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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 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:
Friday Apr 09, 2021
Friday Apr 09, 2021
Today’s guest is an amazing person with an incredibly interesting story to tell.
After 10 years in the British military and distinguished service in Iraq, Forbes McKenzie was determined to apply the skills he had learned in military intelligence in the civilian world.
A decade and lots of hard work later, McKenzie Intelligence Services (MIS) is bringing real-time intelligence to bear on natural disasters and manmade events alike and has won a major tender to provide its services across the Lloyd’s market.
As Forbes describes in the podcast, users of the firm’s GEO platform are improving reserving estimates by 93%, cutting claims overheads by 40% and this is making an average 2 percentage point improvement to loss ratios.
Here we talk about the art of blending multiple data sources to provide insights that insurers can use instantly.
But because this is such a cutting-edge business we get to look into the future and a world of really smart, really focused artificial intelligence, instant straight through claims payments, hugely expanded parametric insurance and the future of exposure management.
Forbes is excellent company and has a great way of turning complicated ideas into simple and understandable insights that you can use to improve the way you go about your business today.
LINKS:
Mckenzie Intelligence Services (MIS)
https://www.mckenzieintelligence.co.uk/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mckenzie-intelligence-services-ltd
Twitter: @McKenzie_Int
Forbes McKenzie LinkedIn:
(Connect and ask him how he came to be mentioned in dispatches in Iraq)
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/forbes-mckenzie-904a4842
Twitter: @forbesmckenzie
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Today’s guest is an example to those of us who feel we ought to change with the times but might not feel we are fully equipped to do so.
Matthew Wilson is the Group CEO of Brit and is a Lloyd’s man through and through.
He has spent most of his career going about his business in the same analogue way that most of us are familiar with.
Yet he has embarked on a transformation programme at Brit to overhaul everything it does in readiness for a digital future.
A three-year migration of systems to the cloud is just coming to fruition and last year’s pioneering launch of Ki, Brit’s algorithmically driven follow syndicate, is still being digested by the market.
In this podcast we focus on how Brit and Lloyd’s can embrace a digital future and reap expense savings, productivity gains and huge business benefits if it can turn its analogue platform into a digital one.
Whilst the technical challenges are never to be underestimated, this discussion shows that the greatest hurdles are far more likely to be self-imposed cultural ones.
From this encounter it becomes clear that only until we can learn to accept change can we innovate successfully.
I would venture that if Matthew can do it, so can the rest of the market.
So I highly recommend this one to anyone looking for pointers on where to start and how to begin embracing the insurance market of the future.
Enjoy the Podcast.
NOTES:
The iMRC acronym Matthew mentions stands for the Intelligent Market Reform Contract and is part of the Lloyd’s Blueprint 2 programme.
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 Mar 30, 2021
Tuesday Mar 30, 2021
I really enjoyed interviewing today’s guest.
I think it was because I was picking up on the energy, enthusiasm and buzz emanating from someone who is running a start-up business.
Mitch Blaser, the CEO of Mosaic has done this before and it is his clarity of vision and purpose that shines through our discussion.
He has the benefit of experience to know what he would do differently and he also has a very clear idea of how to leverage the advantages of a single clean balance sheet with new investors and no legacy risk and equally as important to Mitch, a brand new enterprise with no legacy systems, technology or culture.
The prospects of the post-Covid world of emerging risk are what are firing Mitch and his team of specialty underwriters up
But overall it is Mitch’s irrepressible positivity and confidence that is most 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) and Free Partners for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
https://freepartners.com/
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
This week’s podcast is a great encounter with a UK MGA pioneer at the top of his game.
Colin Thompson is the CEO of Nexus Group, a firm he founded in London 13 years ago.
That business is projecting punchy organic growth of a third this year to $600mn in premiums written.
It is also on the hunt for ever larger acquisitions and is looking to back some of its own underwriting with a risk-bearing entity to show its paper providers that it has real skin in the game.
During our chat Colin also confirms that Nexus will be selling its trade credit broking arm to focus exclusively on underwriting.
We cover a huge amount of ground here and a lot is revealed about the next strategic direction for what is almost certainly London’s fastest-growing MGA business of scale.
We also learn a lot about what makes the entrepreneur driving its growth tick.
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 Mar 16, 2021
Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
Today’s guest is one of the best-known and most experienced executives in the reinsurance broking world.
Ross Howard is Global Executive Chairman of Lockton Re and has launched himself into a major project to help build a challenger reinsurance broker for the Lockton Group.
In this podcast we find out why he thinks the current market opportunities are some of the best he has seen in his long career and why, provided you have the right platform as a base, knowledge, expertise and relationships are more important than they have ever been.
