The Voice of Insurance

Today’s guest is Miles Wuller, President and CEO of Ryan Specialty Underwriting Managers, the underwriting arm of Ryan Specialty. As such Miles is responsible for more than 20 MGUs, offering more than 150 lines of business and employing around 550 staff in 27 offices who wrote $2.4bn of Gross Premium in 2021. This means he has a fantastic view of the market and where all its pressure points are to be found. A listen to this podcast will definitely get you right up to speed with all the cut and thrust of US and international specialist lines. But Miles is also a great business builder and manager and in our chat we really get to the heart of the Ryan Specialty modus operandi. For instance, how does Miles keep an incredibly diverse business with multiple brands, housing a huge variety of underwriting entrepreneurs within a core strategic Ryan Specialty identity and culture? Very few executives have to maintain and incentivise innovation and creativity on such a scale while at the same time keeping on top of all the compliance and reporting demands of a major unit of a fast-growing public company. Miles exudes a calm competence at every turn and it is abundantly clear that he thinks really deeply about the industry. For instance his thoughts on the effects of inflation on the sector, cyber insurance, his business’s relationship with technology, and the burgeoning hybrid carrier phenomenon are highly insightful. And that’s just to mention four topics among many more. Suffice to say that I learnt an awful lot during this interview and I think that you will too. NOTES: A couple of property abbreviations: TIV=Total Insured Values. SOV=Statement of Values Also a request. If anyone can tell me any significant difference between a Managing General Agent (MGA) and a Managing General Underwriter (MGU), please let me know. After 30 years of head-scratching, I think they are completely interchangeable transatlantic versions of each other. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank this Episode’s advertising supporter Oxbow Partners https://oxbowpartners.com/

It's been two years since I had the CEO of Oneglobal Mike Reynolds on the show. Back then he had just joined and was articulating a vision to build a global specialty broker under the newly-created Oneglobal banner. They always say that no battleplan survives to the first shots of war, so I was really keen to find out how the business had executed on its plan and how it may have iterated its vision in that time. In that 24-month period the specialist broking world has seen more than its fair share of M&A activity and I wanted to put that into context. I found Mike on top form and incredibly candid and lucid about the market and exactly where he sees Oneglobal fitting into it. He outlined the business’s organic build and how some of the firm’s early investments are starting to pay off. Our chat contains some great discussions, not least about sky-high broker valuations and intermediaries’ sometimes difficult relationships with the public markets, But we also spoke about ESG, culture change, technological reform and team-building in broking culture, to name just very few. Brokers are often run by visionaries who need someone else to come and make the vision work to the best of its potential. Mike brings a CEO’s strong vision but tempered with a CFO’s practical experience and in our sector that is quite a rare phenomenon. That’s why I commend this episode to anyone who really wants to learn how to build a specialty broker in today’s market. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank this Episode’s advertising supporter Oxbow Partners https://oxbowpartners.com/

Jonathan Zaffino, President of Ascot Group is one of the industry’s great thinkers Ascot is one of the Lloyd’s Market’s most successful underwriting outfits of the last 20 years and Jonathan is leading that group’s expansion into the key US market. But his style of expansion is not an aggressive kind that pursues growth by taking big bets. It is a far more nuanced and subtle approach and one that recognises some of the big secular changes that have taken place in the insurance market over the last two decades. Behind the detail in our discussion lots of big themes are lurking. I enjoy how our conversation can start with specifics on trends in areas such as delegated authority but quickly change gear and end up encompassing much loftier themes such as the disaggregation of the insurance value chain as a whole and the advent of new far more mercurial forms of capital provision. Ascot is a business with a strong identity and market presence and we talk about how the firm is looking to distil and preserve that culture as it grows, evolves and seeks new ownership in a fast-changing market. Listening back the most common word Jonathan uses in this podcast is Candidly. And that is apparent all the way through our discussion. This is what he really thinks about the challenges and opportunities in the market today. Learning what the market’s finest minds really think about the world is what this podcast is all about, so I can highly recommend this episode to anyone seeking inspiration and enlightenment. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank this Episode’s advertising supporter Oxbow Partners https://oxbowpartners.com/

Jonathan Turner, CEO of Gallagher Specialty UK, shares his extensive experience from underwriting to broking. He discusses the dual nature of the current insurance market—both hard and competitive—affected by recent consolidation. Jonathan highlights the importance of underwriter insights in brokerage, the need for technological and cultural change, and the evolving landscape in specialty sectors like cyber insurance. His straight-talking approach unveils the challenges and opportunities facing the industry today, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and diversity.

