The Voice of Insurance

Today’s guest is one of those people I always enjoy spending time talking to and was really looking forward to having on the show. I first met him when he was running Scor’s North American P&C operations when he would often appear at Insurance conferences I was chairing in New York. Back then Jean-Paul Conoscente was unfailingly charming, calm and very straightforward and open in his approach and always a great asset to any media event. Some time has passed since my last encounter with him, and in that time he has been promoted to CEO of Scor Global P&C and elevated to the executive committee. So I am really pleased to report that he is still as friendly and approachable as he ever used to be. In this podcast we talk about pretty much everything that is affecting the reinsurance market today and in the run-up to the 1.1 renewals. And from loss trends and price rises, reserving and price adequacy to covid disputes and insurtech, Jean-Paul gives a straight and honest answer to every single question I ask him. Listen on and you’ll see what I mean. 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/

It’s a long time since legacy was a dusty dead end of the insurance industry where old underwriters went to eke out the remains of their days before retirement. And at the same time it’s been a long time since the era when fronting was seen as a bit of a dirty secret of the industry. These days both segments have matured and taken up their rightful place in the insurance ecosystem. But it’s rare to meet someone so well qualified and quite so dynamic driving a business that is in both of these spaces. William Spiegel the Executive Chairman of R&Q is someone with an impeccable resumé as an investor in some blue-chip start-ups in our sector over the past two decades. And because of that he brings a fresh and very insightful perspective to our industry. I was really interested to find out why someone like him has decided to come and work on the inside of a mature business at this time. The answers are all here in the podcast as William describes two fascinating and uncorrelated high-growth profitable business opportunities in our sector. William is full of energy and drive and it runs all the way through the podcast. I never thought these segments could sound exciting but William tells a compelling story and the combination of his ruthless business logic and his infectious enthusiasm is a winning one. 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 crackling with energy. When I listened back to the recording it was unmistakable. The reason is obvious – the subject matter we are discussing is Gallagher’s imminent takeover of Willis Re. This is the biggest thing to happen in reinsurance broking since Aon bought Benfield back in 2008 and here I spend some time with an ebullient pair of senior executives, clearly ecstatic about how the deal is going to transform the Gallagher group and fulfil its long-held ambition to build a genuinely global reinsurance broker. Talking to Gallagher Europe Middle East and Asia CEO Simon Matson (Picture Left) and Tom Wakefield the CEO of Gallagher Re (Picture Right) was a lot of fun. In the next half an hour or so you will get a good idea of how Gallagher plans to welcome, integrate and invest in the newly formed business in the coming years. We also talk in depth about the dynamics of the global reinsurance market itself, both in the short term, looking at the upcoming renewal season and strategically in the very long term. 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/

I have met Andreas Berger at various times in the last 15 years and he has been consistently impressive every time I have met him. It was therefore no surprise when in 2019 Swiss Re came calling with a major task to fix its consistently misfiring and loss-making Corporate Solutions, or CorSo, business unit. Two years later and the turnaround at CorSo has been remarkable. I think if you listen here you can see how Andreas has been able to do it. He does what good managers are supposed to do – he brings technical excellence but doesn’t get bogged down in it; he understands the importance of correct management structures but doesn’t come across like a consultant and he gets tech and data but isn’t a technocrat. Most importantly he is also really transparent and honest about where things have gone wrong and knows how important it is to make remedial decisions quickly and get on with executing them. But the key factor overarching all of this is that he is a charismatic communicator who does all of the above with a smile on his face and the ability to bring staff, brokers and clients along with him for the journey. As you can imagine these ingredients make for a really good podcast, where we get stuck into everything CorSo and all the big challenges facing the industry today. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/ https://freepartners.com/

Bob Kimmel the CEO of K2 insurance services came on my radar and that of most other London-based insurance folk when last year his US-based MGA group picked up the remnants of what had been the Pioneer group of MGAs to form K2 International. K2 owns a major collection of MGAs in the US, writes over a billion dollars in premium and is highly acquisitive both of talent, new agencies and other ancillary insurance businesses I didn’t know Bob personally and researching K2 ahead of our London meeting I suppose I came into this podcast with lots of preconceptions about what the CEO of such a fast-growing and aggressively expansive US-headquartered group would be like. I was completely wrong. Bob is clearly very ambitious for K2 but he is also very easygoing and charming as well as being disarming about how steep the learning curve has been for him, a former reinsurance broker, moving much closer to the end insurance customer in the decade since K2’s formation. New MGA start-ups and acquisitions, a potential Lloyd’s syndicate in the offing and a conscious hunt for talent in specific classes – Bob’s in-tray is absolutely overflowing and in this interview he discusses all aspects of MGA management in a disarmingly open way. I really enjoyed my time with Bob and I think you will too. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/ https://freepartners.com/

