The Voice of Insurance

Ep 99 Mark Wheeler Mosaic Insurance: No Exit Plan

Mark Wheeler is a Lloyd’s market person through and through. In this interview he even refers to himself as a “Lloyd’s groupie”That’s why it was great to meet him face to face in his London office within 100 metres of the Lloyd’s building. We went deeply into what his new venture Mosaic is really all about. The vision is original and the plan is incredibly ambitious. Mosaic is trying to bring the core advantages of London syndication and very detailed specialty know-how much closer to clients around the world through localised international distribution. That’s quite an undertaking.Listening back Mark is clearly in his element and our knockabout conversation is a testament to that. There were no taboo subjects. Mark’s last words of the interview were “we’ve covered a lot of ground, it’s thought-provoking and I really appreciate it”I agree with Mark. Let’s see whether you do too.
NOTES:
Mark refers to “G and A” a couple of times. I’m pretty sure he is talking about general and administrative expenses – i.e. the part of the expense ratio that is in the control of the carrier, as opposed to acquisition costs, which are external.
LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Ep 98 Richard Watson CEO Inigo Insurance: Low ego and high collaboration

There are two types of journalist – there are those who really don’t like or trust anyone they write about and then there are those that are the opposite and seem to like everyone. I am one of the latter – my natural bias is to get a positive vibe from most of the people I interview. Because of this I make sure I try and balance this inbuilt positivity with a reality check from others around me. But now I don’t work in a large business any more it’ll be you the listener who has to help me out. I’m only mentioning all of this because I found today’s guest off the charts in the likeability stakes. Richard Watson is the co-founder and CEO of Inigo Insurance – a specialty insurance and reinsurance start-up at Lloyd’s. The business is growing rapidly in this transitioning market and is looking to build something highly focused that seeks to deploy the best new thinking and analysis to big-ticket specialty risk. In this discussion we get right to the heart of what it is like to be building a differentiated new Lloyd’s franchise in the 2021 market, Lloyd’s market reform and the applications  of algorithms and other smart technologies.Richard is a London Market veteran and his 33 years at Lloyd’s Blue-chip Hiscox culminated with an 8-year stint as its Chief Underwriting officer, so his views carry a lot of weight.We also examine Richard’s ideas on how to create a new business that attracts smart, curious and fun people and makes them want to stay. Richard gives the impression of someone having the time of their life making the most of a rare opportunity to put a career’s learning into practice.I had a great time – but then I always do – so it’s over to you to tell me anything I’m missing.
LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Ep 97 Stefan Golling: If we don’t achieve our margins now why should we stay?

It really matters what today’s guest thinks. This is because he has one of the biggest and most influential underwriting and insurance and reinsurance management jobs in the world. Stefan Golling serves on Munich Re's Board of Management and until recently was its Chief Underwriter.He also looks after Global Clients, the North America Division and oversees HSB and American Modern as well as the Lloyd’s and Bermuda markets. What I enjoy about talking to Stefan is his disarming frankness. He speaks very clearly for someone in such an elevated position in our industry. In our chat we cover everything anyone would want to know ahead of the first of January 2022 renewals. Up until now many have described reinsurers as a relatively benign influence, content to ride on the coat-tails of their cedants as they remediated their books and brought pricing back into line. Now I’ll leave you to decide if this is just a little bravado on Stefan’s part ahead of upcoming renewal negotiations, but from this encounter I would expect to see reinsurers digging in a little more than they have been up until now. LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Ep 96 Patrick Tiernan Chief of Markets Lloyd‘s of London: A vision bound by logic