Innovation. We keep reading about it. We keep getting harangued at conferences to do more of it. We also keep getting told that Innovation is really hard to do in insurance. But is it? After all, innovation used to happen perfectly naturally and organically in the past. It’s only in the last decade that we have started to take the business of innovation seriously and given it its own department and made people responsible and accountable for making it happen. What have we learnt so far? Meet today’s guest, Tom Hoad. Tom is Head of Innovation at Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK) and has been in the role since late 2015. That’s a lot of accumulated knowledge about how to go about implanting new ideas into insurance. Tom is bursting with energy and enthusiasm and this podcast packs a huge amount of learning into a very short time. We start the conversation by running through one of TMK’s latest product launches in the clean energy space. This is a really great sounding idea and is what brought Tom to my attention again recently and reminded me to get him on the show. But soon the discussion develops into a really broad one that harnesses all that Tom has learnt about the art and science of bringing exciting new insurance products to market. It’s full of mind-expanding and very useful bits of knowledge that Tom has learnt from six-and-a-half years at the bleeding edge. Anyone who wants to improve their innovation hit rate will find this a fascinating and really useful listen. NOTES I let BAU slip through the Abbreviation filter. This stands for Business As Usual. We talk at the beginning about the Altelium battery warranty insurance deal. Here is the announcement in full We also mention Parametrix cloud outage insurance. The Episode with George Beattie of Beazley is Number 117. I’d recommend listening to these two episodes in conjunction with each other. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is someone very respected in the industry but who hasn’t spent much time in the limelight – until recently that is. Ariel Re’s CEO Ryan Mather now represents part of the significant new capital that has come into the sector since the global market turn accelerated in the last couple of years. Ariel Re is a specialist looking to be an expert and add value wherever it decides to deploy its capital. It is also highly diverse with divisions insuring clean energy, cyber and professional lines as well as operating in the more traditional property cat arena. What seems to set it apart is a willingness to move towards risks that others are running away from. This obviously takes an open mind and the confidence to invest in the sort of expertise that will give the firm the comfort to issue terms where others won’t. That all points to a business and a leadership team that is very much out of the ordinary. I think this podcast will give you a good idea of how Ariel Re sets about this difficult task and help you start to get to know someone whose industry profile is likely to rise significantly in coming years. Ryan is clearly very smart but he’s far from being dry or academic. He’s very amiable and refreshing company and I can highly recommend a listen NOTES One abbreviation that slipped through is SBF, which is Lloyd's shorthand for Syndicate Business Forecast, and an essential part of the market's planning process. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank our advertiser Anaplan and Conor Donohoe and Daniel Ellis for coming on the show to explain what Anaplan's platform does for the insurance sector. Email contacts: conor.donohoe@anaplan.com daniel.ellis@mentattechnology.co.uk

Today’s guest is one of the elder statemen of the Cyber insurance market and a returning guest to the show. Way back in Episode 10 of the Voice of Insurance AXIS’s Global Head of Cyber Dan Trueman made a prediction that the Cyber market was on the cusp of big change and that Cyber insurance would never be sold more cheaply than it was back then. Two years and 111 Episodes later and the hard Cyber market that followed Dan’s comments has rarely been out of the news. I’d use today’s episode as a really good example of the difference between a podcast and a recorded interview. That’s because, instead of being just a series of questions and answers, this encounter is very much a conversation, and a lively one at that! Anyone looking for an update on the highly-pressurised cyber space should look no further. We talk about the re-pricing the sector has gone through and when this might end, loss trends and what cyber criminals are getting up to as well as advances in modelling systemic risk and the potential for unlocking the capital the class is definitely going to need if it is going to meet rising demand without starting to hit supply constraints. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank our advertiser Anaplan and Conor Donohoe and Daniel Ellis for coming on the show to explain what Anaplan's platform does for the insurance sector. Email contacts: conor.donohoe@anaplan.com daniel.ellis@mentattechnology.co.uk

