The Voice of Insurance

Ep255 Charlie Langdale Humanity Insured: Insurance Magic

At a fundamental level we all know that Insurance is a force for good in the world. You pay a relatively small premium and if your house burns down, an Insurer will help you rebuild it. But I’m sure most of us will at some time in their careers have felt that what we do day-to-day in our insurance jobs has become increasingly removed and disconnected from those basic principles.Well today I’m talking to someone who is trading a highly successful career in our insurance world for a new career concentrating 100% on the good that the deployment of the knowhow and structures that the insurance industry has developed can have on the poorest across the globe.Charlie Langdale is CEO of Humanity Insured, a charity that deploys its funds to subsidise insurance premiums for communities in low-income countries.
The Aid and Development community is very reactive and only tends to arrive and try and pick up the pieces after a major loss event has happened. This podcast goes right to the heart of the economics of aid and development. In it Charlie shows how Insurance can be a force for good and help lift people out of poverty and eventually convert them into growing insurance customers of the future – all because of a little pump-priming from organisations like Humanity Insured.In a world filled with gloomy headlines it’s easy to despair and feel that some of the problems facing humanity are simply insurmountable. I guarantee that half an hour with Charlie will inspire you and put a spring in your step. For not only does he believe that the problems can be solved with the economic resources we already have at our disposal, but that it’s our industry that has already developed a lot of the solutions the world is going to need. Whether its responding to extreme weather or even saving endangered species, Charlie has a story to tell about how insurance is already helping hundreds of thousands of people.NOTES & ABBREVIATIONS: The FCDO is the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development OfficeLINKS:https://humanityinsured.org/Do get involved. New ideas can be as important as funds.We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep254 Emily Apple & Andreas Wichmann Alpha Insurance Analysts: Loyal Capital

Today’s guests work at a Lloyd’s Members’ Agent. Their job is to give advice and guidance to Names, the high net worth individuals providing underwriting capital to Lloyd’s Syndicates, and their clients provide just under a billion pounds of capacity to the market. There was a time around 20 years ago when such a role might have been seen as perhaps a little quaint – one of those odd quirks that the Lloyd’s Market seems to specialise in. Back then the brave new Lloyd’s was focused almost exclusively on corporate capital provision and private capital seemed to be condemned to a managed long-term relative decline.A lot has changed since then.These days Director and Head of Syndicate Analysis Emily Apple and Andreas Wichmann Business Development Director at Alpha Insurance Analysts are busy assessing a strong pipeline of both continuing and new business opportunities in the market as entrepreneurs rediscover the attraction of engaging a loyal and dedicated source of meaningful underwriting funds as part of their capital mix. New forms of tenure for Names are also helping make them a more attractive source of capital to Managing Agents, while investors seem finally to be gaining more awareness of the many capital and fiscal advantages of underwriting as a private individual.Emily and Andreas are hugely experienced, highly knowledgeable and great company.They have a great overview of the Lloyd’s market and its prospects for ventures new and old and this podcast paints a detailed picture of the opportunities in the market from an investors’ perspective.You’ll learn a lot and if you’ve ever wondered what it takes to become a Name and how the whole process works, this episode will give you all the information you need.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep253 Sheila Cameron LMA: Stick to your Values