I have been meeting and interviewing Ross on and off for around 15 years and I think some of that rapport shows in this encounter.
Ross is the consummate broker: charming, knowledgeable, accommodating, imaginative and unflappable.
I highly recommend you spend the next half an hour or so in his company.
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 Mar 12, 2021
Friday Mar 12, 2021
This episode could easily be called “everything you wanted to know about insurtech but were afraid to ask.”
This is because today’s guests are insurtech pioneers who spend their time finding new insurance ideas and the entrepreneurs behind them.
They knock the rough edges off, apply expertise, lend regulatory licences so that ideas can be tested and make connections with incumbent insurers as well as investors. They also deploy their own venture capital funds into the companies they find.
In short they provide one of the few full service platforms for innovative new ventures and fulfil the role of translators between the often disconnected worlds of technology and insurance.
Now with five years’ experience The Voice of Insurance spoke to Stephen Brittain and Robert Lumley of the Insurtech Gateway to find out what they had learned after being at the bleeding edge of insurance innovation for such a long time.
The results may surprise you.
Here you can get to half a decade’s learning compressed into half an hour. A pioneer like The Gateway has often had to learn the hard way.
By listening to this excellent episode you won’t have to...
LINKS
https://insurtechgateway.com/
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Today’s guest is one of the industry’s brightest stars and I think the podcast you are about the listen to amply proves why he has earned that moniker.
The Voice of insurance has also been lucky enough to speak to him at an exciting time for him and the industry itself.
A veteran of the Bermuda class of 1992, he is back again with a substantial start-up looking to capitalise on major opportunities in the global wholesale specialty insurance and reinsurance market.
Here Greg Hendrick the CEO of Vantage Group runs us through his vision from top to bottom and dissects in great detail how he and his team is attacking a market opportunity.
Greg has long been one of the best speakers on the insurance conference circuit and here it soon becomes obvious that podcasting comes naturally to him.
Here is someone happy, confident, energised, completely at the top of their game and ready to put a career’s worth of knowledge and experience to work in a favourable marketplace.
There is a ton of useful information here and I think you can learn a lot from listening over the next 35 minutes or so.
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 Mar 05, 2021
Friday Mar 05, 2021
Today’s special guests are technology entrepreneurs looking to digitise and revolutionise the reinsurance marketplace.
Their radical free-to-use platform has the goal of making the cumbersome submission and placement process pain-free for practitioners.
But with these two there’s a big difference. Both Jerad Leigh and Ben Rose of Supercede gave up successful careers in the underwriting, broking and advisory side of reinsurance to found their business.
Past attempts at reinsurance platforms have tended to focus on getting the boardrooms of the biggest players signed up and mandating usage on the ground but as former practitioners their focus is on solving the problems of the individual users themselves.
As we move to an expense conscious world where big IT spend for no discernible competitive gain is no longer a boast but potentially a source of embarrassment, their free and fully independent model is a compelling one.
In this special episode we naturally go for a whirlwind tour of the Supercede product offering, but we stay much longer and get to the heart of what these two founders think the reinsurance market of the future is going to look like and their part in enabling it.
Not only are Ben and Jerad exceptionally bright, they are excellent company.
I highly recommend listening to what they have to say.
NOTES:
You may already know Supercede by its original name, Riskbook.
Ben mentions a business called Rightmove. For non-UK listeners this is the main UK platform for residential real estate, connecting realtors/(real) estate agents and individual buyers.
LINKS:
https://supercede.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/supercede1/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeraddleigh/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-rose-supercede/
Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
After an extended build-out Pina Albo’s Hamilton Group now has significant Lloyd’s, Bermuda and Dublin platforms covering specialty insurance, reinsurance and third-party asset management and is building further capabilities on the ground in the US E&S market via an MGA structure.
It’s also fully committed to a tech-enabled US brokered small commercial joint venture operation in Attune.
Listen to Pina as the group moves to the execution phase of its strategy and looks to be rewarded for the patience it has shown throughout the prolonged soft market into which it was born.
Pina is a focused leader with strong convictions about where the market is headed.
Her conclusions are concise, unambiguous and easy to follow.
I highly recommend a listen.
NOTES:
Pina refers to Ada Re in relation to Hamilton’s party capital management operation. Ada Re is specifically Hamilton’s retro sidecar vehicle. She of course meant to say Ada Capital.
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 Feb 23, 2021
Tuesday Feb 23, 2021
Today’s guest is a broking CEO on an ambitious mission to grow global revenues many times with the backing of a strategic owner.
That may sound familiar to regular listeners, but Steve Hearn of Corant Global is going about things quite differently.
