specialistrisk.com

Ep177 Chris Killourhy QBE Re: Balance is critical

Today’s guest is Chris Killourhy, Managing director of QBE Re.The reinsurance market has been through some comprehensive changes in the last 12 months and so has QBE Re. In this podcast we delve right into the evolving appetites and re-vamped strategy at this well-respected medium-sized reinsurer. In the past QBE Re was viewed as a highly competent and nimble trader in the markets in which it operated. Today it is evolving into a player that is looking to become a long-term across-the-board partner for the right kind of cedant. Chris hopes that this strategy will deliver a growing, balanced portfolio and a more predictable and less volatile level of earnings than in the past.Chris is a qualified actuary and has had a really varied career to date, which has already included multiple roles within the wider QBE group.But, unlike the apocryphal actuary to be found as the butt of hundreds of insurance jokes, he lays out his stall with great eloquence and his ideas on how to build a more balanced portfolio make for fascinating listening.Listen on for many wise insights and a clear vision for how a mid-sized reinsurer should navigate this market and how it can best compliment and benefit from its ownership by a major global insurance parent group.NOTES: Chris refers to a Jamie. That’s Jamie Cook, QBE Re’s Chief Partnership Officer.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com/

EP176 Lorraine Harfitt of Asta: People, Plan, Capital.

Asta is the largest third-party manager of Lloyd’s Syndicates by quite a long way. As such, today’s guest Lorraine Harfitt CEO of Asta, almost certainly has a better view of what types of new business entrepreneurs and major insurers alike are looking to set up. She also has the best view of Lloyd’s changing appetites around what type of businesses it is looking to allow into - and keep out of - the marketplace.So this podcast is a great temperature gauge on the Lloyd’s and wider international insurance and reinsurance markets. I’m happy to report that I found Lorraine full of optimism and enthusiasm, with a long and diverse pipeline of business in prospect on many fronts, be it new Syndicates in boxes, Captive Syndicates, traditional syndicates, other alternative vehicles or MGAs.As Lorraine puts it, there is always a fear that the appeal of the Lloyd’s and London Market may one day wane. On this showing there is no evidence of this happening any time soon. Lorraine is a an industry professional of vast experience who has worked her way from the Lloyd’s Policy Signing Office in Chatham all the way up into the heart of the market. She knows this business inside and out, she’s great company and this podcast is packed with lots of really nuanced observations.NOTES: Lorraine mentions a Julian. That is of course Julian Tighe, former CEO of Asta and now its Group Director and Chief Commercial Officer at Davies Insurance Services.ICAS, the UK forerunner of the Solvency II regime, stood for Individual Capital Adequacy Standards.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com/