Today’s guest was the very first interviewee on this podcast over 250 episodes and five years ago. She’s been on since as part of a multi-person episode, but it’s great to get her back on the show one on one. With a new Lloyd’s Chairman, CFO and CEO all now announced and either just starting or about to start their tenures, the timing couldn’t be better. The Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) represents the interests of underwriting businesses at Lloyd’s and Sheila is a very effective leader, spokesperson and focal point for that hugely important constituency. In this interview she sets out the LMA’s priorities as the Lloyd’s baton is passed to a new team.Sheila is crystal clear on what her members want and this interview is a Tour de Force. We cover everything from the LMA’s top ask of the new  regime all the way through to the future of underwriting and capital provision in the market. Sheila’s very direct and our conversation doesn’t duck thornier topics such as the market’s frustratingly slow technological reform process, and the difficult-to-navigate cultural reform agenda. By the way, we made this recording a few days before the unveiling of Patrick Tiernan as the next CEO of Lloyd’s, but the messages for the incoming leader are loud and clear and still current.The LMA is an essential and vibrant trade body and Sheila is its equally essential and vibrant voice. And I think the result is essential listening for anyone with an interest in the future direction of the Lloyd’s Market.NOTES:We mention a report on Enhanced Underwriting. This was penned by the LMA and Oxbow Partners and is entitled:The Growth of Enhanced Underwriting in the Lloyd's Market: The New Normal?The Executive summary and full download links are here: https://www.lmalloyds.com/LMA/lma/News/Blog/Enhanced_Underwriting_Report.aspxLINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep252 Michael Price & Kean Driscoll, Dellwood: One plus one is three

I love having insurance entrepreneurs on the show explaining their ideas and outlining the ambition they have for their business. It’s a great way to discover the best opportunities that are out there in the marketplace.And when the guests are highly experienced, with great track records, it just means that we should pay even more attention what they are seeing.That’s why I’m delighted that Michael Price CEO (pictured Left), and Kean Driscoll (Right), President and CUO of Dellwood Insurance Group were able to spare time out of their busy schedules to appear on the Voice of Insurance.
If you had the chance how would you go about attacking the best business opportunities in the Insurance industry today?For Michael and Kean it’s all about exploiting the increased flow of business that is finding its way into the US Excess and Surplus Lines market. The advent of improved technology means that lots of Small Commercial insurance and even some personal lines are now able to take advantage of the more dynamic, responsive and entrepreneurial underwriting environment to be found outside Admitted Lines. Michael and Kean are applying the lessons learned from full careers in insurance and reinsurance to serving areas of high demand in the largest insurance market in the world. Dellwood is a start-up working at a fascinating time, where Insurance distribution is being remoulded and new technologies such as AI are really beginning to come into their own, just as dislocation and large shifts in demand are being experienced in many segments of the market in both property and casualty.Building a brand new player, with no financial, technological or indeed cultural legacy at a time like this looks like a very exciting move, allowing Dellwood to move fast to fill in the gaps and allow capital access to hopefully sustainably profitable pools of risk. Michael and Kean are laser-focused on the job in hand and this podcast is full to the brim of their wisdom and expertise as they look to capitalise on a career business opportunity and build a new premium insurance franchise.If you ever wanted to climb inside the minds of top insurance thinkers and practitioners in full flight, this is your chance.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep251 Tom Quy Acrisure London Wholesale: Opportunity Everywhere

Today’s podcast is another really vibrant and forward-looking addition to the Voice of Insurance canon.I think that’s because it’s with one of London’s most recently-appointed wholesale broking leaders, Tom Quy Managing Director Acrisure London WholesaleAcrisure London Wholesale is a little different from many of its peers. Yes, it handles most of the same sort of high-end specialist placements that any other London wholesaler does, indeed it sources 70% of its business from outside the Acrisure Group.But it is the scale of the opportunity that it has by being attached to Acrisure’s impressive retail network that is particularly interesting. Acrisure has a 5% share of US commercial insurance but unlike most of its top-10 global insurance broker peers, 90% of its clients have less than 100 staff. These are clearly not the sort of businesses that would historically have come to London for their insurance. But here’s the interesting and exciting part. As tech brings unit costs right down and allows risk to be packaged in new and more efficient ways, the London Market and some of its more differentiated product might be brought to smaller and smaller original clients in ways that benefit underwriters, clients and the brokers connecting them. That’s the opportunity that Tom and is team are getting to grips with and that’s what makes this such an enlightening and forward-looking discussion. Tom’s challenge mirrors that of the entire London Market – if  it can keep driving unit costs down through digitisation while at the same time keeping product quality, relevance and innovation high, it will have hit upon a rich winning formula that its brokers will be able to export around the world.And if it can’t, the consequences don’t much bear thinking about. Tom’s great company and is a very strong and open communicator and this Episode is highly recommended for anyone interested in the best opportunities in the global wholesale insurance markets.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Sp Ep Risto Rossar CEO Insly: The future is already here

