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Insurance is a maze. Don’t get lost. Mark Geoghegan asks directions from all the top people in the Global Insurance and Reinsurance Industry
Episodes
Tuesday Apr 05, 2022
Tuesday Apr 05, 2022
Today I’m talking to Vicky Carter, a very senior reinsurance broking executive with a glittering career.
As well as chairing Capital Solutions, International at Guy Carpenter, Vicky is a Member of The Council of Lloyd's and is a Lloyd's Deputy Chairman.
But we aren’t going to be talking about her day job intermediating between the insurance community and the reinsurance and capital markets and helping to guide and represent 1 Lime Street.
That’s because for over a decade Vicky has also been directly involved in Guy Carpenter, MMC and the wider market’s youth development programmes.
This work has culminated in the very high-profile Rising Professionals series of events in London.
As the first post-pandemic edition is fast approaching I decided to focus this interview on what our industry has learned from the pandemic and what plans and strategies there are to get young people’s careers back on track now that the world is tentatively returning back to face-to-face working.
Were there any positives from the accidental work-from-home revolution caused by Covid?
And how has insurance fared versus other sectors in the Great Resignation that has followed in its wake?
Vicky is one of the market’s great communicators and this is a typically enjoyable and frank encounter, that doesn’t duck any of the big questions.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo
For enquiries about the MMC Rising Professionals event contact: mmcrpforum@events-uk.com
Vicky was last on the podcast back in Episode 37 in August 2020
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Today’s guest is someone with a really difficult and really important job. You could say that the future prosperity of the insurance market is a big part of his remit.
We keep fretting about how hard it is, and how it seems to be getting harder still, to innovate in our industry and how if we don’t do it fast enough we are all going to become irrelevant.
Well, Head of Incubation Underwriting at Beazley and Co-chair of the Lloyd’s Product Launchpad George Beattie is both inspiring and eloquent and listening to him should make you feel a bit more positive about the industry’s long-term prospects.
The structures he is part of both within and outside his own organisation have been designed to make innovation easier by very deliberately removing the disincentives that currently exist for it to happen.
After all, who wants to risk their bonus on a new idea that by definition doesn’t come with years of claims data or actuarially-approved pricing models attached to it?
It turns out the problem is absolutely not a lack of original ideas and far more a lack of time and resource to do all the best ones justice.
Listen on for a fascinating and uplifting episode.
NOTES and LINKS:
I refer to the Episode with Relm Insurance. That’s Episode 113
Lloyd’s Product Launchpad
The IVF venture with Gaia is also backed by Chaucer
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Today’s guest is a major reinsurance broking CEO at the top of his game.
A quarter has passed since the completion of the purchase of Willis Re by Gallagher and the integration of the 3rd largest reinsurance broker in the world into Gallagher Re.
Global CEO James Kent is clearly buzzing with energy and enthusiasm for the job in hand and the prospects that new ownership and investment are going to open up for his business.
In this podcast we talk about how Willis Re managed to hold itself together during the interminable Aon-Willis merger saga, the state of the reinsurance market and the new business’s ambitious growth plans.
I have known James for many years and think this encounter is a great snapshot of a team leader who has come through a trial and is absolutely delighted to be out on the other side and very much looking forward to the future.
NOTES:
A couple of abbreviations. KRW is of course the infamous trio of 2005 Hurricanes, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. UNL is Ultimate Net Loss and in this context is a synonym for an indemnity-type contract as opposed to a parametrically-triggered one.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
Tuesday Mar 15, 2022
Tuesday Mar 15, 2022
Parametric insurance has been with us for quite a while now, so it is an idea that most of us have become familiar with.
We can all see its advantages, particularly when it comes to almost instantaneous claims payments with practically zero adjustment cost.
But until recently it has been a hyper specialist corner of the market, often restricted to very large very high value contracts such as cat bonds.
This is because it is only now that the cost of technology has come down significantly enough and the availability of accurate information sources has become wide enough to make these often bespoke products relevant at the commercial lines, and even personal lines, levels.
There are lots of small specialist parametric players out there but today’s guests have seen this opportunity and really grabbed it with both hands.
Tanguy Touffut, CEO and co-founder and Violaine Raybaud, Head of business development at parametric specialist MGA Descartes Underwriting don’t do anything by half measures and the business comes fresh from an eye-popping $120mn fund raise.
But that $120mn is not for capital to underwrite with – it is for an enormous investment in people, technology and global locations.
And that’s why I asked them to come on the show. Because for an investment of this size to work, the opportunity will have to be of the once-in-a-lifetime sort.
Tanguy and Violaine clearly believe so and it is great to hear such passion about the prospects for application of parametric solutions in a vast global market like commercial lines.
LINKS:
Here is the link to the $120mn funding announcement that I mentioned:
https://www.descartesunderwriting.com/descartes-underwriting-raises-120-million-to-become-a-category-leader-in-corporate-insurance-worldwide/
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
Today’s guest is a true pioneer in insurance and also in insurtech.
In fact Richard Leftley, Executive Vice President of MIC Global has had about fifteen years head start on many of the other others in that game.
