Insurance Speak

Kathleen Bonczyk, founder of the Workplace Violence Prevention Institute, discusses the role insurers can play in reducing workplace violence.

Surplus lines insurers in 2023 reported another year of improved underwriting and operating results, with most performance metrics outpacing the broader P&C industry, according to the annual wholesale insurance market report card compiled by AM Best and the WSIA Education Foundation. The report's authors say this indicates just how essential wholesale insurance options have become. "The wholesale and specialty channel is there to provide solutions when the standard market either cannot or will not take on the risk," WSIA President and CEO Brady Kelly said on this week's episode of Insurance Speak. Kelly sat down for an interview in the run-up to his organization's 2024 Annual Marketplace, an event in which thousands of insurance professionals converge in San Diego to fortify business relationships and forge new ones.

If there’s one subject that concurrently fascinates and exasperates insurance professionals, it’s cyber risk. At the same time that society becomes ever more reliant on digital tools and transactions, bad actors seem to lurk behind every virtual corner constantly finding new ways to scam and steal. Since joining the specialty insurer CFC early in 2024 as the organization’s head of Proactive Cyber, Jason Hart has made it his mission to simplify conversations around cybersecurity and cyber insurance. On this episode of Insurance Speak, Hart shares his unique perspective on the cyber risk landscape and the insurance response to this evolving threat.

Jen Martinez of VIU by HUB discusses how insurers can integrate digital tools into customer service while still maintaining human relationships.

Three themes have dominated big-picture insurance conversations in 2024. The first is inflation and its impact on policy pricing. The second is extreme weather, as the increased frequency and severity of natural catastrophes strain the insurance-claims system along with carriers and reinsurers. And the third is litigation and its companion, “social inflation,” or the impression that insurers are bad corporate actors with deep pockets and must correct societal wrongs via exorbitant legal settlements. On this episode of Insurance Speak, Robert Gordon, senior vice president of the policy, research and international division of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), weighs in on these and other issues impacting insurance affordability and availability

For this episode, we revisit a conversation with Bryan Davis of VIU by HUB about what’s on the horizon for independent brokers and how they serve their customers.

The risk landscape for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) markedly changed over the last five years as enterprises first adjusted to the shutdowns and distanced interactions dictated by the COVID pandemic, and then as lasting societal shifts (like the rise of remote workers) settled into daily life in the time since the pandemic. The insurtech firm Bold Penguin set out to better understand these business changes and what they mean to insurance professionals and organizations, in order to better direct and advise its industry partners. In this episode, Bold Penguin Vice President of Carrier Operations Nicole Farley talks about the growing commercial-insurance opportunities for agents and brokers along with other insights from the company’s new report, “The Evolving Risks of Small Businesses.”

This week, we revisit a conversation with Todd Shasha of Travelers about how boat owners can protect their vessels from catastrophic weather events.

Chloe Gordge, head of Marke's terrorism portfolio in London, discusses the challenges of curbing political violence in Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Topics include Markel's approach to terrorism risk, global terrorism landscape, threats analysis, risk management challenges, and insurance flexibility in navigating political violence risks.

Andy Moss and John Ellison of Reed Smith discuss insurance and cyber risk management practices for car dealerships in the wake of the CDK Global cyber attack.