The Voice of Insurance

Ep246 Mike Keating CEO, MGAA: No Bubble to be Burst

This week’s guest has probably the best 360-degree understanding of the insurance value chain of anyone I have had on the show.This is because Mike Keating has a career that spans collecting insurance premiums in person and runs all the way through underwriting, backing MGAs, working for and founding MGAs, to working for Private Equity and helping find investment to start new insurance businesses. Now Mike is putting all he has learned into running the Managing General Agents Association (the MGAA) the trade body that represents the MGA community in the UK and Ireland. The MGAA’s members write around £15bn – or just under $20bn - in GWP, so this is an organisation that carries quite a lot of weight in the market. In this podcast we examine the reasons behind the continued success of the MGA as a vehicle for delivering underwriting talent and the prospects for their growth to continue sustainably into the future. We also learn what is on the MGAA’s agenda, in terms of the lobbying work it does as well as what are the latest initiatives from the important educational and networking sides of the organisation. But leaning on Mike’s broad experience, our topic ranges are far wider than that. For example, a large part of our discussion extends to include the application of AI in the MGA space. With the average tenure of the underwriting paper backing MGAs hitting new highs, MGAs providing the preferred career path for many underwriters, and with someone as passionate and knowledgeable as Mike looking out for its interests, the future for the UK and Ireland MGA sector looks very healthy. But most importantly Mike is great company and an insurance player through and through and the best possible reason to listen to this podcast is to get the benefit of some of the insights that his long experience has given him.NOTES: We mention Reg Brown. Reg is a Lloyd’s luminary who ran his own Syndicate and is the driving force behind founding the MGAA, as well as many other market-wide initiatives and collaborations, most notably the Insurance Museum, of which he is Chairman.https://www.linkedin.com/in/reg-brown-62827313/
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

Ep245 Lucy Clarke: Sleeves Rolled Up

Today’s guest is making a return to the show after a three-year gap.That’s way too long for me because the last time she was on the podcast she made such a strong impression that I described her as a dream interviewee.But there are good reasons for the gap – not least a year’s gardening leave as she moved to take on one of the biggest jobs in broking.Luckily for all of us Lucy Clarke, President of Risk and Broking at WTW is back on the show.She’s still the dream interviewee and given her important new role and Willis’s re-stated ambitions to restore the sheen to this historical jewel in the global broking crown, she’s more of a dream guest than ever.This podcast doesn’t disappoint. In this interview I found Lucy on top form, fully established in her new role and clearly revelling in the task in hand.Here we unpick all of Willis’s strategy, from it’s ambitious return to reinsurance to its audacious digital broking initiatives, and we put all this in the wider context of Lucy’s extraordinarily broad view of the market’s ebbs and flows as well as its permanent structural changes and external opportunities and threats, such as those presented by AINothing was off the menu and with Lucy what you see is what you get – her drive and passion are always on display. Here’s someone with their sleeves rolled up and clearly enjoying a dream job scenario unfolding in front of them.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

Ep244 Ian Gutterman: Insurance Hot Potatoes and Movie Sequels

Today’s episode is different because I’m not talking to an industry CEO, but somebody who has made a career of holding industry CEOs to account. Since before the turn of the millennium Ian Gutterman has been analysing the insurance industry on behalf of investors and in that time has sparred with all the top CEOs and executive teams.Analysts and journalists are kindred spirits – we both sit on the outside of the industry looking in and we both tend to speak to the same sorts of people, although we tend to ask different sorts of questions when we do.After a while we tend to seek each other out to compare notes. Journalists seek out the smartest analysts with the strongest personalities and the best communication skills and get them to explain some of the more technical and academic questions driving the industry. Ian is a journalist’s dream because he is incredibly intelligent but also refreshingly direct.Ian has personality and strong convictions in abundance and in this episode we cover all the big questions affecting the industry today, from when the 15-year bull market for intermediary valuations might come to an end, the wider consequences of the California wildfires and whether the insurers really have a proper handle on cat risk, to whether recent bouts of casualty reserve strengthening are now the end of the matter, or the lessons from the insurtech boom and why Venture Capital and insurance don’t mix.Ian and I had a lot of fun on this recording. Listen on and I think you will too Enjoy the podcastNOTES Ian writes a really strong insurance blog at https://iansbnr.com/ I always read it and I highly recommend you do too. It rarely pulls any punches. 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

