The Voice of Insurance

Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due. Most of the guests on The Voice of Insurance are long-term CEOs of large companies. They are all major players in the market and I don’t need any special reason to talk to them. But today’s guest is on the show, not because he runs a market-moving global insurance business, but because I think he has done something completely out of the ordinary that deserves closer attention. Relm is a remarkable business because it has responded to a moment of disfunction by creating something entirely new. Seeing a total absence of insurance industry response to the emerging Cryptocurrency phenomenon Joe Ziolkowski, Relm’s co founder and CEO has built the first Crypto insurer with a licence from a recognised international jurisdiction and an A rating. The result is that Relm is a business that can underwrite in Cryptocurrency limits, pay claims and crucially hold assets in Crypto on its own solvent, rated and regulated balance sheet. I doubt that Relm will be the last of the native Crypto insurers, but the story of what Joe has achieved so far is a fascinating one. And it’s not just Crypto – this business’s culture seems to be to seek out genuinely uncharted areas of opportunity. For this reason insurance for the nascent cannabis and psychedelic sectors are also areas of focus. You don’t need to understand all the ins and outs of these markets to see that there is enormous unmet demand for insurance in these fast-growing new verticals For that reason I would highly recommend a listen. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Today’s guest is a broking veteran known across the London Market and beyond. Alastair Swift is Head of Corporate Risk and Broking for Global Lines of Business at WTW as well as CEO of Willis Limited. Recently new WTW CEO Carl Hess has spoken about his desire for the group to get some of its swagger back and I think this interview could mark the beginning of that process for the firm. Following the damaging twists and turns of the Aon merger saga of the past two years and the eventual sale of Willis Re to Gallagher, it was refreshing to hear someone senior at the newly rebranded WTW come out fighting and start focusing on the future at the global broker and advisor. Alastair didn’t duck any of my questions, in fact quite the opposite. I know every podcast introduction says that what follows is must-listen stuff but this really is a must-listen episode! LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Today’s guest is one of the people behind the scenes who help make the insurance market tick. With a background in finance and operations, he has made a career of helping businesses become successful and stay successful, but hasn’t necessarily taken much of the credit for doing so. Now that Rinku Patel is a CEO – running London-based MGA platform Pine Walk Capital, his profile is considerably higher. But the nature of the business that Pine Walk is in continues to put others in the limelight because the purpose of this firm is to free up underwriters to do what they do best. And that’s why I am really glad to be able to put him in the spotlight today. The MGA space is a fascinating corner of the market at the moment and Pine Walk is at the heart of a movement to professionalise all aspects of this segment. Rinku is the embodiment of a no-nonsense leader and this interview clarifies the vision and purpose of Pine Walk and the nature of its relationship with its parent Fidelis beyond doubt. Rinku is straight-talking and always comes immediately to the point in hand. If dealings with him in his day job are anything like as direct and effective as in this interview, I can highly recommend engaging with him. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Today’s guest is from one of the highest profile firms from the group of pioneering US insurtechs that emerged in the middle of the last decade. Hippo Insurance, along with many of its trailblazing peers, is now a public company. But despite the transparency this brings, it’s easy to look at Hippo and become confused by a whirl of alliances, structures and news announcements. One analyst recently complained that it looked like Hippo was throwing different strategies against the wall and seeing which ones would stick. In the light of this podcast that doesn’t seem fair. Today’s guest would counter that Wall Street hasn’t really got its head around the variety in the newly-arrived insurtech sector and currently tends to put them all in the same bucket. Hippo’s President Rick McCathron joined the business five years ago. With almost 30 years’ P&C experience, Rick has insurance running through his veins and is incredibly focused on what Hippo’s mission is and how he is setting out to achieve that. Insurance people can relate to him and he is excellent company. Listen on and any lingering doubts about this firm’s clarity of purpose will melt away. NOTES Rick mentions the 'CAC to LTV' ratio. This stands for customer acquisition cost to lifetime value. ie a measure of how effective your marketing/acquisition spend is. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Corvus Insurance is a young business that is moving so fast that to those of us looking in from the outside could be forgiven for seeing something of a blur. For instance, should we look at this business as a specialist cyber underwriter or should we see a cyber technology provider or indeed a much broader data-driven insurtech company that is class-agnostic? The answer is probably a blend of all three. That’s why it’s so valuable to speak to someone of the calibre of Madhu Tadikonda, Corvus’s President. As a tech entrepreneur who then rose rapidly to become AIG’s Global Chief Underwriting Officer, Madhu has had a stellar insurance career of his own before joining up with Corvus last year. In this really lively podcast I get Madhu to explain all of the moving parts within Corvus and distil the common themes. In doing so we get a front-row view of the challenges and opportunities facing the cyber market, run through the rationale behind Corvus’s recent acquisition of cyber MGA Tarian Underwriting and look into what other classes are catching this progressive business’s eye. I’d say what really makes Corvus tick is a real affinity for the fastest growing insurance classes where client need, demand and opportunity are greatest. This is then coupled with the realisation that the most important risks of the future are becoming much more dynamic and that the most successful underwriters of tomorrow are going to have to be much faster learners than their predecessors and be much more engaged and helpful to their customers. Almost paradoxically Corvus looks very much like an ultra-traditional insurance business… except that its way of going about things is anything but! It’s fascinating stuff. LINKS https://www.corvusinsurance.com