At a time when most broker holding companies are at pains to hive up all their underlying brands into an overarching global brand identity, Steve is allowing multiple broking houses to flourish under the newly-minted Corant banner.
A veteran of senior executive positions at large and small brokers alike, Steve now runs a holding company and not an operational broking business.
This means he isn’t bogged down or distracted by the day to day and has the job of thinking strategically about where broking in our market is going in the short, medium and long term and positioning Corant accordingly.
Corant also has a different sort of owner – the capital markets focused BGC and ultimately the Cantor Fitzgerald group.
And the influence of this different variant of financial services culture is highly noticeable.
And that’s what makes this podcast special.
Rarely have I had such a focused conversation on what is happening in the broking landscape and where things are headed.
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 Feb 16, 2021
Tuesday Feb 16, 2021
This week’s guest is a longstanding and integral member of one of the most successful underwriting teams in the specialty insurance and reinsurance world.
Charles Mathias was an original member of staff at Lancashire and is now a core member of the team at Fidelis.
As Chief Risk officer and board member he has total visibility of Fidelis’s strategy and here he doesn’t duck any questions.
I was surprised by how open he was with me about which segments of the market the now capital-loaded Fidelis is finding most attractive as well as its approach to developing proprietary technology.
Again he is completely transparent about the special culture and work ethic that has made Richard-Brindle led carriers so distinctive, and so successful in the past 15 years.
This longstanding market practitioner is also incredibly polite and good humoured company.
All this makes this episode one not to miss for anyone who wants to learn the secrets of underwriting success in the hardening market of 2021.
NOTES
Charles refers to a charitable foundation, he is of course referring to the Fidelis Foundation.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Friday Feb 12, 2021
Friday Feb 12, 2021
In my job I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and particularly insurtech entrepreneurs.
Very often I find that they know their tech but really haven’t yet got to understand the insurance world.
And that often means that they are solving problems that perhaps don’t exist in the minds of insurance people and their business are unlikely to succeed.
Well today I’m talking to a start-up founder who has insurance running through his veins.
James York knows the insurance value chain inside and out.
Because of that he knows that anyone who can cut into the savage acquisition costs insurers load onto themselves year after year is onto a winner.
In an industry that spends billions on marketing anyone who can make that spend more effective is going to be in high demand.
James is the founder of Worry + Peace, which is aiming to do just this via the medium of insurance reviews.
It’s a bold and extremely ambitious global vision that goes way beyond reviews and into a whole insurance ecosystem that will aim to bring buyers and sellers together in a trusted world but which isn’t actively trying to sell insurance to anyone.
Are you intrigued? I certainly was and the more I talk to James the more I think he is onto something.
I think you should hear him out.
LINKS and Contacts:
James’s Twitter handle is: @JamesJWYork
Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
Nick Cook of BMS Group is a man in a hurry to make the most of global opportunities to grow the 41-year old firm he runs.
Nick is refreshingly straightforward and to the point and here we get detail on BMS’s ambitious global buildout away from its more traditional markets in London and North America and into Latin America, Asia and Europe.
We also get a strong view on the opportunities being thrown up by big broker M&A as well as the capital factors driving substantial investment and consolidation at independents.
Nick also dissects the current fight to build challenger reinsurance brokers and how he thinks this particular game might not end well for everyone.
Finally we hear of bullish prospects for the London market and Nick’s thoughts and misgivings about the current vision for London’s future.
We pack in a lot here but listening back it is Nick’s boundless energy and no-nonsense passion for the task in hand that really shines through our exchange.
Enjoy the podcast.
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 Feb 02, 2021
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
Today we're talking to Matthew Moore President & Managing Director at Liberty Specialty Markets – LSM.
Matthew is one of the rising stars of the London Market and is currently serving as the chair of industry trade body the London Market Group.
Yet his role is global in nature.
He oversees a specialty, wholesale and reinsurance operation with gross written premiums of around $7bn of which London business is a minority.
In this wide-ranging podcast we get the benefit of this global perspective on opportunities in the hardening market as well as going into the detail on the drivers behind the essential reform process that the London Market is currently undergoing.
We also got to hear about Matthew’s thoughts on the future of insurance, industry price adequacy and reserve strength, Covid 19 estimates and how he is trying to make LSM differentiate itself in a competitive and capital-abundant marketplace.
Matthew is very enjoyable company and an insightful insurance thinker and communicator.
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 Jan 26, 2021
Tuesday Jan 26, 2021
Today’s podcast is a meeting with a senior market figure most of us have known for many years.
Sean McGovern served in different board level capacities at Lloyd’s for just over 2 decades, before leaving to join the then XL Catlin in 2016 ahead of its 2018 acquisition by AXA.