As a trailblazer in microinsurance in the developing world, where premiums per customer can often be measured in $single digits, Richard learned right away that without a digital-first approach you are going to get swamped by the expense ratio and you won’t have a viable product.
As technology and robust data sources have advanced so the microinsurance opportunity is finally coming into its own.
But what’s particularly exciting is that it turns out the hard operational lessons learned from that tech first, very high volume, low individual premium microinsurance experience are transferable to the high-growth emerging embedded insurance applications in the gig economies of today’s most developed countries.
And now that MIC Global has been given in-principle approval for a syndicate in a box at Lloyd’s it seems poised to benefit from strong growth in both of these incredibly different worlds.
Richard is passionate and eloquent and really knows his business inside and out. There is a lot you can learn from him and I can highly recommend a listen today.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due.
Most of the guests on The Voice of Insurance are long-term CEOs of large companies. They are all major players in the market and I don’t need any special reason to talk to them.
But today’s guest is on the show, not because he runs a market-moving global insurance business, but because I think he has done something completely out of the ordinary that deserves closer attention.
Relm is a remarkable business because it has responded to a moment of disfunction by creating something entirely new.
Seeing a total absence of insurance industry response to the emerging Cryptocurrency phenomenon Joe Ziolkowski, Relm’s co founder and CEO has built the first Crypto insurer with a licence from a recognised international jurisdiction and an A rating.
The result is that Relm is a business that can underwrite in Cryptocurrency limits, pay claims and crucially hold assets in Crypto on its own solvent, rated and regulated balance sheet.
I doubt that Relm will be the last of the native Crypto insurers, but the story of what Joe has achieved so far is a fascinating one.
And it’s not just Crypto – this business’s culture seems to be to seek out genuinely uncharted areas of opportunity. For this reason insurance for the nascent cannabis and psychedelic sectors are also areas of focus.
You don’t need to understand all the ins and outs of these markets to see that there is enormous unmet demand for insurance in these fast-growing new verticals
For that reason I would highly recommend a listen.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
Today’s guest is a broking veteran known across the London Market and beyond.
Alastair Swift is Head of Corporate Risk and Broking for Global Lines of Business at WTW as well as CEO of Willis Limited.
Recently new WTW CEO Carl Hess has spoken about his desire for the group to get some of its swagger back and I think this interview could mark the beginning of that process for the firm.
Following the damaging twists and turns of the Aon merger saga of the past two years and the eventual sale of Willis Re to Gallagher, it was refreshing to hear someone senior at the newly rebranded WTW come out fighting and start focusing on the future at the global broker and advisor.
Alastair didn’t duck any of my questions, in fact quite the opposite.
I know every podcast introduction says that what follows is must-listen stuff
but this really is a must-listen episode!
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Today’s guest is one of the people behind the scenes who help make the insurance market tick.
With a background in finance and operations, he has made a career of helping businesses become successful and stay successful, but hasn’t necessarily taken much of the credit for doing so.
Now that Rinku Patel is a CEO – running London-based MGA platform Pine Walk Capital, his profile is considerably higher.
But the nature of the business that Pine Walk is in continues to put others in the limelight because the purpose of this firm is to free up underwriters to do what they do best.
And that’s why I am really glad to be able to put him in the spotlight today.
The MGA space is a fascinating corner of the market at the moment and Pine Walk is at the heart of a movement to professionalise all aspects of this segment.
Rinku is the embodiment of a no-nonsense leader and this interview clarifies the vision and purpose of Pine Walk and the nature of its relationship with its parent Fidelis beyond doubt. Rinku is straight-talking and always comes immediately to the point in hand.
If dealings with him in his day job are anything like as direct and effective as in this interview, I can highly recommend engaging with him.
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/
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
Today’s guest is from one of the highest profile firms from the group of pioneering US insurtechs that emerged in the middle of the last decade.
Hippo Insurance, along with many of its trailblazing peers, is now a public company.
But despite the transparency this brings, it’s easy to look at Hippo and become confused by a whirl of alliances, structures and news announcements.
One analyst recently complained that it looked like Hippo was throwing different strategies against the wall and seeing which ones would stick.
In the light of this podcast that doesn’t seem fair.
Today’s guest would counter that Wall Street hasn’t really got its head around the variety in the newly-arrived insurtech sector and currently tends to put them all in the same bucket.
Hippo’s President Rick McCathron joined the business five years ago.
With almost 30 years’ P&C experience, Rick has insurance running through his veins and is incredibly focused on what Hippo’s mission is and how he is setting out to achieve that.
Insurance people can relate to him and he is excellent company.
Listen on and any lingering doubts about this firm’s clarity of purpose will melt away.
NOTES
Rick mentions the 'CAC to LTV' ratio. This stands for customer acquisition cost to lifetime value. ie a measure of how effective your marketing/acquisition spend is.
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/
Friday Feb 04, 2022
Friday Feb 04, 2022
Corvus Insurance is a young business that is moving so fast that to those of us looking in from the outside could be forgiven for seeing something of a blur.
For instance, should we look at this business as a specialist cyber underwriter or should we see a cyber technology provider or indeed a much broader data-driven insurtech company that is class-agnostic?