Sp Ep Ian Summers & Melody Miller: Why the people side of change is always the most challenging

Today’s episode is packed full of really practical insights because this one is all about making things happen.So often in our sector we can very clearly see the change we have to make or the new system we have to adopt to be able to improve the way we do things, but we find it really hard  to achieve final implementation.
It’s as if the green pastures are right in front of us, tantalisingly in view, but there is a steep ravine that we have to cross to get there. As Ian Summers (Pictured, Top), who has been helping his employers and clients implement major change projects all his long career notes in this podcast, it’s incredibly common that the change management side of a project is overlooked or underestimated. And even if the systems are ready, are the people in the business really ready to start using them with confidence?This kind of skill is a very specialist one and its very specific to each industry. That’s why it is great to have insurance change management specialist Melody Miller (Pictured, bottom) on the show. Melody is an Executive Director at Sea Change London, which is a member of AdvantageGo’s ecosystem and is an expert in getting complex, time-sensitive and often existential mega change projects over the line. In this podcast we dissect the major changes facing players in the London and International insurance markets. Ian and Melody are on excellent form and do a great job of simplifying often complicated ideas so that laypeople like you and me can understand them. So, if you want to learn how to handle change better and get an expert feel for where difficult market-wide projects including the transformational but mission-critical Blueprint Two might be headed in 2025, I can highly recommend a listen.LINKS:We thank our sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.comhttps://www.seachangelondon.com

Ep243 Graham Evans Westfield Specialty: A Good Steward of Insurance Capital

Today’s Episode has a really special feel to it and that’s all down to this week’s guest.Graham Evans is Executive Vice President and Head of International Insurance at Westfield Specialty Insurance and is bringing all that experience to bear as US Mutual Group Westfield looks to build out a globally diversified specialty operation to complement its core US insurance business. In this podcast we assess the prospects for the London and broader International specialty insurance markets and go into detail about Westfield International’s ethos and growth strategy moving forward.Graham has been working in the underwriting rooms of the London Market since the mid-1980s, so has been a London underwriter boy and man through markets of all descriptions. His is the sort of experience that is exceedingly hard to replicate and, listening back to this recording, it’s plain that all his answers bring a lifetime of London Market expertise to bear. This makes for a very enjoyable listening experience, particularly when the current prospects for the London Market are looking more exciting than at any other time in Graham’s long career. So listen on as Graham explains how the 177-year-old Westfield Group is planning to bring something a little different to the already eclectic mix of the London and International insurance markets. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Sp Ep Ross Wirth, CyberCube & Simon Fagg AdvantageGo: The Future of Cyber Underwriting

Cyber insurance has been on an epic growth journey in the past decade and in that time has been transformed from a new and exciting product into a maturing pillar of the global specialty insurance and reinsurance market.This is a class of business that has come so far that is now developing its own catastrophe treaty reinsurance and Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) marketsThose developments has been made possible in large part due to the enormous investment that the broader Cyber ecosystem has made in researching, protecting, remediating and modelling the risk that underwriters and the capital backing them are taking on.Cyber modelling specialist CyberCube has been one of the prime movers behind this increased market sophistication and is also a member of AdvantageGo’s ecosystem.In this podcast I get a masterclass on the state of the cyber market from Ross Wirth, CyberCube’s Head of Partnership & Ecosystem (pictured bottom) and this is reinforced by a vision of what a smart state-of-the art underwriting work bench and underwriting control system can currently do and will be able to do in the near future from Simon Fagg, (pictured top) who is a Director and Product & Solutions Strategist at AdvantageGo.Simon has had a fascinating a career during which he has made the transition from underwriting itself to the design of underwriting systems and Ross has over 20 years’ experience leading complex change programmes at global insurers.
Between this remarkable duo we have all the bases covered.
So, I f you are interested in where the cutting edge between technology and best-in-class underwriting is today, and where it is heading in the coming years, listen on, I think you will find this a very rewarding experience.LINKS:https://www.advantagego.com/ https://www.cybcube.com/

Ep242 Martin Burke CUO MS Amlin: Walking a squiggly career path through the market

Today is a first.
I’ve had a many senior industry executives on the show who have started their careers as actuaries, but I’ve never met anyone who already knew when they left school that they definitely wanted to be one.
Martin Burke is different and this is what makes him an excellent podcast guest. In his own words he has walked something of a squiggly career path that has brought him to his current position as Chief Underwriting Officer at Lloyd’s stalwart MS Amlin.
But having walked all the bends in the road to get where he is now has made Martin an extremely well-rounded CUO.
It’s obvious none of his time spent on reserving, pricing and in the finance and risk departments has gone to waste. To re-run the cliché, actuaries aren’t famous for being great communicators, but that just makes the ones who are stand out.
Martin has the gift of the gab and that makes him a high value guest to someone like me.
An interviewee who can understand and, more importantly, summarise and explain complicated ideas in a way that laypeople can understand, is podcasting gold dust.
And when that person is also responsible for profitably growing a £2bn (US$2.5bn) book in today’s market, this makes for a complete and satisfying listen.
Here we run through MS Amlin’s strategy in an evolving market and take in Martin’s views on an eclectic range of topics, including the impacts of the latest major loss activity on insurer and reinsurer appetites, the best applications of technology and Ai, as well as his priorities for where he feels the London Market should be developing as a collective as the leadership regime at Lloyd’s transitions.
I think you’ll find Martin fun to spend time with and full of surprises.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Ep241 Ben Hubbard Parsyl: In the business of rewarding the best clients

I’d like you to cast your mind back to 2016 when the insurtech phenomenon really started to emerge.
It was a very exciting time as tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists had finally spotted the huge opportunities that would become available if they started to use their skill and financial wherewithal to help transform the way the global insurance industry goes about its business.The task was daunting, but the possibilities seemed endless.
That year Ben Hubbard co-founded Parsyl, the business he still heads today.
The firm made it into the first cohort of the Lloyd’s Lab and hasn’t looked back.
Now in 2025 Parsyl has come through its adolescence and has a made an impact in a niche segment of the cargo market where it has first been able to use its tech savvy to give itself a sustainable competitive edge.
Now eight years into the project, I’d argue the excitement is now greater because Parsyl is only just getting going and is poised to move into new lines of business.
Parsyl’s insurtech peers that didn’t make it usually failed because they were tech companies that didn’t know if they wanted to completely disrupt or collaborate with the incumbent insurance market – and it also turned out that many of them fundamentally underestimated how hard insurance can be to execute well and at the right scale. 
Parsyl is still here and thriving because it embedded itself in an entrepreneurial corner of the Lloyd’s market and has taken the best it has to offer, while adding its own extraordinary, almost alien layer of technological understanding on top.
It’s a best of both worlds philosophy.
So often we hear or read about the future of underwriting, as if it is something that hasn’t quite arrived yet, but will come eventually, if only we can be a little more patient.
Well, the wait is over – what Parsyl has built has fulfilled the promise of 2016 and then some
Ben and I met face to face on a stormy London afternoon in winter and the conversation fairly crackled along.
I defy you not to be enthused by Ben’s affable and easy-to-digest philosophy on how to make insurance better, more relevant to clients and more profitable for its capital backers.
Just to give you a taste, this is a business that already runs 100% of its submissions through Ai, constantly revamps its products over rolling two-week cycles and updates its models from experience and new third-party data every four months.
For incumbents this is jaw-dropping stuff. Luckily for us Ben is a friendly face who can help make this revolution palatable and easy to understand.
The future’s already here, so listen on to get yourself up to date.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com

Sp Ep: The Fast-Evolving World of Employment Practices Liability

Today’s episode is going to dive deep into the fascinating world of Employment Practices Liability, or EPL.
This $4-5bn premium class of business is one that has grown into a standalone specialist line over the last 25 years and is one whose growth is almost guaranteed to continue into the future.
I say that growth is almost guaranteed because its progress is almost wholly aligned with the parallel progress of society at large.
As society develops and standards and expectations are raised in the workplace, so the consequences of failing to keep up with best practice will become steadily more severe for employers who fall behind.
Legislation changes and over time tends to create new forms of liability for employers.
At the same time unwritten societal norms evolve, almost always faster than the legislation can keep up.
Behaviour that might have been acceptable or even encouraged 30 years ago may today be the cause of new grievances and complaints in the workplace.
Similarly, as technological change accelerates and the way we work and where we work evolves, so new avenues for potential claims are being created at pace.
Also as workforces age and become more diverse, once again the potential for conflicting views on what is and what is not acceptable conduct by colleagues, employees and bosses of differing ages and cultural backgrounds is increased.
To sum up some liabilities are statutory and laid out in black and white, but others are becoming far more subjective; one person’s idea of absolute impartiality may be another’s idea of unjustifiable discrimination. Something many see as harmless teambuilding fun might be harassment when viewed from another perspective.
And because many employers and industry sectors follow very similar HR systems, Employment practices claims are also potentially systemic in nature. This merely adds potential fuel to the fire.
There’s an awful lot going on here and this is clearly not a line of business that the unprepared should be dabbling in.
That’s why I have assembled a trio of experts from underwriting, claims and the legal profession to shed light from all angles on the core questions and key trends affecting this dynamic class.
Bethany Greenwood (pictured top) is Beazley’s Group Head of Specialty Risks and Kamal Chhibber (pictured middle) is its Claims Focus Group Lead for International Financial Lines.
(By the way, Kamal Chhibber is known as Chhibbs by everyone, so this is how he is addressed throughout the podcast)
These two senior insurance practitioners have been professionally assisted by Louise Bloomfield (pictured bottom), a partner at UK law firm DAC Beachcroft.
The intention is that this podcast will be of value to anyone with an interest in this burgeoning casualty line and the fast-evolving cultural and legal territory that it inhabits.
I’ve spoken to the experts, so you absolutely don’t have to be one yourself.
NOTES AND ABBREVIATIONS
ADA = The Americans with Disabilities Act (US)
EEOC = The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (US)
ACAS = The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (UK)
 
RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING
Beazley has just launched a report entitled Spotlight On Boardroom Risk 2024
It deals with the evolving boardroom risk landscape, from business interruption and supply chain risks to regulations, reputation, and employer risks.

Ep240 Mike van der Straaten CEO Antares: Keeping insurance personal

Today’s guest is someone with the essence of insurance running right through his veins.That’s because he has been working in our industry since the age of sixteen and has accumulated over forty years of experience. Now as CEO of the Lloyd’s and Bermuda insurer and reinsurer Antares Mike Van der Straaten has a unique viewpoint of the global insurance market from which to apply his accumulated knowledge and understanding.Like many of its peers Antares has undergone a rebuilding and restructuring in the past few years and after steadying and right-sizing its business is now stepping out to seek measured profitable growth once more.I found this a really enjoyable and enriching discussion.In a world seemingly dominated by PhDs, Mike’s remarkable career is a reminder that, when it is performing as it should, the insurance industry is an education and vocation rolled into one and rewards intelligence, creativity, common sense and hard work in the most meritocratic of ways.Mike is a great guest and blends the best of the old and the new. For example in this podcast we examine many of the factors that don’t change, such as the shifts in the market cycle and distribution trends, but at the same time we also dissect some of the most progressive issues affecting the sector, such as the best applications of Ai and the streamlining of the underwriting and placement process. Mike always says what he thinks and this candour is extremely refreshing.
NOTES:We mention a Rolf Tolle. Rolf was Lloyd’s first Performance Management Director.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com