Last summer he was made CEO of AXA XL’s UK and Lloyd’s business – the first time he has held a CEO post.
This interview is all about his plans for the role now that the difficult remedial actions aimed at turning around the large London Market insurer’s underwriting performance have been taken and market conditions have taken a decisive turn for the better.
As a veteran Lloyd’s spokesperson Sean has been in the public eye for many years and in this encounter I found him easy-going, relaxed and excited to be running a major London operation with the backing of the world’s largest P&C group behind him
Listen on for an insider’s view of the opportunities currently presenting themselves in the London market.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Insurtech Gateway for their support today:
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
This podcast is all about looking to the future of broking.
In a world of automatic, algorithmically controlled capacity where huge rivers of data flow direct from insureds and reinsureds to carriers and beyond where does this leave the broker?
Brokers and technological change haven’t necessarily always gone hand in hand in our markets.
It was brokers that spurned the early versions of electronic placing and constantly worried about whether they would be disintermediated.
But these days a new broker is emerging – one less tied up in extracting remuneration out of the transaction and more intent on adding value through advice and advanced risk management services to their clients.
This is what I am discussing today with Clyde Bernstein, Head of Broking, Willis Towers Watson Great Britain.
A Willis lifer, Clyde is an extremely well-known figure in the London Market. Anyone who has spent enough time walking down Lime Street will recognise him because he has been in the market for over 30 years.
He is excellent company, is extremely eloquent and most importantly, he knows the market inside and out.
That is why his articulation of a vision for the future of broking is so compelling and real. If someone of his analogue pedigree has been bitten by the tech bug, we all will be.
With people like Clyde around, who would bet against the electronic underwriters of the future complaining that the brokers still always seem to be one step ahead of them?
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Today’s guest is one of the industry’s smartest analysts and it is great to welcome him back to the show.
David Flandro is the Managing Director of Analytics at HX, the tech and research-focused part of the Howden Group and today we are dissecting the state of the market after the 1.1.21 renewals.
David has had a long career in the financial markets and at major broking houses and is one of the best people I know at expressing often very complicated ideas and theories in the plainest of English.
He also has a great sense of humour and is always ebullient company which means while the English may be plain, the discussion and the mood is always lively.
In this podcast we discuss a lot of the topics raised in Howden's Hard Times 1.1 renewal report. I highly recommend you read this in conjunction with your listen today.
NOTES
Howden's Hard Times market report:
David mentions a Julian. He is referring to Julian Alovisi, HX’s Head of Research.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Monday Jan 04, 2021
Monday Jan 04, 2021
Today’s guest is one of the industry’s most experienced and most respected reinsurance brokers with an incredibly broad and deep perspective to share on the industry.
His broking house Willis Re is always first out of the blocks after the major renewal dates with its first view reports into the state of the reinsurance market
Given the exceptional nature of this particular renewal I was delighted to have some time with James Vickers Chair, Willis Re International.
We spoke at length about the hardening market, the impact of the class of 2020 and of course the potential costs and all the coverage issues surrounding Covid 19.
James is an exceptionally clear-thinking and eloquent commentator so I highly recommend the half hour conversation that follows.
And do make sure you accompany this podcast with a read of Willis Re’s 1.1.21 First View Report which they have entitled Firming Landscape.
LINKS
Willis Re Firming Landscape Report:
https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en-GB/Insights/2021/01/firming-landscape
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Dec 22, 2020
Tuesday Dec 22, 2020
Today’s guest is someone highly thought of in the London Market whose skills are in high demand.
Three years ago he set out to start his own business and reshape the MGA model in a highly radical way that seeks to align the agent as closely to the carriers backing them as possible.
Many businesses say they are going to break the mould but what Talbir Bains is trying to achieve at Volante has never been done before.
He and I had been introduced and briefly shaken hands a couple of times over the years, but I had never interviewed him in depth.
I am very glad that I did.
Talbir is as smart and visionary as you would expect, but I had no idea of the depth of his conviction, the scale of his ambition and the radical nature of the new type of MGA he is bringing to market.
Listen on if you want to learn what the MGA of the future is going to look like.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Today’s guest is a year and a half into a role running the best performing major reinsurer of the past 15 years.
Hannover Re has been a business that has managed to grow profitably in hard and soft markets alike, maintaining a lean structure and keeping underwriting and rigorous capital management to the fore.
With a global market hardening in full swing and one of the most important 1.1 renewals in decades to navigate, I asked Jean-Jacques Henchoz to outline his plans for Hannover Re in a radically changing reinsurance landscape.
Along the way I found a charismatic leader who is looking to strike a balance between reinforcing Hannover’s core strengths and underwriting culture while at the same time gently pushing it to adapt and prepare for the future.