The answer is probably a blend of all three.
That’s why it’s so valuable to speak to someone of the calibre of Madhu Tadikonda, Corvus’s President.
As a tech entrepreneur who then rose rapidly to become AIG’s Global Chief Underwriting Officer, Madhu has had a stellar insurance career of his own before joining up with Corvus last year.
In this really lively podcast I get Madhu to explain all of the moving parts within Corvus and distil the common themes.
In doing so we get a front-row view of the challenges and opportunities facing the cyber market, run through the rationale behind Corvus’s recent acquisition of cyber MGA Tarian Underwriting and look into what other classes are catching this progressive business’s eye.
I’d say what really makes Corvus tick is a real affinity for the fastest growing insurance classes where client need, demand and opportunity are greatest.
This is then coupled with the realisation that the most important risks of the future are becoming much more dynamic and that the most successful underwriters of tomorrow are going to have to be much faster learners than their predecessors and be much more engaged and helpful to their customers.
Almost paradoxically Corvus looks very much like an ultra-traditional insurance business…
except that its way of going about things is anything but!
It’s fascinating stuff.
LINKS
https://www.corvusinsurance.com
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
The idea at the heart of the voice of insurance is to give everyone access to the most senior and influential leaders in the industry.
I want to democatise the sorts of insights that until recently were only available to the privileged few.
Today is one of those days when the mission is properly fulfilled because my guest is a very strong leader at one of the London Market’s best success stories of the last 30 years and someone who has almost always been in the room when the key decisions affecting the market have been taken over that period.
Bronek Masojada is smart and direct and as Chief executive of Hiscox has built that business into a high-quality insurance franchise with global reach.
Now he has stepped down from that major Chief Executive role this interview reflects on what has driven and continues to drive him and examines some of the pivotal moments in the past decades in which he has played a leading role.
But we don’t dwell on the past for long and using his position as Chair of London Market electronic placing platform PPL we focus on his vision for a digitally-native global London Market, the challenges of market modernisation and the skills needed by the top underwriters of the future.
We also get a feel for what sort of future roles might appeal to one of the London Market’s stars.
But more importantly by listening in today you’ll get a great feel for what sort of person and what kind of leader Bronek is and get the benefit of all his hard-earned experience.
NOTES, ABBREVIATIONS AND THANKS
Bronek mentioned early London electronic trading initiative EPS. EPS stood for Electronic Placing Support.
In addition to PPL Bronek mentioned he is Chair of East End Community Foundation
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
Today’s guest is a really strong, highly successful well-known and well-respected presence in the market. He is someone great to know because he knows almost everyone, including the most powerful capital providers behind the scenes.
He is a real broker’s broker with a career spanning 45 years, culminating as CEO of Willis Re. And he has all the broker’s charm and craft accumulated over that period.
He is also passionate and wears his heart on his sleeve.
A consistent theme he has pursued in his career is a belief in the importance of enabling the renewal of the specialty insurance business in general and the Lloyd’s market in particular by giving entrepreneurs the opportunities and support they need to innovate and to refresh the sector.
And in the venture he founded four and a half years ago he has made it his business to do just that.
John Cavanagh is the chairman of Lloyd’s incubator, underwriter and investor Beat Capital Partners and in this interview we get right to the heart of what Beat is all about.
In this podcast we find out the biggest secular trends in specialty insurance and how Beat is on a mission to ride and grow with them to its advantage
We are most lucky to get the benefit of a lifetime of market knowledge and understanding delivered in a completely no-nonsense way.
You can hear the conviction coming out of every sentence – I challenge you not to find John’s insights hugely useful for your own business.
There’s something about the combination of strong passionate leadership and positivity that is really infectious.
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/
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
Today’s podcast is a really lively one.
As I was listening back I found that there are parts of this recording that are almost breathless.
That’s entirely down to the energy levels of who I am interviewing.
When I met David Walsh (Group CEO, picture left) and Graeme Newman (CEO, picture right) of London-headquartered MGA CFC Underwriting they were still buzzing after a significant fundraise that has given their business a valuation of roughly three and a half billion dollars on a multiple that makes CFC look more like a tech company than an insurer.
To put this into context, this valuation is 10 times the what it was in the last investment round just over four years ago and probably more than double when they were first on the show just over a year ago.
David and Graeme had also just come through a calendar year in which they had posted 50% GWP growth and in which they had set up a Lloyd’s Syndicate to support their underwriting, which is projected to breach the $1bn GWP barrier in 2022.
We talk about the pair’s ambitious growth plans in the ultra-dynamic and dislocated cyber insurance space and how they feel the market is bifurcating between those carriers that are doubling down on the product and really grappling with the ransomware epidemic and those that frankly are not.
But perhaps more interesting than the all the valuable details, in this podcast we get a deep view into this duo’s growth mindset and their firm’s almost unique relationship with technology that makes it one of the industry’s very few native insurtechs.
From what follows if anything the business’s growth looks likely to accelerate more from here.