Today’s podcast is something a little different because instead of talking about our market from the inside we will be looking at it through the eyes of insurance professionals who access our products and services from the outside. What do our customers really think of us and what are they looking for when they come into the international insurance and reinsurance markets looking to do business? Michał Chmielewski Deputy Chairman (left) and Tomasz Libront President (right) have built Smartt Re into a significant independent reinsurance broker in the highly competitive and fast-growing Polish market. Their report card on the London and International insurance markets makes for really interesting listening as well as their description of the huge opportunities as well as the significant  challenges facing the largest market in Central and Eastern Europe. Michal and Tomasz are very open and frank about their experience and some of the observations are frankly eye-opening, so for anyone looking to learn what makes an independent local broker in emerging markets tick and what they are really looking for in an international partner this should be required listening.

In insurance and reinsurance we hear a lot of talk about partnerships, but in truth we know that many relationships are marriages of convenience or indeed opportunistic liaisons that are not designed to last. If I was a reinsurance buyer I would like my reinsurer to be committed to supporting me in the long term and someone who was unlikely to run away if I have had a bad year. I’d like to be able to confide in them and I’d really value it if they were perhaps even a little boring in their consistency. Javier San Basilio the CUO of Mapfre Re is very much the embodiment of this old school of reinsurer. I really enjoyed spending time with someone able to give a calm and considered analysis of the state of the reinsurance market today and I think you will too. Listen on for valuable insights and a sense of where Mapfre’s steadily increasing influence is likely to be felt in the run-up to 1.1 and beyond. 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/

Jeff Radke is someone who has had senior roles in many areas of the insurance and reinsurance spectrum. His career ranges from reinsurance broking at Guy Carpenter to running PXRE, one of the last major Bermudian specialist retro writers. He then played a large variety of senior roles in over a decade at Argo Group, the internationally diversified specialty insurance and reinsurance group formed out of Argonaut’s takeover of PXRE in 2007. But all those roles had one thing in common – all of them were at the very least one step removed from the end customer In his latest venture he is applying all that experience to the world of ultra-specialised, ultra-client-focused MGAs. It is a really interesting proposition because Jeff knows from his own experience that reinsurers and speciality insurers are keen to access portfolios of stable commercial risk to help balance their own increasingly volatile books Meanwhile after the shake-out and instability of the last couple of years, quality MGAs are looking for really solid and committed paper providers. Accelerant does all the things that other MGA incubators are doing including providing and sourcing growth capital, but it also uses its own paper and sources long-term third party insurance capital for its MGA members to give a complete service. It is clear that Jeff is incredibly energised by this project and I think it comes out all the way through this podcast. Listen on for a really interesting and fun encounter with someone who has clearly got the bit between his teeth. 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/

One of the best things about this show is that it gives me the perfect excuse to meet people who I have been meaning to meet for ages. Monica Cramer Manhem, President, International Reinsurance at SiriusPoint is one such guest. Over the last fifteen years many mutual friends have recommended I try to get an audience with her, saying that we would get on really well. Well they were right. Monica is indeed fantastically good company and right now she has a great story to tell. SiriusPoint is the product of the merger of two very different legacy businesses and is intent on forging a progressive identity for itself under its new banner. It’s exciting stuff and in this podcast we go into detail on its transformational plans and the challenges that they will bring. We also discuss the state of the market after the mid-year renewals and we hear Monica’s own reflections on her long and successful career as a woman in what was - certainly at the very beginning – very much a man’s world. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/ https://freepartners.com/

Today’s podcast is in two parts. It starts off as a quick run through the state of the market through the eyes of two very senior underwriting practitioners But then it dives right into the heart of the state of the underwriting profession itself and how the life of an underwriter is going to change in the future. In their high-profile careers both Group Head of Portfolio Underwriting at Swiss Re Silvi Wompa Sinclair and Chief Underwriting Officer of Apollo Syndicate Management James Slaughter have been at the forefront of transforming the business of underwriting and are extremely well placed to outline a vision of the future of the profession. The message is pretty clear. Transformation in the way all underwriters work is coming and everyone needs to get ready to change the way they do business in order to reap the benefits. Productivity is set to rise enormously as the machines do a lot more of the grunt work, but the good news for underwriters and brokers is that the roles for the humans in the process are going to become a lot more interesting. At the same time everyone’s career prospects are going to be boosted hugely. Listen on for a fascinating and inspiring dive into the future of underwriting. NOTES: POC stands for proof of concept, a term usually used when new technology is being tested. A TOBA is a terms of business agreement, which in our sector is the contract that governs the dealings between a broker and an underwriter. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/