The idea at the heart of the voice of insurance is to give everyone access to the most senior and influential leaders in the industry. I want to democatise the sorts of insights that until recently were only available to the privileged few. Today is one of those days when the mission is properly fulfilled because my guest is a very strong leader at one of the London Market’s best success stories of the last 30 years and someone who has almost always been in the room when the key decisions affecting the market have been taken over that period. Bronek Masojada is smart and direct and as Chief executive of Hiscox has built that business into a high-quality insurance franchise with global reach. Now he has stepped down from that major Chief Executive role this interview reflects on what has driven and continues to drive him and examines some of the pivotal moments in the past decades in which he has played a leading role. But we don’t dwell on the past for long and using his position as Chair of London Market electronic placing platform PPL we focus on his vision for a digitally-native global London Market, the challenges of market modernisation and the skills needed by the top underwriters of the future. We also get a feel for what sort of future roles might appeal to one of the London Market’s stars. But more importantly by listening in today you’ll get a great feel for what sort of person and what kind of leader Bronek is and get the benefit of all his hard-earned experience. NOTES, ABBREVIATIONS AND THANKS Bronek mentioned early London electronic trading initiative EPS. EPS stood for Electronic Placing Support. In addition to PPL Bronek mentioned he is Chair of East End Community Foundation We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Today’s guest is a really strong, highly successful well-known and well-respected presence in the market. He is someone great to know because he knows almost everyone, including the most powerful capital providers behind the scenes. He is a real broker’s broker with a career spanning 45 years, culminating as CEO of Willis Re. And he has all the broker’s charm and craft accumulated over that period. He is also passionate and wears his heart on his sleeve. A consistent theme he has pursued in his career is a belief in the importance of enabling the renewal of the specialty insurance business in general and the Lloyd’s market in particular by giving entrepreneurs the opportunities and support they need to innovate and to refresh the sector. And in the venture he founded four and a half years ago he has made it his business to do just that. John Cavanagh is the chairman of Lloyd’s incubator, underwriter and investor Beat Capital Partners and in this interview we get right to the heart of what Beat is all about. In this podcast we find out the biggest secular trends in specialty insurance and how Beat is on a mission to ride and grow with them to its advantage We are most lucky to get the benefit of a lifetime of market knowledge and understanding delivered in a completely no-nonsense way. You can hear the conviction coming out of every sentence – I challenge you not to find John’s insights hugely useful for your own business. There’s something about the combination of strong passionate leadership and positivity that is really infectious. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Today’s podcast is a really lively one. As I was listening back I found that there are parts of this recording that are almost breathless. That’s entirely down to the energy levels of who I am interviewing. When I met David Walsh (Group CEO, picture left) and Graeme Newman (CEO, picture right) of London-headquartered MGA CFC Underwriting they were still buzzing after a significant fundraise that has given their business a valuation of roughly three and a half billion dollars on a multiple that makes CFC look more like a tech company than an insurer. To put this into context, this valuation is 10 times the what it was in the last investment round just over four years ago and probably more than double when they were first on the show just over a year ago. David and Graeme had also just come through a calendar year in which they had posted 50% GWP growth and in which they had set up a Lloyd’s Syndicate to support their underwriting, which is projected to breach the $1bn GWP barrier in 2022. We talk about the pair’s ambitious growth plans in the ultra-dynamic and dislocated cyber insurance space and how they feel the market is bifurcating between those carriers that are doubling down on the product and really grappling with the ransomware epidemic and those that frankly are not. But perhaps more interesting than the all the valuable details, in this podcast we get a deep view into this duo’s growth mindset and their firm’s almost unique relationship with technology that makes it one of the industry’s very few native insurtechs. From what follows if anything the business’s growth looks likely to accelerate more from here. NOTES: I mention an interesting report on systemic cyber loss costs. This indeed came from CFC itself and was attributed to CFC's head of Cyber, James Burns, speaking at his company's Cyber Forum in December 2021. It was reported by the Insurance Insider: (Subscription needed) https://www.insuranceinsider.com/article/29eg3lhzopfx8r3rvr2f4/cfc-real-life-systemic-cyber-events-challenging-model-assumptions?utm_content=189971317&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-129610827 LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Lucy Clarke is a dream interviewee. Of course, her position as President of Marsh Specialty and Global Placement, Marsh gives her a view of the market that only a very few peers would be able to rival, but it is her smart, no-nonsense and direct personality that immediately stands out. Given the global market is in such an agitated and interesting state, this makes for a really compelling and enlightening podcast. Lucy is a breath of fresh air and a really lively and charismatic interviewee. If I was a client I would love to have her fighting my corner with underwriters. I am really glad to get her on the show and highly recommend this episode to anyone wishing to navigate the late stages of this extremely challenging hard global insurance market. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/

Today’s interview is one of the most all encompassing I have ever done. That’s all because of the interviewee and his research team who have just produced one of the most comprehensive 1st of January renewal reports I have ever read. The 2022 renewals have been much more interesting than usual with reinsurers undertaking a fundamental rethink of how they view Property Cat alongside taking a view on casualty trends, Covid and the long-term likely effects of both the social and economic forms inflation. Meanwhile Cyber insurance has been undergoing a huge dislocation and a wholesale re-rating and we have also had the effects of the class of 2020 and record industry capital levels to take into account. For this reason I was delighted to catch up with David Flandro Head of Analytics at Howden’s HX unit to try and make sense of it all. David is one of the smartest analysts dedicated to the insurance world and he is also a great communicator and great fun to spend time with. The report is out now and I would highly recommend a read to accompany your listen here There are some things that only a well-constructed graph can explain! LINKS Howden 1.1.22 renewal report Times are a-changin’: https://www.howdengroupholdings.com/assets/documents/howden-times-are-a-changin-report.pdf We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/