NOTES:
I mention an interesting report on systemic cyber loss costs. This indeed came from CFC itself and was attributed to CFC's head of Cyber, James Burns, speaking at his company's Cyber Forum in December 2021. It was reported by the Insurance Insider: (Subscription needed) https://www.insuranceinsider.com/article/29eg3lhzopfx8r3rvr2f4/cfc-real-life-systemic-cyber-events-challenging-model-assumptions?utm_content=189971317&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-129610827
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
Lucy Clarke is a dream interviewee.
Of course, her position as President of Marsh Specialty and Global Placement, Marsh gives her a view of the market that only a very few peers would be able to rival, but it is her smart, no-nonsense and direct personality that immediately stands out.
Given the global market is in such an agitated and interesting state, this makes for a really compelling and enlightening podcast.
Lucy is a breath of fresh air and a really lively and charismatic interviewee.
If I was a client I would love to have her fighting my corner with underwriters.
I am really glad to get her on the show and highly recommend this episode to anyone wishing to navigate the late stages of this extremely challenging hard global insurance market.
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/
Friday Jan 07, 2022
Friday Jan 07, 2022
Today’s interview is one of the most all encompassing I have ever done.
That’s all because of the interviewee and his research team who have just produced one of the most comprehensive 1st of January renewal reports I have ever read.
The 2022 renewals have been much more interesting than usual with reinsurers undertaking a fundamental rethink of how they view Property Cat alongside taking a view on casualty trends, Covid and the long-term likely effects of both the social and economic forms inflation.
Meanwhile Cyber insurance has been undergoing a huge dislocation and a wholesale re-rating and we have also had the effects of the class of 2020 and record industry capital levels to take into account.
For this reason I was delighted to catch up with David Flandro Head of Analytics at Howden’s HX unit to try and make sense of it all.
David is one of the smartest analysts dedicated to the insurance world and he is also a great communicator and great fun to spend time with.
The report is out now and I would highly recommend a read to accompany your listen here
There are some things that only a well-constructed graph can explain!
LINKS
Howden 1.1.22 renewal report Times are a-changin’:
https://www.howdengroupholdings.com/assets/documents/howden-times-are-a-changin-report.pdf
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/
Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
Todays’ guest is David Ibeson the CEO of Apollo Syndicate Management.
David is a Lloyd’s veteran with over twenty-five years in the market, twenty of which he has spent in the CEO role at Lloyd’s managing agencies.
In an era when so many bemoan the lack of strong personalities, David is an exception that proves the rule.
David is also another extreme rarity – that’s because he is a qualified actuary but one who is also a born communicator.
In this podcast we examine David’s view of the market and Apollo’s strategy within it.
From our chat it soon emerges that Apollo is as exceptional as David.
That’s because whilst Apollo is in many ways quite a traditional Lloyd’s business, the risks it is looking to take on and the products it is looking to develop are anything but.
Here we discuss everything from Nat Cat appetites to the sharing economy and the prospects for algorithmic underwriting – all with a huge amount of energy and good humour.
NOTE:
In the podcast I mention David’s ‘other hat’ that he wears at Howden group’s international MGA Dual. That is a reference to David being the Chairman of Dual.
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/
Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
Historically in our business fast growth has been a red flag and a sign that something might be wrong.
The fastest growth has often been followed by a period of significant underperformance later on as the chickens come home to roost.
But there are some major exceptions to that rule and today I’m speaking to one of them.
Beazley has been one of the most successful, innovative and fast-growing specialty companies of the past two decades. Adrian Cox has been part of that journey over the same period and has just taken over the CEO role.
In this podcast we get right into Adrian’s vision for what the next twenty years might be like.
Growth is definitely a big part of the story. But in this lively interview you really get to know what Adrian is like and how he thinks.
This is an organisation that has a tendency to run towards problems, not away from them and in doing so bakes growth into the business.
After all, if you can solve the toughest problems you can get well paid to do so and that is my overriding impression from this encounter.
As Beazley gets bigger it has greater resources to deploy on solving more sophisticated problems in more areas and should be able to continue to grow at impressive rates, even as it becomes quite a large business.
The only brake on growth would be if we suddenly started running out of new problems to solve – and we already know that that is not going to happen any time soon.
In our talk, amongst other things Adrian runs us through Cyber market dislocation and how that might be resolved, the logic behind Beazley’s ESG syndicate and the opportunities and threats of algorithmic underwriting.
He does all of this with infectious enthusiasm and a smile on his face.
I am really pleased with how this episode has turned out.
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/
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Today’s guest is John Fowle the CEO of Chaucer.
John’s in an enviable position. He has a very large long-term backer in the form of new owner China Re that is effectively providing almost unlimited permanent capital to his business.
Chaucer’s new ownership brings the ability to write almost anything as well as access to the vast Chinese-backed Belt and Road global investment initiative
But just because you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.
This interview turned into a really open and fun discussion.
John’s thoughtful and good humoured personality shines throughout this podcast as I probe him on everything from how ESG and algorithms are going to change underwriting to where Chaucer’s plans to be China Re’s international P&C insurance and reinsurance growth engine will take them.
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/
Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
Todays’ guest is a formidable professional with whom I have been sparring on and off for the last 16 years.
But most of the time that sparring would have gone on behind the scenes and not while notebooks were open, or indeed, the microphones switched on.