Todays’ Episode is an invigorating catch-up with someone who was last on the podcast over two years ago.Risto Rossar is CEO of Insly and is a really rare combination in that he is an insurance business builder who realised that helping the insurance industry fully digitise would be a better and more scalable business proposition than continuing to grow the highly successful digital Baltic insurance broker that he had founded. Insly continues to grow at speed, serving fast-growing segments of the market such as MGAs that need full end-to-end insurance software, but are unlikely to be on the radar of the largest vendors.Risto really gets tech and insurance – but he is also a very strong communicator who tends to tell things the way he sees them. This is where we come to the invigorating part that I mentioned at the beginning.Risto’s trademark is no-nonsense, down-to-earth analysis of what technologies are and are not likely to be genuinely disruptive to the insurance industry. He is good at seeing through hype and puncturing bubbles.So when someone in his position, with his level of understanding and natural sense of healthy scepticism starts getting genuinely excited about AI, we all need to sit up and listen. What follows is one of the most interesting and credible conversations about the likely long-term disruptive effects of AI on the insurance sector I have had on the show. If you think AI is just going to be nice productivity tool that removes all your dull admin tasks, you need to think again – it will do that but an awful lot more besides.The opportunities to be seized here are enormous but are difficult for those of us used to a very slow-moving status quo to get our heads around. Risto is on exceptional form and is clearly feeling energised and excited for the future – listen on and I think you will too.LINKS: https://insly.com/

Ep250: Adrian Cox Beazley: Managing the grey areas consistently well

Todays’ podcast is another really positive and uplifting meeting with someone right at the top of their game. Fresh from posting record annual profits of over $1.4bn on a top line that exceeded $6bn for the first time, it was perhaps understandable to find Adrian Cox, CEO of Beazley in excellent spirits. Whilst the market may be peaking in terms of pricing, speaking to Adrian it certainly doesn’t seem to be peaking in terms of profitable opportunity, and much of this podcast is a dissection of global specialist insurance opportunities in the world and how a top-tier progressive underwriter like Beazley is positioning itself to make the most of them. Whether it be fast-emerging new classes of insurance relating to the decarbonisation of the economy, burgeoning new geopolitical risk and complexity, the rise of parametric covers, the application of artificial intelligence or indeed the fast-changing dynamics of how insurance is transacted, this encounter reveals positive new thinking and investment in abundance.Listen on for all this and more.I think if you listen closely enough you can hear a distillation of Beazley’s distinctive culture coming through, not just in what Adrian is saying about the issues of the day, but in the way he is saying it. It seems that it is possible that rigour and discipline combined with worldly curiosity and a willingness to allow controlled experimentation in the understanding that not everything will go to plan can all form key parts of a successful business culture. This is another good episode to file away for when you’re in need of a morale-booster. Adrian’s enthusiasm and good humour are infectious and I think you’ll enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed recording it  LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep249 Vincent Tizzio: Humility and Vigilance

This might be turning into a bit of a running theme, but today’s podcast is another really positive, really forward-looking encounter with the CEO of a global balance sheet business who is reaping the early benefits of a turnaround and transformation plan. President and CEO of AXIS Capital Vince Tizzio is on really strong form in this interview. In it we tally up where he feels AXIS is currently placed on the journey towards its stated aim of becoming the best specialty underwriter in the world.It’s clear that large strides have been made and in our chat Vince details the ongoing programmes, both strategic and operational that he feels are going to help the business achieve his ambitious goals. We also check in on where the best market opportunities currently lie and how AXIS is planning on making the most of them, as well as how the group is navigating opportunities such as AI and the volatile state of global risk of all descriptions. Vince is a great interviewee because he is authentic and wears his heart and his passions on his sleeve. I certainly came away with the feeling that with him what you see is what you get. Listen on an I think you’ll be able to hear for yourself. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep248 Andrew Horton QBE: Growth from a position of strength