I enjoyed my time with Jean-Jacques and the insights he gave into Hannover Re’s strategy for 2021 and beyond and I think you will too.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Insurtech Gateway for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Today’s guest is one of the most experienced and widely travelled executives in the global insurance world and someone I have been interviewing regularly for the past 15 years.
During that time he has been in the fairly unique position of having worked on either side of the fence for a broker and carriers alike as well as for the Corporation of Lloyd’s.
But what all his roles have had in common have been the formulation and execution of global expansion strategies.
And unsurprisingly that is what he is charged with in his latest role running the International Insurance business at Sompo International.
In this podcast we talk about the state of the market and current growth opportunities around the world.
Julian has been dealing with the media for many years and is a relaxed and eloquent communicator.
And given his long and successful track record of growing international insurance businesses of all shapes and sizes, this is one I can highly recommend.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
As journalists we tend to sprinkle superlative terms such as industry legend around a little too liberally.
But today’s guest definitely qualifies.
As a founder of Renaissance Re Jim Stanard helped completely transform the way the industry analyses and underwrites catastrophe risk and cemented Bermuda’s place in the insurance and reinsurance world.
He also co-founded global challenger reinsurance broker Tiger Risk.
Now he is back in his heartland as chair of the newly-independent Ariel Re.
Here we talk about everything you would ever want to know about how to be a successful underwriter building a sustainable portfolio.
Listening back it is a remarkable conversation and one marked by Jim’s extraordinary good humour and openness. We spent a lot more time laughing than is normal in a serious hard market reinsurance conversation.
But that is all down to Jim’s open-mindedness and remarkably broad interests.
I hadn’t met him before this meeting but it really doesn’t show. I learned a lot, including that this industry leader has a not unimportant side line on the music scene.
So do enjoy the conversation.
A couple of Notes:
Jim told me later he misspoke about Lotus being the first spreadsheet package and meant to say Visicalc.
And the quote about predicting the future is variously attributed to Yogi Berra, Sam Goldwyn or Danish physicist Niels Bohr, depending on who you ask.
LINKS
Jim’s album "Color outside the lines" can be streamed on Spotify and is available on Amazon and other music sellers.
Go to: www.jimstanardmusic.com to find out more.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Friday Nov 27, 2020
Friday Nov 27, 2020
Ascot has been one of Lloyd’s great success stories of the past 2 decades yet its CEO Andrew Brooks doesn’t have the sort of public profile that one would expect to go with the job.
After many years waiting out the soft market Ascot is now in aggressive expansion mode backed by a very patient, very deep pool of capital.
Given its cautious and prudent track record its diversification plans make for fascinating listening, particularly the thinking behind this historically short-tailed business’s controlled entry into the casualty world.
In our talk Andrew is engaging and very open and forthcoming about Ascot’s way of doing things.
Anyone looking for pointers on how to build a successful underwriting operation that is sustainable over the long term will learn a huge amount over the next half an hour or so.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Tuesday Nov 24, 2020
Tuesday Nov 24, 2020
Alex Maloney has been running the Lancashire group of companies for six-and-a-half years.
For much of that time the business has been keeping its powder dry waiting for a moment to exploit a change in market conditions and resume growth.
That moment seemed to come in Q2 of this year, with a new equity capital raise.
In this interview I ask Alex all about his plans to deploy this renewed firepower.
I found him invigorated and looking to expand aggressively and diversify in the new year as large segments of the market come back and business flows change.
I also got to know a little more of the singular and strong character that has made this business both an outlier and an outperformer since its foundation 15 years ago.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Friday Nov 20, 2020
Friday Nov 20, 2020
Mapfre Re is a top 20 global reinsurer but it probably doesn’t have the public profile that this size should command.
Given my insurance work experience in the Spanish market I thought this was a wrong that needed righting.
Mapfre Re has many peculiarities, not least that it is one of the few reinsurers to still be part of a major global insurance group decades after it became fashionable to divest and separate insurance from reinsurance.
It also looks after the reinsurance buying for its global top 20 insurer parent.
This gives it a unique perspective of the market, which I think you will find refreshing.
Mapfre Re CEO Eduardo Perez de Lema is a frank and eloquent interviewee and in this episode he gives us an unambiguous view on what he is expecting from the 1.1 renewals and the long-term sustainable partner philosophy at the heart of his firm’s strategy.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
I’ve known David Howden for a very long time. When I became a broker in 1992 he was the wholesale D&O specialist who looked after a big book of business for the Spanish broker I worked for.
When Aon took over that broker it was my cue to go off and become a journalist and for him it fired the starting gun on an adventure that doesn’t show any sign of stopping.