That’s because Caroline Wagstaff, who has just been confirmed in post as the permanent CEO of cross-industry body the London Market Group (LMG), has spent her career working on the media relations and strategies of top players in the industry.
In this interview we run through what the LMG is all about and what its top priorities are.
We talk about lobbying government departments and regulators and selling the benefits of the London Market to brokers, customers and future talent from around the world.
There is also a lot of detail around the recent success the LMG has had in getting the UK Government to give regulators an obligation to consider the impact of regulatory activity on the globally competitive position of the market.
Caroline says that a big part of this job is about corralling all the hugely varied and often disparate parts of the market together under common banners.
This job needs a very strong character to bring all the different players together.
Listen to this and I think you’ll see straight away why the LMG board felt Caroline was going to be a good fit for the role.
I always enjoy spending time with Caroline because she is so direct and there is no ambiguity – I think you will too.
NOTES
I refer to The LMG 5-point plan early in the podcast and I think I should have introduced it a bit better, so here it is in all its glory:
https://lmg.london/news/lmg-launches-5-point-plan-to-help-seize-new-global-trade-opportunities/
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/
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Today’s guest is Sian Fisher.
Sian has had an illustrious career in international insurance and this has culminated in a 6-year period as CEO of the UK’s well-renowned professional standards and qualifications body the Chartered Insurance Institute (the CII).
Sian is a strong and vocal female leader in our sector and in her tenure has been a dynamic and effective agent of change at this venerable trade body. I think it’s fair to say that she has shaken things up in this time.
Now her departure has been announced I caught up with her to reflect on her modernising work ,the highs and lows of running a high-profile organisation through Brexit and then Covid and her vision for keeping a hitherto very traditional institution relevant in the 21st century.
We also discuss things that with hindsight she might have done differently and what the future might hold for this highly experienced senior executive.
Sian is great to talk to – she thinks and communicates clearly, she’s eloquent, she’s never shy and she’s always direct.
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/
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
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/
Tuesday Nov 02, 2021
Tuesday Nov 02, 2021
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/
Friday Oct 29, 2021
Friday Oct 29, 2021
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.
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/
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
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/
Friday Oct 22, 2021
Friday Oct 22, 2021
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
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
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/
Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
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/
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
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.
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/
Tuesday Sep 28, 2021
Tuesday Sep 28, 2021
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:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
https://freepartners.com/
Tuesday Sep 21, 2021
Tuesday Sep 21, 2021
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/
Friday Sep 17, 2021
Friday Sep 17, 2021
Today’s podcast is something a little different because instead of talking about our market from the inside we will be looking at it through the eyes of insurance professionals who access our products and services from the outside.
What do our customers really think of us and what are they looking for when they come into the international insurance and reinsurance markets looking to do business?
Michał Chmielewski Deputy Chairman (left) and Tomasz Libront President (right) have built Smartt Re into a significant independent reinsurance broker in the highly competitive and fast-growing Polish market.
Their report card on the London and International insurance markets makes for really interesting listening as well as their description of the huge opportunities as well as the significant challenges facing the largest market in Central and Eastern Europe.
Michal and Tomasz are very open and frank about their experience and some of the observations are frankly eye-opening,
so for anyone looking to learn what makes an independent local broker in emerging markets tick and what they are really looking for in an international partner this should be required listening.
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
In insurance and reinsurance we hear a lot of talk about partnerships, but in truth we know that many relationships are marriages of convenience or indeed opportunistic liaisons that are not designed to last.
If I was a reinsurance buyer I would like my reinsurer to be committed to supporting me in the long term and someone who was unlikely to run away if I have had a bad year.
I’d like to be able to confide in them and I’d really value it if they were perhaps even a little boring in their consistency.
Javier San Basilio the CUO of Mapfre Re is very much the embodiment of this old school of reinsurer.
I really enjoyed spending time with someone able to give a calm and considered analysis of the state of the reinsurance market today and I think you will too.
Listen on for valuable insights and a sense of where Mapfre’s steadily increasing influence is likely to be felt in the run-up to 1.1 and beyond.
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/
Tuesday Sep 07, 2021
Tuesday Sep 07, 2021
Jeff Radke is someone who has had senior roles in many areas of the insurance and reinsurance spectrum.
His career ranges from reinsurance broking at Guy Carpenter to running PXRE, one of the last major Bermudian specialist retro writers.
He then played a large variety of senior roles in over a decade at Argo Group, the internationally diversified specialty insurance and reinsurance group formed out of Argonaut’s takeover of PXRE in 2007.
But all those roles had one thing in common – all of them were at the very least one step removed from the end customer
In his latest venture he is applying all that experience to the world of ultra-specialised, ultra-client-focused MGAs.
It is a really interesting proposition because Jeff knows from his own experience that reinsurers and speciality insurers are keen to access portfolios of stable commercial risk to help balance their own increasingly volatile books
Meanwhile after the shake-out and instability of the last couple of years, quality MGAs are looking for really solid and committed paper providers.
Accelerant does all the things that other MGA incubators are doing including providing and sourcing growth capital, but it also uses its own paper and sources long-term third party insurance capital for its MGA members to give a complete service.