Today’s guest runs a very large Lloyd’s business that in the past seven years has perhaps been the poster child for many of the problems in the London market as a whole. This is a previously star business that lost its way. It has had to retrench, contract and remediate to re-discover itself in the past three years. Johan Slabbert is the CEO of MS Amlin and has been at the Lloyd’s carrier for two years and in the CEO role for 18 months. He is a seasoned executive, into his third decade of experience and gives the impression of someone who is a very solid and safe pair of hands. He is also very likeable, very transparent and exudes trustworthiness. Our discussion is very frank and sometimes almost blunt. I find this really healthy, and feel lucky that we can have this conversation at all. Now that MS Amlin is beginning to emerge from darker times and has posted a profit for the first time in many years, Johan permits himself an occasional glance towards potentially better prospects ahead. But the roots are very firmly planted in the ground. As a consequence I don’t think you will hear a more honest assessment of the state of the market and the opportunities and challenges it presents anywhere else. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank our advertiser Anaplan and Conor Donohoe and Daniel Ellis for coming on the show to explain what Anaplan's platform does for the insurance sector. Email contacts: conor.donohoe@anaplan.com daniel.ellis@mentattechnology.co.uk

Today’s episode brings together a trio of London Market leaders. Sheila Cameron is the CEO of the Lloyd’s Market Association (the LMA) and was the guest on the very first Episode of the Voice of Insurance. Clyde Bernstein is the Head of Broking Technology at WTW, as well as being its Head of Broking in Great Britain. Clyde appeared in Episode 63, which was all about the broker of the future. Completing the line-up is someone who I have wanted to get on the show for a long time as he is a strong, really well-known exceptionally bright and eloquent executive who always has an interesting view of the market. Paul Jardine is an Actuary, the former Chief Actuary and Commutations Director of Lloyd’s run-off vehicle Equitas and was one of Stephen Catlin’s top executives for over 15 years. He currently has multiple interests, the most prominent of which is that of Non-executive Chairman of Lloyd’s turnkey Managing Agency Asta. But what unites my three guests is that they are all members of the recently formed Data Council, chaired by Sheila, which has been brought together by overarching London trade body the London Market Group (LMG) to drive the digitisation of the Market. This episode gets to the heart of what the Data Council is and what it is tasked with doing It also dissects the Council’s first major achievement which has been to codify the Core Data Record (or CDR) which will be the building block for making London Market contracts fully computable. Sheila, Clyde and Paul are a lively group and this podcast is a really good way to get up to speed for anyone who may sometimes find the reform process in the London Market difficult to follow. Enjoy the Podcast NOTES and THANKS Sheila used an abbreviation, the GRLC, which I should have clarified at the time. This stands for global digital insurance data standards body ACORD’s Global Reinsurance and Large Commercial standard. There is also a mention of the Rushlikon Initiative, which is a longstanding global standards and process efficiency drive backed by ACORD, WTW, Swiss Re and many other major market participants. We thank today’s sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is someone I have been meaning to get on the show since this podcast started over two years ago. That’s because he is one of the smartest and most eloquent executives anywhere in the sector. We overuse the word pioneer but Michael Millette has made a career out of innovating at the highest end of our business. He and a handful of others created the ILS market out of nothing in the mid-1990s. Then after two incredibly successful decades at Goldman Sachs, in 2016 he launched Hudson Structured Capital Management. Hudson Structured is a pretty unique business because it is combining alternative asset management and finance with venture capital. I can’t think of another business in insurance with such eclectic tastes. It can get involved in the sector from so many angles and at so many points in the value chain. It’s fascinating and very liberating. Mike has an incredibly broad and deep understanding of the insurance and reinsurance sector, all the way up from the first dollar of personal lines premium to the last cat bond bought by a long-term investor. He is also fun and outspoken and is never afraid to take an unambiguous view on topics. In this podcast we cover a huge variety of subject matter, from the mid-year cat renewals to ABC which is Mike’s shorthand for ‘All But Cat”! For me he’s one of those people who make you feel like your IQ just went up a few points after you have spent some time in their company. So I won’t come between you and enlightenment any longer. Enjoy the podcast NOTES I let one abbreviation get through the interview unexplained. That was CR/I, which is short for Catastrophe Reinsurance. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank our advertiser Anaplan and Conor Donohoe and Daniel Ellis for coming on the show to explain what Anaplan's platform does for the insurance sector. Email contacts: conor.donohoe@anaplan.com daniel.ellis@mentattechnology.co.uk   The views expressed reflect the current views of Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (“HSCM”) as of the date hereof and HSCM undertakes no responsibility to advise you of any changes. Neither the podcast nor any of the information contained herein constitutes an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security or instrument in or to participate in any trading strategy or investment vehicle.  Past performance is not indicative of future results. There can be no assurance that any objectives can be achieved or are realistic in any given market condition. This podcast may contain forward-looking statements; such statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements reflect our views as of such date with respect to possible future events. Actual results could differ -- perhaps materially -- from those in the forward-looking statements. For more information about HSCM, including risks and other disclosures, please refer to www.hscm.com.