Patrick Tiernan Chief of Markets at Lloyd’s has the broadest job description of almost anyone in insurance. He is responsible for whole abstract ideas such as ‘Underwriting’ and ‘Distribution’ at a vast global insurance marketplace which can make it sometimes hard to know where to start. My job as a journalist is to take the abstract and turn it into something really specific and so listening back to today’s interview I must admit I was sometimes a bit annoyed with myself for not diving into every secondary and tertiary line of questioning that our discussion was throwing up. But then I decided to stop beating myself up. There was so much to talk about. With unlimited time we could have done a series of at least five separate podcasts. The unanswered questions are there to be asked next time in subsequent encounters. Always leave them wanting more…But what this interview is - is a really useful walk around one of the biggest jobs in insurance and an introduction to the person tasked with taking that role on. We get to know a little of what makes him tick and there is enough here to get a feel for what sort of reign Patrick’s is going to be over number 1 Lime Street, London, in the coming years.Patrick is incredibly accessible and transparent and comes across as a very level-headed, logical, thoughtful and reasonable person. It is clear he has already listened to what the market wants and thought very deeply about what needs to change to keep Lloyd’s relevant, influential and competitive in the future. He isn’t top-down or dictatorial and with perhaps the exception of when he talks about sustainable underwriting profitability across the cycle, he doesn’t seem in any way dogmatic.He’s also a great communicator and his delivery is laden with considerable Irish wit and charm. It is very hard not to like him.As a first portrait it’s a broad-brush one, but I think listening to this podcast will give you a good idea of the big picture
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Bolton Associates for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/
 

Special Episode: New Trillion dollar markets wherever you look. How insurtech can improve climate resilience with Robert Lumley and Stephen Brittain of The Insurtech Gateway

I love catching up with Robert Lumley (Top) and Stephen Brittain (Bottom) from the Insurtech Gateway because whenever we do we always have a really fascinating conversation. But I found recording today’s podcast not just fascinating but actually inspiring and energising.First of all a huge amount has been going on since we last spoke and the pace and maturity of insurtech investment is accelerating.So at the beginning of the podcast we spend a little time catching up with where the regulated Insurtech Gateway Incubator and Venture Capital Fund is with its growing and maturing portfolio of investment companies.Then in the second part we start to examine insurtech’s role in improving the world’s resilience to natural catastrophe.We hear a lot of talk about resilience in the sector and much of it is really well meaning but often lacking in effective vision. For example at any big insurance conference we will hear very senior leaders talking about how we must close the protection gap. That’s something we can all agree on – but we rarely hear any of those same leaders sell their vision of how exactly we are going to do it.And that’s why I found this podcast so uplifting. Technology has a lot of the answers to many of the world’s problems and so does insurance. Yet we have often been going about things the wrong way. Instead of solving real problems for real people we have tended to try and find new ways of selling them insurance products. Today you’ll learn about a new model that is far more customer led. Ordinary people don’t wake up every day thinking “I must buy more insurance today” but they do worry that if there is a major storm or flood they will go bust. Insurtech is filling the gap by solving these client problems increasingly cheaply and efficiently and then bringing the insurance in behind, not the other way around. What’s more, 15 years ago, when the idea of microinsurance was first gaining currency, there was a sense that it wasn’t really supposed to make money for insurers – that it was an extension of Corporate Social Responsibility or international aid budgets. But of course loss-making businesses are not sustainable and they are definitely not scalable. These days insurtechs are coming with a sensible profit motive, acknowledging that everyone in the value chain has to get value and has to make money otherwise the protection gap is never going to be filled. That’s what is so exciting – it’s a much more mature idea and of course one that will help create potentially trillions of dollars in brand new accretive premium for the global insurance market.Listen on for some inspiring ideas

Ep 95 Jean-Paul Conoscente CEO Scor Global P&C: True partnership isn‘t about being accommodating

Today’s guest is one of those people I always enjoy spending time talking to and was really looking forward to having on the show.I first met him when he was running Scor’s North American P&C operations when he would often appear at Insurance conferences I was chairing in New York. Back then Jean-Paul Conoscente was unfailingly charming, calm and very straightforward and open in his approach and always a great asset to any media event.Some time has passed since my last encounter with him, and in that time he has been promoted to CEO of Scor Global P&C and elevated to the executive committee.So I am really pleased to report that he is still as friendly and approachable as he ever used to be.In this podcast we talk about pretty much everything that is affecting the reinsurance market today and in the run-up to the 1.1 renewals. And from loss trends and price rises, reserving and price adequacy to covid disputes and insurtech, Jean-Paul gives a straight and honest answer to every single question I ask him. Listen on and you’ll see what I mean.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Ep 94 William Spiegel Executive Chairman R&Q: Prospering as the insurance ecosystem comes apart