That’s why this episode is a bit special. It’s also a bit longer than usual.
A good interview is a bit like a portrait and the art of the interviewer is to coax the interviewee to reveal perhaps more of themselves than they were originally planning to.
David doesn’t really need much coaxing because he is always himself, and the most remarkable thing about him is that he hasn’t changed at all in the last 28 years.
Here we talk about everything you would expect to talk about, but a lot more. For instance this is the first interview I’ve ever done where poetry has been recited.
Today I really think you will get to see what makes David tick and understand what has driven him to be the most successful insurance entrepreneur of his generation.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Insurtech Gateway for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
https://insurtechgateway.com/
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
In today’s episode we meet a strong broker of many years’ experience and with subject expertise and contacts that many would take multiple careers to accumulate. She has had a senior career at many of the top independent brokers.
Over recent times I have come to know and respect her as one of those people that always speaks their mind and comes as a breath of fresh air with their own perspective on what is happening in the marketplace.
Vanessa Macdonald Smith is a former CEO of JLT Fac and is now in a new role as Executive Director and Head of D&F at Oneglobal Broking.
She has a broad and senior view of the market but has her feet close enough on the ground to be fully in touch.
In this podcast we look at today’s hard market and OneGlobal’s plans to grow into it, the opportunity for independents as the big brokers consolidate and what it is like to be a senior woman working in a time of cultural turmoil and great change.
I always enjoy time spent with Vanessa and I think you will too.
---------
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today:
Friday Nov 06, 2020
Friday Nov 06, 2020
Today’s guest is someone with a long history of implementing technology into the Insurance Market.
Bart Patrick, Managing Director, Europe for Duck Creek really understands the demands of the industry and the sometimes fractious and strained relationship with technology that it has had over the years.
Well all of that is changing and this discussion is all about how that is going to come about.
With the advent of cloud computing the industry finally has an opportunity to leave technology to the experts and simply get on with doing what it does best – market, transact and execute innovative insurance deals.
In this brave new world, the software and systems we use are becoming simply a utility that we can avail ourselves of and don’t have to own and maintain anymore.
What’s more the best platforms can now allow us to configure them in the way we want to work and let us plug in any of the tools we want to use to help us do our jobs better and compete in the marketplace. This is what people are describing as an ecosystem.
But transitioning away from legacy systems that are in fact many systems all bolted together is not easy, particularly if we have limited budgets and the massively important requirement that nothing falls over while we are making the switch to the new way of working.
Technical debt is the difference between what you should be spending on innovation and the amount of money you are spending on just keeping the old inefficient systems running.
This talk explains how to get out of this debt.
My role in this discussion is to be the layman with insurance knowledge and make sure Patrick doesn’t get bogged down in technical jargon.
Luckily Patrick is a great explainer who knows how to talk to insurance people.
I recommend this podcast to anyone wanting to gain a broad understanding of what our legacy industry tech problems are, where the future lies and more importantly, how we are going to get there.
Many thanks to Duck Creek Technologies for their support today.
Find out more at: https://www.duckcreek.com/
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
I’ve got to know the interviewees in today’s episode quite well over the last few years.
That means I have been able to follow closely their remarkable journey from small subsidiary of the Hyperion Group to an independent employee-owned MGA writing over 500 million dollars of premium in 2020 and still projecting organic growth of 20% in 2021.
So how have David Walsh and Graeme Newman of CFC Underwriting done it?
I think one of the most striking things is what a partnership these two entrepreneurs make and how their characters compliment each other.
It is hard to think of one without the other and of CFC without either of them.
They’re also a notch below the average age of many among their peers and I think this translates to a slightly more progressive feel for the business.
But you should listen for yourself and make up your own mind.
In this episode we talk a lot about CFC’s core line of cyber insurance and building a long-term comparative advantage, its response to the Covid pandemic, what David and Graeme’s long-term plans are for CFC and how the firm is trying to distil its entrepreneurial culture as it begins to grow beyond its core London roots.
It’s a great discussion and one which I would highly recommend to any budding entrepreneurs out there looking for pointers to see how it’s done.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Insurtech Gateway for their support today.
Here are links to their websites:
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Welcome to the Voice of Insurance in association with Advantage Go -
enabling Underwriters to increase the speed and accuracy of decision making.
It was great experience recording today’s episode because it was the first time since the Covid 19 crisis began that I was able to do an interview face to face instead of a video call.
And it seemed even more poignant that this first face to face interview should be at Lloyd’s – the only physical marketplace where insurance is traded by multiple counterparties all in the same room.
Technology has been a saviour for all of us in these difficult times, but I think this interview shows that there are some elements of genuine human social interaction that it can never replace.
Tasked with turning the market’s performance around and driving through a revolutionary programme of reform, John Neal has needed all his charm and skills of communication to convince the market to change the way it does almost everything.
Here you can see his skills to great effect.
He is incredibly personable, approachable and down to earth and certainly doesn’t get angered by any of my more provocative questions. Or at least if he does he doesn’t show it.
Instead the main weapon he deploys is a stark honesty and candidness that is refreshing and endearing.
In our time together we discuss the Lloyd’s 2021 business planning process and whether Lloyd’s is striking the right balance between performance and growth, the coming revolution from the imminent Blueprint 2 reform plans, what makes a good underwriter, personal conduct and the impact of the culture survey, climate change and the insurance of fossil fuels, the potential impact of the Aon-Willis merger on the market and John’s personal feelings about his role.
I didn’t cut anything out because it’s all too good to miss.
I also didn’t over edit it, because I wanted you to be able feel that you too are inside number 1 Lime street on the 11th floor, sitting in with John and I as the recorders are switched on and the discussion gets going.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
LINKS
We thank our supporters today.
Our naming sponsor AdvantageGo
https://www.advantagego.com/
Claims Direct Access
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Bolton Associates
https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
The seeds for today’s episode were sown at a meeting in Chicago in the early Spring of 2019.
I had been chairing a conference there and was making the most of the trip by visiting as many of the insurance people with their offices in the Windy City.
So it was that I met today’s guest for the first time over breakfast in the centre of town.
It was a great meeting – my host was full of energy and incredibly excited over the prospects for the Excess and Surplus lines (E&S) market.
He was a real broker’s broker and someone who leads from the front. I remember he had to break off our breakfast chat briefly to take a call relating to a placement that he was personally involved in.
We had been waiting for the market to harden for over fifteen years and this was the first time a well-placed senior executive was sitting in front of me telling me it was finally starting.
He explained that his organisation was gearing up for what he described as "the dump" that was on its way.
The dump is when admitted lines carriers have had enough of losses and non-renew or dump their most unprofitable business en masse. This flow then finds its way into the only other available channel open to it - the E&S market.
Tim Turner is the T in RT Specialty - one of the largest and probably soon to be the largest wholesale broker in the biggest wholesale insurance market in the world.
Given the size and scale of RT Specialty and the wider RSG Group his view of the market can’t be bettered.
18 months after that meeting and all of Tim’s predictions have come to pass and that is why I was really happy to be able to get a follow-up with him for the Voice of insurance.
With billions of dollars of deals running through his organisation he is one of a very select band of people with a feel for how long the hardening market might last and how deep it will hit.
As a major producer his view also matters a huge amount to the major overflow wholesale markets of Bermuda and London.
He’s also great company and buzzing with energy. I highly recommend a listen to what he has to say.
LINK:
We thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today.
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
We all know about the protection gap and financial sustainability and resilience goals for the developing world set by global bodies such as the World Bank and the United Nations.
We also know about the massive growth potential of many emerging economies and the role the insurance industry can play in enabling and accelerating its development.
This episode goes into the detail of how to approach this major opportunity and answers some common questions and upends many common misconceptions.
How much is insurance understood in developing nations? Is it seen simply as aid? Also how well are its strengths understood by donor nations? Should this kind of insurance be aiming for profit from day one, or should it be more patient?
How do we overcome modelling gaps and potentially crippling distribution costs in some of these nations?
Will the realities of harder international markets and Covid 19 put development goals on the back burner?
To answer these questions it was a great privilege to be joined by Dame Inga Beale and Lesley NdLovu of the African Risk Capacity Group (ARC).
Both have pioneered work in this field and give a strong and practical flavour to this podcast. I highly recommend a listen.
It might convince you that far from being just corporate social responsibility and the right thing to do, this is actually one of the brightest long-term opportunities in the global insurance market.
Today’s special episode has been organised by the Commonwealth Insurance Forum – the CIF and kindly sponsored by the ARC.
Set up in September 2019 the Forum was co-founded and is chaired by London market veteran Francis de Zulueta of Alpine Risk
Alpine Risk currently manages the CIF.
Co founded with Robert Lyle, co-founder of specialist London broker BPL, this not-for-profit organisation is seeking to ignite and accelerate insurance collaboration at all levels between the members of the 54-nation Commonwealth with the added support of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council.
The Commonwealth Insurance Forum has been formed as the UK is deepening and rapidly accelerating global trade links within the Commonwealth after leaving the European Union and will seek to build insurance co-operation, education and networking based on the common legal and cultural ties that bind the global Commonwealth of Nations together for the mutual benefit of all members.