It is clear that Jeff is incredibly energised by this project and I think it comes out all the way through this podcast.
Listen on for a really interesting and fun encounter with someone who has clearly got the bit between his teeth.
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/
Tuesday Jul 27, 2021
Tuesday Jul 27, 2021
One of the best things about this show is that it gives me the perfect excuse to meet people who I have been meaning to meet for ages.
Monica Cramer Manhem, President, International Reinsurance at SiriusPoint is one such guest. Over the last fifteen years many mutual friends have recommended I try to get an audience with her, saying that we would get on really well.
Well they were right. Monica is indeed fantastically good company and right now she has a great story to tell.
SiriusPoint is the product of the merger of two very different legacy businesses and is intent on forging a progressive identity for itself under its new banner.
It’s exciting stuff and in this podcast we go into detail on its transformational plans and the challenges that they will bring.
We also discuss the state of the market after the mid-year renewals and we hear Monica’s own reflections on her long and successful career as a woman in what was - certainly at the very beginning – very much a man’s world.
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/
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Today’s podcast is in two parts.
It starts off as a quick run through the state of the market through the eyes of two very senior underwriting practitioners
But then it dives right into the heart of the state of the underwriting profession itself and how the life of an underwriter is going to change in the future.
In their high-profile careers both Group Head of Portfolio Underwriting at Swiss Re Silvi Wompa Sinclair and Chief Underwriting Officer of Apollo Syndicate Management James Slaughter have been at the forefront of transforming the business of underwriting and are extremely well placed to outline a vision of the future of the profession.
The message is pretty clear. Transformation in the way all underwriters work is coming and everyone needs to get ready to change the way they do business in order to reap the benefits.
Productivity is set to rise enormously as the machines do a lot more of the grunt work, but the good news for underwriters and brokers is that the roles for the humans in the process are going to become a lot more interesting.
At the same time everyone’s career prospects are going to be boosted hugely.
Listen on for a fascinating and inspiring dive into the future of underwriting.
NOTES:
POC stands for proof of concept, a term usually used when new technology is being tested.
A TOBA is a terms of business agreement, which in our sector is the contract that governs the dealings between a broker and an underwriter.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
https://www.advantagego.com/
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
When my notebook is put away and the microphones are switched off, after a couple of drinks, people in the market often lament the lack of personalities in the modern insurance and reinsurance industry.
They say that it’s just not like it used to be and that massive consolidation has pushed the individual to the sidelines within ever larger, ever more soulless corporations.
Today’s guests prove that not be true in any sense of the word.
Rod Fox (CEO) founded reinsurance broker and capital advisor TigerRisk thirteen years ago and has been carving a place in the sector and taking the big three brokers head on ever since.
Two years ago fellow reinsurance veteran Rob Bredahl joined the team as President, reuniting the pair who had worked together at Benfield in the early noughties.
When I was organising this interview I was worried that Rob might find it hard to make himself heard because Rod is such a strong character.
I needn’t have worried. Their energy and camaraderie is palpable.
They are also clearly having the time of their lives, as a well-resourced and aggressive TigerRisk looks to take full advantage of the opportunities presenting themselves in a highly fluid reinsurance and capital markets intermediary space.
In this podcast we dissect the state of the market and go into deep detail about how Tiger is planning to double or possibly triple in size in the next five years.
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/
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Today’s guests are the executives behind the fast-growing specialist aviation broker start-up Piiq Risk Partners.
In a very short space of time Philip Smaje CEO [picture left] and Marcel Chad President [picture right] have put Piiq on the front pages of the trade press with some eye-popping household name client wins.
In a time of seemingly permanent consolidation and the homogenisation of so much of the intermediary market, theirs is a story that I think will inspire many brokers.
People, connections specialist knowledge and expertise and an ultra-client focused approach are clearly still incredibly important.
Listen on for the secrets of their early successes and what drives their business, an honest assessment of the impending acquisition of their parent company Corant Global by Ardonagh and a frank analysis of the state of the aviation market.
Philip is the first of the two to speak.
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/
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Clive Washbourn is a legendary figure in the marine insurance market.
His enviable track record of profitability has made him probably the nearest thing to a celebrity within that very particular, and often very difficult to underwrite, subset of our sector.
So when the news came out that he had started his own marine MGA Navium, on Fidelis’s Pine Walk platform I made sure I put in a request for an interview.
Despite so many years covering the markets I hadn’t met Clive before but you wouldn’t tell from this interview.
Clive is the real deal.
In this episodel I found a lead underwriter completely at ease with himself and rejuvenated at the prospect of building a new business with the benefit of a successful career behind him.
He was also infectiously happy, immensely charismatic and instantly likeable.
What follows is a masterclass in entrepreneurial spirit and the art of successful underwriting.
I also think it reassuring proof that personality still has a huge amount to play in success in many corners of the insurance world.
NOTES
Clive and I couldn't remember exact dates, but the Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger aviation war loss indeed occurred 20 years ago, in July 2001.
Abbreviations: TLO = Total loss only; IV = Increased Value.