It’s a long time since legacy was a dusty dead end of the insurance industry where old underwriters went to eke out the remains of their days before retirement. And at the same time it’s been a long time since the era when fronting was seen as a bit of a dirty secret of the industry. These days both segments have matured and taken up their rightful place in the insurance ecosystem. But it’s rare to meet someone so well qualified and quite so dynamic driving a business that is in both of these spaces. William Spiegel the Executive Chairman of R&Q is someone with an impeccable resumé as an investor in some blue-chip start-ups in our sector over the past two decades. And because of that he brings a fresh and very insightful perspective to our industry. I was really interested to find out why someone like him has decided to come and work on the inside of a mature business at this time.The answers are all here in the podcast as William describes two fascinating and uncorrelated high-growth profitable business opportunities in our sector. William is full of energy and drive and it runs all the way through the podcast. I never thought these segments could sound exciting but William tells a compelling story and the combination of his ruthless business logic and his infectious enthusiasm is a winning one. LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Ep 93 Simon Matson of Gallagher and Tom Wakefield of Gallagher Re: A deal made by customers

Today’s podcast is crackling with energy. When I listened back to the recording it was unmistakable. The reason is obvious – the subject matter we are discussing is Gallagher’s imminent takeover of Willis Re. This is the biggest thing to happen in reinsurance broking since Aon bought Benfield back in 2008 and here I spend some time with an ebullient pair of senior executives, clearly ecstatic about how the deal is going to transform the Gallagher group and fulfil its long-held ambition to build a genuinely global reinsurance broker. Talking to Gallagher Europe Middle East and Asia CEO Simon Matson (Picture Left) and Tom Wakefield the CEO of Gallagher Re (Picture Right) was a lot of fun. In the next half an hour or so you will get a good idea of how Gallagher plans to welcome, integrate and invest in the newly formed business in the coming years.We also talk in depth about the dynamics of the global reinsurance market itself, both in the short term, looking at the upcoming renewal season and strategically in the very long term.
LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Ep 92 Andreas Berger Swiss Re Corporate Solutions: Start early and do it quickly

I have met Andreas Berger at various times in the last 15 years and he has been consistently impressive every time I have met him. It was therefore no surprise when in 2019 Swiss Re came calling with a major task to fix its consistently misfiring and loss-making Corporate Solutions, or CorSo, business unit. Two years later and the turnaround at CorSo has been remarkable. I think if you listen here you can see how Andreas has been able to do it. He does what good managers are supposed to do – he brings technical excellence but doesn’t get bogged down in it; he understands the importance of correct management structures but doesn’t come across like a consultant and he gets tech and data but isn’t a technocrat. Most importantly he is also really transparent and honest about where things have gone wrong and knows how important it is to make remedial decisions quickly and get on with executing them.But the key factor overarching all of this is that he is a charismatic communicator who does all of the above with a smile on his face and the ability to bring staff, brokers and clients along with him for the journey. As you can imagine these ingredients make for a really good podcast, where we get stuck into everything CorSo and all the big challenges facing the industry today.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/https://freepartners.com/

Ep 91 Bob Kimmel CEO of K2 Insurance Services: On the hunt for talent and capacity

Bob Kimmel the CEO of K2 insurance services came on my radar and that of most other London-based insurance folk when last year his US-based MGA group picked up the remnants of what had been the Pioneer group of MGAs to form K2 International.K2 owns a major collection of MGAs in the US, writes over a billion dollars in premium and is highly acquisitive both of talent, new agencies and other ancillary insurance businesses I didn’t know Bob personally and researching K2 ahead of our London meeting I suppose I came into this podcast with lots of preconceptions about what the CEO of such a fast-growing and aggressively expansive US-headquartered group would be like.I was completely wrong. Bob is clearly very ambitious for K2 but he is also very easygoing and charming as well as being disarming about how steep the learning curve has been for him, a former reinsurance broker, moving much closer to the end insurance customer in the decade since K2’s formation.New MGA start-ups and acquisitions, a potential Lloyd’s syndicate in the offing and a conscious hunt for talent in specific classes – Bob’s in-tray is absolutely overflowing and in this interview he discusses all aspects of MGA management in a disarmingly open way. I really enjoyed my time with Bob and I think you will too.LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:https://www.advantagego.com/We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today:https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/https://freepartners.com/