Today’s podcast is one of the most positive and optimistic I think I have ever recorded. Andrew Horton Group CEO of QBE has been in the role long enough to have been able to reap some of the rewards of the changes he has made at the global insurer since he took over the top job. Having dealt with legacy issues and posted some remarkable results that have validated his strategy – the mood from this interview is 100% forward-looking and upbeat. Andrew’s QBE has a spring in its step and a growth plan to execute into a global insurance and reinsurance market that seems to be throwing up opportunities almost wherever you look. It certainly helped that this was recorded on a pleasant early spring day in London, with plenty of sun in the sky and blossom on the trees, but the difference between this interview and the last one I did with Andrew two years ago is palpable.Today, Andrew is buzzing with energy and good humour and has audibly grown in confidence. In this discussion we make light work of all the issues of the day, taking in topics as diverse as Reinsurance, D&I, the long-term trends of facilitisation and algorithmic underwriting and their consequences, Lloyd’s and the London Market, and insuring the transition. So listen on as we take a world tour of market opportunities and a refreshed and revitalised player looking to seize the moment. If you are feeling jaded and in need a tonic – this is just what the doctor ordered!LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.comWe also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series and Data Jam. www.tin.events

Ep247 Brian Duperreault: Playing the Long Game

Today’s guest is without doubt the most successful insurance executive I have had on the show.
He’s also completely unique in that he is the only insurance boss I am aware of to have run one of the world’s largest insurers and its largest broking group.
Brian Duperreault is insurance royalty. Having started his career at AIG, he then transformed ACE from a Bermudian upstart to a major global player.
He then ran MMC and set it on the road to a radical recovery, founded Hamilton Insurance and then helped AIG get a spring back in its step
He has now just founded Mereo Advisors in probably one of the most difficult funding environments for balance-sheet businesses in his long career.
But this introduction shouldn’t be a run-through of his superb résumé – most of you know all of that already.
Before this meeting I’d met Brian a couple of times. I had a brief interview with him once in the early days of the Hamilton era and had chaired him onstage at an Insurance Conference.
But today’s episode really showcases why the podcast can be a much more intimate and valuable medium than others.
In this encounter we had the luxury of less time pressure and what resulted was a long and expansive conversation that is something very different.
If you want to know how Brian has found success, listen on – it comes through loud and clear in every sentence.
Brian cares deeply about what he does, but it’s obvious he cares about all the people in the organisations he has run even more. He is a rare CEO, not because he is brave, morally upstanding, strategically audacious, a natural underwriter and risk-taker who is strong when executing difficult decisions and has a clear vision for how create, grow and run great insurance businesses – he’s got all of that in abundance.
But on top of that he is self-aware enough to know instinctively when he should hand over to a successor and try something new. As he puts it, he knows you can let a role define you and it can get really hard to leave when you’re the big successful boss and everyone always laughs at all your jokes!
Some of Brian’s most lasting achievements have not just been the growth and performance of businesses while he has run them, but the robust state he has left them in and the continued sustainable growth they have all achieved after he has moved on.
I could go on – but I think you get the picture by now.
Listening back, I think we managed to do the opportunity justice.
Brian’s also great fun and we ended up laughing a lot more than I had imagined when poring studiously over my research and reading the superb Biography that has just been written about Brian by longstanding former colleague Wendy Davis Johnson in preparation for this interview.
This podcast contains an enormous amount of highly valuable advice. My advice is to listen on and take it all to heart. If as a result anyone listening achieves even a tiny percentage of the success that Brian has, it will have been time well spent.
LINKS:
Faith and Purpose, The Life and Vision of Insurance Icon Brian Duperreault, is out now and available here:
https://duperreaultbio.com/how-to-order-faith-purpose/
I can highly recommend a read.
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.comWe also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series and Data Jam. www.tin.events