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/
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Today’s guest is part of a team busy building a reinsurance broker to challenge the big three almost across the board.
We’ll never see the numbers but it is highly likely that his firm has invested the most of all the challenger reinsurance brokers in the past two years.
During that time it has seen its headcount quintuple to two hundred and twenty-five and it has opened twelve new offices to be represented in thirteen locations.
Despite this incredibly fast growth Keith Harrison International CEO of Lockton Re has his feet firmly on the ground and is one of the most level-headed and straight-talking brokers I have interviewed on this podcast.
Indeed with so much uncertainty for reinsurance intermediaries over the past two years and with the daily news only prolonging the agony for many, Keith’s claim that Lockton Re is actually one of the most stable places to come to work, rings fairly true.
Listen on for more details on how Lockton Re plans to bring the fight to its larger rivals and a comprehensive diagnosis of reinsurance market conditions at the mid-year renewals.
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/
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Today’s special episode does exactly what it says on the tin - plus a little more.
AdvantageGo organised a prestigious panel of three prominent US-focused P&C CEOs and I got to work with them on dissecting the state of the market.
Marc Adee, CEO of Crum & Forster, Andrew Robinson CEO of Skyward Specialty and Greg Hendrick the CEO of Vantage Group were all on excellent form as we examined rate adequacy, the prospect for loss trends and whether underwriters might keep ahead of them, resurgent economic and social inflation, the re-rating of cyber insurance and the ever-developing view of the industry Covid loss.
We also rounded up the mid-year renewals, talked about the largely benign impact of reinsurance on the current market, and took a view on the sky-high valuations of public Insurtech stocks and the future of innovation and the industry’s developing relationship with technology.
Many thanks again to AdvantageGo for organising this one – all I had to do was show up and ask the questions!
Enjoy the podcast.
NOTES
Greg Hendrick couldn't remember who said the famous quote about the market being able to stay irrational longer that you can stay solvent. This one is from the British economist John Maynard Keynes.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
https://www.advantagego.com/
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
I have to admit that today’s guest took me by surprise. Could she be the most powerful female CEO in the world?
Well, maybe.
She sits at the head of a global broking organisation that has six billion dollars in revenue and handles around sixty billion dollars in gross premiums.
If Willis and Aon finally merge, Olga Collins will be the CEO of the world’s third-largest broking organisation.
In this podcast we go deep into the detail of the Worldwide Broker Network and how it has set itself up to compete with the dwindling group of wholly-owned global intermediaries.
Unsurprisingly I found Olga in bullish mood and licking her lips at the prospect of so many clients falling through the cracks as their big broker advocates work out where they stand with their current or prospective employers.
Anyone who thinks the day of the independent broker has come and gone should have a word with Olga first.
Her attitude is refreshing and she is probably the most client-focused guest I have ever had on the show.
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/
Friday Jun 04, 2021
Friday Jun 04, 2021
Today’s special episode is all about how to build a company culture that helps your business to win.
To this end I was very lucky to be joined by John Fay MBE (pictured bottom right) and Edward Gordon Lennox (pictured bottom left) of Delta V Partners to help me dig deeply into the subject.
John and Edward are experts in the field who are much in demand across all sectors and in multiple countries around the world.
They talk our language and know how to get the best out of us. They don’t spout jargon and they are very down-to-earth, practical and pragmatic: they’re a bit like us insurance folk really.
The team from Delta V are going to show us the ropes in plain English so you will be able to get your head around this topic and understand all the key themes.
Then to make it even more practical we will hear from an industry practitioner who has gone through this process on more than one occasion.
Steve Hearn CEO of Corant Global needs no introduction.
In fact I got to know Delta V because John Fay MBE listened to the recent podcast I did with Steve where he mentioned the work they had done.
So with Steve’s appearance we will top off the theory with straightforward advice on what to expect when building a culture in practice.
CONTACTS:
Delta V Partners Company contact emails:
hello@deltav.com
info@deltavpartners.com
Website: https://deltavpartners.com/
John Fay:
Twitter: @nuasafc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayjohn/
Edward Gordon Lennox:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-gordon-lennox-164685b/
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
It is only a recently rebranding exercise that has made the size and scale of today's guest's broking and MGA operation come into view.
David Bearman is the founder and CEO of London-based Aventum, a group that houses the Rokstone MGA and broker Consilium and controls over £600mn in gross written premium.
The group has been around for 25 years but has only just put its head above the parapet and started to show itself to the market.
I am really glad to have David on the show. He reminds me of the great broking pioneers and transmits all the energy and entrepreneurial spirit that some say is lacking in the London Market.
In a time of extreme broker consolidation and a worry that customer choice and competition may in some way be curtailed it is reassuring to meet someone with his ambition and buzz.
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/
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Today’s guest is someone I have known for almost 30 years. That’s because I used to broker business to him back in the 1990s when I was working in the London Market.
Back then he was making a name for himself as a lead market in the international casualty class at UK composite Eagle Star.
As my career changed completely his took off and at QBE Europe he swiftly rose the ranks to become its most senior underwriting executive.
Then eight years ago he left to pursue the dream of founding a Lloyd’s business of his own.
