Scouting for Growth Amélie Breitburd: How Coopetition Could Double Europe’s Insurance Market
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Amélie Breitburd, the former CEO of Lloyd’s Europe, and a leading voice in the movement to rethink how we insure against tomorrow’s biggest shocks – from climate and cyber to the long-tail risks the industry still avoids.
In today’s conversation, we’ll unpack her journey to Lloyd’s, explore the institution’s evolving role in a risk-saturated world, and dig deep into the bold ideas behind her latest work.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Every day people should focus on their specification and should be reminded of it. When I see syndicates doing business only in the US, they could do business in Europe almost for free because, from a capital perspective, diversification helps.
We’re here to help people. People wouldn’t do anything: Take a bike, drive a car, fly to Mars without insurance. It’s a key enabler. As leaders in the insurance industry I believe we can show a great sense of purpose.
There was a period during which companies were mainly looking at buying, and this was killing teams. I think now we’re definitely in the partnership era which is great for startups because they can work for different companies which increases diversity and has people learn from each other.
Insurers have a lot of data but it’s a bit outdated. Risk is evolving because the automotive industry, for example, is moving towards autonomous cars, now data about car behaviour is not as important as it used to be, now the software and batteries that will be in cars is more important so we must build another set of data. Then there are things like flying to Mars and carbon capture where there is no data because we don’t know how we’re going to be doing it.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Risk is at the heart of what insurers do and risk is about diversification.’
‘The statistical aspect is that when you are together you’re taking risks together and lowering the cost of capital.’
‘the journey today is like moving from paper to pdf, but the next change perspective is moving to more digitalised exchanges between various parts of the company.’
‘Coopetition is the idea that if we work together as competitors we can access a market which is currently inaccessible because it’s not affordable, we can price the risks differently to make them more accessible.’
ABOUT THE GUESTS
Amélie Breitburd is a strategic powerhouse in Europe’s insurance and risk management ecosystem, driving a bold agenda to double the size of the continent’s insurable market. With a sharp eye on the protection gap, Amélie brings an unflinching perspective on how to future-proof European economies—through syndication, public-private partnerships, and radical coopetition.
A thought leader who thinks beyond tradition, Amélie fuses financial acumen with game theory principles to challenge how we scale solutions to climate risk, cyber threats, and long-tail systemic exposures. Her work on the Digital Insurance Exchange Market (Euro DIEM) envisions a next-gen insurance infrastructure—anchored in data access, distributed underwriting, and multi-layer diversification. LinkedIn
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/