LINKS
African Risk Capacity:
https://www.africanriskcapacity.org
The Forum can be contacted on Cif@alpineriskservices.com or directly via Francis de Zulueta on LinkedIn:
Tuesday Oct 13, 2020
Tuesday Oct 13, 2020
Most Voice of Insurance episodes tend to be with industry CEOs.
This way you can get to know the real people behind the public persona and learn about how the industry really works by finding out what makes its leaders tick.
But of course it doesn’t give you a huge amount of class-specific detail.
Industry titans at public companies know a ton of detail about high finance and deal economics, but if I went too deep into detail on any given class of insurance or reinsurance, they would rightly refer me to an inhouse expert for a full briefing.
And that’s why I recorded this episode.
In this hard and Covid-affected market, the hardest segment seems to be the International Directors’ and Officers’ liability market or (D&O) as we all know it.
I wanted to get into hard detail about what is going on in this market.
To do this I began to set up interviews with D&O practitioners. My aim was to put together the views of multiple experts into an in-depth report.
But the first of these meetings turned out to be so strong that I have decided to put it out as an episode in its own right.
David Ritchie is Managing Director of Management Liability at Gallagher UK and is a very senior broker with his finger directly on the pulse of the sector.
In great detail David describes a market in a state of crisis and dislocation where cover is severely rationed and definitely not guaranteed at any price.
This is a world where the prices and terms that are being dictated by the few markets that remain open are almost secondary in importance. Customers have to take it or leave it and may be forced to hit the nuclear button of invoking sunset clauses on expiring cover and renewing on extremely restrictive retroactive date inception terms just to get by.
In short this is the hardest market of all time by a very, very long margin.
With only trickles of new capacity on the way and more market withdrawals possible I don’t envy David’s day job one bit, but I do commend this episode to anyone who wants to know where and how many of the underwriting fortunes and reputations of 2021 and beyond are going to be forged.
LINKS
Once again we thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today.
PS. Don't forget to ask Mark about advertising opportunities on the podcast. mark@thevoiceofinsurance.com
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
What is the greatest quality of the best business builders in our industry?
After putting together today’s episode, I’m now certain it must be the ability to get the best out of people.
Pat Ryan is a broking legend.
He’s the visionary who saw that globalisation was going to create the need for global brokers to serve the global companies that it would create.
But it’s one thing having a vision – it is completely another to be able to execute on it.
Today you get to find out how he did it. You meet Pat Ryan in a different context. Here he’s not standing at a lectern giving a keynote speech or being quoted in a press release, he’s in direct conversation with me.
We start by dissecting his latest major broking deal to merge RSG with All Risks and move through the art of buying and building broking businesses to consolidation and Marsh-JLT and Aon-Willis.
Spitzer makes an appearance and we go into business ethics and culture, his advice for anyone joining the insurance industry and finally what he would like his legacy to be.
Listening back what struck me was how much we laughed during our conversation.
Pat has bought and grown hundreds of businesses and this encounter proves beyond any doubt that he does this by putting people at ease and in a place of complete trust.
In short he knew how to get the best out of me and he did just that, in the same way he has been doing throughout his career.
The result is easily the best interview of the Voice of Insurance series so far and one that I think will stand the test of time for many years to come.
We thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Bolton Associates for their support today.
Don't forget to ask Mark about advertising opportunities on the podcast. mark@thevoiceofinsurance.com
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
When I book an interview guest in for the show it is usually at least few weeks and often a few months in advance.
When I open up my diary I can see them lined up ahead.
I build up expectations in my mind about what the interview is going to be like.
It never turns out the way I think.
Today is a case in point. I have got to know David Croom-Johnson of Aegis London over many years while covering the global insurance market.
I knew he was great company and was often outspoken in private.
But I didn’t know what he would be like with the microphone turned on. I had a fear that he might be a little more tame than he is when the recorder is not switched.
Well, I needn’t have worried.
I am happy to report that the David who showed up for the interview was the exact same David that I know from all my meetings and encounters with him in and around the London market over the past decade.
He is someone who has to be true to himself in all situations.
And because he runs a consistently top-performing Lloyd’s business which is in a very select group of managing agents that Lloyd’s has allowed to be regulated on a light touch basis this makes for a fascinating and valuable interview.
The market and David’s view of what to do about Lloyd’s mediocre and major underperformers may surprise and shock you as being extraordinarily tough.
But his long experience, wisdom and foresight are what shine through in this encounter.
From how to behave in a hard market to lean underwriting models.
From the short termism of private equity to the casualty crisis and the eventual Uberisation of the specialty market, chances are David has thought about it deeply and has a strong and unequivocal view.
Once again we thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today.
Don't forget to ask Mark about advertising opportunities on the podcast. mark@thevoiceofinsurance.com