Anyone who met Ash Bathia CEO of Probitas 1492 thirty years ago will have marked out as someone with the ambition and drive to make a real impact on the market.
And as it turned out Ash was going to need all of that drive and a lot more. Probitas had as tough a start in life as it is possible to have.
Born right at the nadir of one of the longest soft markets in history, Probitas was hit hard by the unexpected loss of its cornerstone capital provider and extremely challenging early underwriting numbers in its ramp-up years.
Almost all of its peers folded or were actively shuttered by Lloyd’s itself in its recent remediation phase.
But today Probitas is a top Lloyd’s performer and is pre-empting capacity and scaling up as market conditions continue to turn in its favour.
Interviewing Ash was just like broking to him all those years ago. He hasn’t changed much.
He is still smart, sharp and direct with great charm. And he is a great trader, problem-solver and dealmaker in the classic Lloyd’s entrepreneurial tradition.
The difference is that to those skills you can now add maturity, humility and the wisdom that comes from starting and running a business of his own.
These days Ash has one hell of a story to tell.
I’m just grateful that he let me be the first to get it out of him.
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/
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
As Chief Underwriting Officer of Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK) Matthew Shaw has one of the top ten individual underwriting jobs in the London market, marshalling a stamp capacity of one and a half billion pounds at one of Lloyd’s best-known lead markets, Syndicate 510.
In many ways this business is a microcosm of the London Market as a whole.
A soft market fall into loss was followed by significant re-underwriting.
Then the business bounced significantly back into profit in 2019, only to take a large short-tail hit from Covid in 2020, which it has weathered undaunted.
2021 has seen a bullish 14.9 percent pre-emption in capacity amid the heady combination of significant growth in submissions and continually improving underwriting conditions across the market.
Matthew is very easy to talk to and together we embark on a comprehensive tour of his views on the market, market reform and innovation, culture change and where TMK fits into it all.
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/
Tuesday May 11, 2021
Tuesday May 11, 2021
Executive Chairman Neil Eckert and Group CEO Trevor Carvey are the team behind Conduit Re, a new London-listed Bermuda-based reinsurer.
Neil is one of the insurance industry’s most successful serial entrepreneurs, so when someone of his experience and pedigree senses an opportunity we should all take notice.
Conduit’s single-location pure reinsurance design is quite different from its class of 2020 peers and here we go deep into the pair’s thinking behind why they have set things up the way they have.
Neil and Trevor are direct and easy to talk to and I think their answers are really illuminating.
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/
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Today’s podcast with Steve McGill, Founder and CEO of McGill and Partners was recorded live. The Voice of Insurance was invited to produce the opening fireside chat at the highly successful Insurtech 3 point 0 insurtech event and we thought it would be fun for a change.
Doing things truly live is always different and often unexpected.
You’ll find this one a bit faster than usual – that’s not because I have suddenly lost my manners and enjoying interrupting but because I am keeping to a strict time schedule and sometimes need to move things along so we don’t run out of time.
There are also a few thrills and spills, but that’s all part of the fun of doing things live with no safety net.
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/
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Today’s guests head one the largest and best-placed new businesses in the market.
This is because it had a long head-start on the class of 2020.
Before the market turn became obvious last year it already had $1.7bn in capital committed and underwriting teams in place. Then with the hardening in full swing it accelerated its growth plan and almost doubled that capital base.
Convex’s Chairman and CEO Stephen Catlin and Deputy CEO Paul Brand have had impeccable timing and are looking to use the benefit of all their long experience building Catlin into a global specialty insurer and reinsurer to good use with their new project.
It’s clear from this interview that they intend to do everything better, stronger and faster and what’s more they plan to enjoy the journey more along the way.
Here we dissect the market opportunity for this very large legacy-free start-up from every angle and leave no topic off the table.
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/
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Today’s guest has one of the biggest single jobs in our business.
As President of Property & Casualty for Swiss Re in the US Keith Wolfe has huge responsibility
This is because on most measures his employer is the largest writer of reinsurance in the US.
This gives him unrivalled visibility on what is the largest insurance market in the world.
I have met Keith many times in the past, chairing him at US-based conferences.
He is always good-humoured and always says it like it is in ways that you might not expect from someone who is part of such a large multinational organisation.
I’m happy to report that in this encounter he was on excellent form as we dissected the US market from top to bottom via Covid, Casualty, Cyber, Insurtech, automatic underwriting and of course the state of the market and the prospects for upcoming renewals.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Tuesday Apr 13, 2021
Tuesday Apr 13, 2021
Today’s guest is the leader of one of London’s oldest independent broking houses.
Greg Collins is CEO of Miller, which via major new investment has just extricated itself from the Willis Towers Watson Group.
In this podcast we get right to the heart of why the firm’s innovative experiment with Big-three ownership didn’t work out and what this wholesale specialty broker plans to do with its new-found freedom.
Greg comes across as someone completely on top of his game and speaks like he has had a weight lifted off his shoulders. It is refreshing to hear.
Tune in for insights into Miller’s growth strategy, the reinsurance broking landscape, technological and cultural modernisation and why Miller won’t be doing anything to upset its US wholesale relationships.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: