The Voice of Insurance

When my notebook is put away and the microphones are switched off, after a couple of drinks, people in the market often lament the lack of personalities in the modern insurance and reinsurance industry. They say that it’s just not like it used to be and that massive consolidation has pushed the individual to the sidelines within ever larger, ever more soulless corporations. Today’s guests prove that not be true in any sense of the word. Rod Fox (CEO) founded reinsurance broker and capital advisor TigerRisk thirteen years ago and has been carving a place in the sector and taking the big three brokers head on ever since. Two years ago fellow reinsurance veteran Rob Bredahl joined the team as President, reuniting the pair who had worked together at Benfield in the early noughties. When I was organising this interview I was worried that Rob might find it hard to make himself heard because Rod is such a strong character. I needn’t have worried. Their energy and camaraderie is palpable. They are also clearly having the time of their lives, as a well-resourced and aggressive TigerRisk looks to take full advantage of the opportunities presenting themselves in a highly fluid reinsurance and capital markets intermediary space. In this podcast we dissect the state of the market and go into deep detail about how Tiger is planning to double or possibly triple in size in the next five years. 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 guests are the executives behind the fast-growing specialist aviation broker start-up Piiq Risk Partners. In a very short space of time Philip Smaje CEO [picture left] and Marcel Chad President [picture right] have put Piiq on the front pages of the trade press with some eye-popping household name client wins. In a time of seemingly permanent consolidation and the homogenisation of so much of the intermediary market, theirs is a story that I think will inspire many brokers. People, connections specialist knowledge and expertise and an ultra-client focused approach are clearly still incredibly important. Listen on for the secrets of their early successes and what drives their business, an honest assessment of the impending acquisition of their parent company Corant Global by Ardonagh and a frank analysis of the state of the aviation market. Philip is the first of the two to speak. 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/

Clive Washbourn is a legendary figure in the marine insurance market. His enviable track record of profitability has made him probably the nearest thing to a celebrity within that very particular, and often very difficult to underwrite, subset of our sector. So when the news came out that he had started his own marine MGA Navium, on Fidelis’s Pine Walk platform I made sure I put in a request for an interview. Despite so many years covering the markets I hadn’t met Clive before but you wouldn’t tell from this interview. Clive is the real deal. In this episodel I found a lead underwriter completely at ease with himself and rejuvenated at the prospect of building a new business with the benefit of a successful career behind him. He was also infectiously happy, immensely charismatic and instantly likeable. What follows is a masterclass in entrepreneurial spirit and the art of successful underwriting. I also think it reassuring proof that personality still has a huge amount to play in success in many corners of the insurance world. NOTES Clive and I couldn't remember exact dates, but the Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger aviation war loss indeed occurred 20 years ago, in July 2001. Abbreviations: TLO = Total loss only; IV = Increased Value. 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 guest is part of a team busy building a reinsurance broker to challenge the big three almost across the board. We’ll never see the numbers but it is highly likely that his firm has invested the most of all the challenger reinsurance brokers in the past two years. During that time it has seen its headcount quintuple to two hundred and twenty-five and it has opened twelve new offices to be represented in thirteen locations. Despite this incredibly fast growth Keith Harrison International CEO of Lockton Re has his feet firmly on the ground and is one of the most level-headed and straight-talking brokers I have interviewed on this podcast. Indeed with so much uncertainty for reinsurance intermediaries over the past two years and with the daily news only prolonging the agony for many, Keith’s claim that Lockton Re is actually one of the most stable places to come to work, rings fairly true. Listen on for more details on how Lockton Re plans to bring the fight to its larger rivals and a comprehensive diagnosis of reinsurance market conditions at the mid-year renewals. 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 special episode does exactly what it says on the tin - plus a little more. AdvantageGo organised a prestigious panel of three prominent US-focused P&C CEOs and I got to work with them on dissecting the state of the market. Marc Adee, CEO of Crum & Forster, Andrew Robinson CEO of Skyward Specialty and Greg Hendrick the CEO of Vantage Group were all on excellent form as we examined rate adequacy, the prospect for loss trends and whether underwriters might keep ahead of them, resurgent economic and social inflation, the re-rating of cyber insurance and the ever-developing view of the industry Covid loss. We also rounded up the mid-year renewals, talked about the largely benign impact of reinsurance on the current market, and took a view on the sky-high valuations of public Insurtech stocks and the future of innovation and the industry’s developing relationship with technology. Many thanks again to AdvantageGo for organising this one – all I had to do was show up and ask the questions! Enjoy the podcast. NOTES Greg Hendrick couldn't remember who said the famous quote about the market being able to stay irrational longer that you can stay solvent. This one is from the British economist John Maynard Keynes.   LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/

I have to admit that today’s guest took me by surprise.  Could she be the most powerful female CEO in the world? Well, maybe. She sits at the head of a global broking organisation that has six billion dollars in revenue and handles around sixty billion dollars in gross premiums. If Willis and Aon finally merge, Olga Collins will be the CEO of the world’s third-largest broking organisation. In this podcast we go deep into the detail of the Worldwide Broker Network and how it has set itself up to compete with the dwindling group of wholly-owned global intermediaries. Unsurprisingly I found Olga in bullish mood and licking her lips at the prospect of so many clients falling through the cracks as their big broker advocates work out where they stand with their current or prospective employers. Anyone who thinks the day of the independent broker has come and gone should have a word with Olga first. Her attitude is refreshing and she is probably the most client-focused guest I have ever had on the show. LINKS https://wbnglobal.com/ 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 special episode is all about how to build a company culture that helps your business to win. To this end I was very lucky to be joined by John Fay MBE (pictured bottom right) and Edward Gordon Lennox (pictured bottom left) of Delta V Partners to help me dig deeply into the subject. John and Edward are experts in the field who are much in demand across all sectors and in multiple countries around the world. They talk our language and know how to get the best out of us. They don’t spout jargon and they are very down-to-earth, practical and pragmatic: they’re a bit like us insurance folk really. The team from Delta V are going to show us the ropes in plain English so you will be able to get your head around this topic and understand all the key themes. Then to make it even more practical we will hear from an industry practitioner who has gone through this process on more than one occasion. Steve Hearn CEO of Corant Global needs no introduction. In fact I got to know Delta V because John Fay MBE listened to the recent podcast I did with Steve where he mentioned the work they had done. So with Steve’s appearance we will top off the theory with straightforward advice on what to expect when building a culture in practice. CONTACTS: Delta V Partners Company contact emails: hello@deltav.com info@deltavpartners.com Website: https://deltavpartners.com/ John Fay: Twitter: @nuasafc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayjohn/ Edward Gordon Lennox: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-gordon-lennox-164685b/

It is only a recently rebranding exercise that has made the size and scale of today's guest's broking and MGA operation come into view. David Bearman is the founder and CEO of London-based Aventum, a group that houses the Rokstone MGA and broker Consilium and controls over £600mn in gross written premium. The group has been around for 25 years but has only just put its head above the parapet and started to show itself to the market. I am really glad to have David on the show. He reminds me of the great broking pioneers and transmits all the energy and entrepreneurial spirit that some say is lacking in the London Market. In a time of extreme broker consolidation and a worry that customer choice and competition may in some way be curtailed it is reassuring to meet someone with his ambition and buzz. 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 someone I have known for almost 30 years. That’s because I used to broker business to him back in the 1990s when I was working in the London Market. Back then he was making a name for himself as a lead market in the international casualty class at UK composite Eagle Star. As my career changed completely his took off and at QBE Europe he swiftly rose the ranks to become its most senior underwriting executive. Then eight years ago he left to pursue the dream of founding a Lloyd’s business of his own. Anyone who met Ash Bathia CEO of Probitas 1492 thirty years ago will have marked out as someone with the ambition and drive to make a real impact on the market. And as it turned out Ash was going to need all of that drive and a lot more. Probitas had as tough a start in life as it is possible to have. Born right at the nadir of one of the longest soft markets in history, Probitas was hit hard by the unexpected loss of its cornerstone capital provider and extremely challenging early underwriting numbers in its ramp-up years. Almost all of its peers folded or were actively shuttered by Lloyd’s itself in its recent remediation phase. But today Probitas is a top Lloyd’s performer and is pre-empting capacity and scaling up as market conditions continue to turn in its favour. Interviewing Ash was just like broking to him all those years ago. He hasn’t changed much. He is still smart, sharp and direct with great charm. And he is a great trader, problem-solver and dealmaker in the classic Lloyd’s entrepreneurial tradition. The difference is that to those skills you can now add maturity, humility and the wisdom that comes from starting and running a business of his own. These days Ash has one hell of a story to tell. I’m just grateful that he let me be the first to get it out of 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/

As Chief Underwriting Officer of Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK) Matthew Shaw has one of the top ten individual underwriting jobs in the London market, marshalling a stamp capacity of one and a half billion pounds at one of Lloyd’s best-known lead markets, Syndicate 510. In many ways this business is a microcosm of the London Market as a whole. A soft market fall into loss was followed by significant re-underwriting. Then the business bounced significantly back into profit in 2019, only to take a large short-tail hit from Covid in 2020, which it has weathered undaunted. 2021 has seen a bullish 14.9 percent pre-emption in capacity amid the heady combination of significant growth in submissions and continually improving underwriting conditions across the market. Matthew is very easy to talk to and together we embark on a comprehensive tour of his views on the market, market reform and innovation, culture change and where TMK fits into it all. 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/