The Voice of Insurance

Today’s guest is a leader in one of the most innovative and interesting businesses in the market. He was last on the show as part of a duo but is now here in his own right. This should all make much more sense when I tell you that I am talking about Dan Burrows, the Group CEO of Fidelis Insurance Group. Since we last met Fidelis has successfully split into the balance sheet insurer that Dan runs and the MGA the Fidelis Partnership led by Richard Brindle, in a move to a hybrid structure that is the first of its kind. Fidelis Insurance Group has also floated as a public company, completed a secondary capital raise and is to back the launch of a Fidelis Partnership syndicate at Lloyd’s. Many of the above events are once-in-a-lifetime occurrences for most executives, but Dan moves quickly and the person I spoke to for this interview gave the impression of already being settled into his new roles and doubtless exploring his business’s next moves. A listen back to this podcast has confirmed that time spent with Dan is enormously productive. We cover a huge amount of ground, from the state of the market all the way through to the best application of Artificial Intelligence in the insurance value chain. But I think one of the most valuable aspects of this encounter is that we get to hear Dan speaking clearly for himself and the interests of his shareholders. He does so incredibly frankly and candidly. His views are never ambiguous. So if you would like to spend some very productive time with a key player in one of the most successful underwriting organisations of its generation, please listen on. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com

Today’s podcast is all about the insurance of political risk and violence and we are going to come at this subject from all angles. This episode is intended to be an all-round masterclass for anyone with an interest in these fascinating and fast-growing specialist lines of business. Is the world a riskier place and are risks going to remain insurable? And where is most of the new demand of the coming decades going to be coming from? All is examined in detail. Much has been made of the exceptional number of elections taking place in global democracies in 2024 as another possible source of political complications and conflict. Africa has also been highlighted as a potentially huge new source of demand, driven by the global transition to net zero carbon emissions and this goal’s need for the rare earth metals that are to be found in abundance in many of its Southern and Eastern States. But it’s no secret that many of Africa’s most mineral-rich nations with the largest development potential are also places where political stability can be in short supply. For this reason, I talk to Lara Wolfe, Senior Sub-Saharan Africa Risk Analyst at risk consultancy BMI, which is part of the Fitch Group. (Pictured Top) This market sounds like the ideal territory for brave underwriters to be operating in and this is where the expertise of Roddy Barnett (Pictured bottom), Head of Political Risks and Trade Credit at Beazley is invaluable. Finally, with the help of Beazley’s Head of Political Risk and Violence Claims, Alex Hill, (pictured middle) we’ll learn how the political risk product actually works on the. I am very pleased with how this first thematic documentary-style podcast has turned out – I do hope you enjoy it and find it useful. NOTES: Here’s the link to the Navigating political risk in an era of heightened global tensions report: https://www.beazley.com/en-US/news-and-events/geopolitical-risk-snapshot-2024 There’s a great summary, but I highly recommend downloading and reading it in its entirety.

Today’s Podcast is all about innovation and today’s guest has been responsible for doing more of it than most. James Slaughter is Chief Underwriting Officer at Apollo Group, a Lloyd’s business that has been behind collaborations and new product launches galore in recent times. Be it exploring semi-automatic underwriting and the application of artificial intelligence, the development of its own ibott syndicate, helping launch a parametric syndicate, or other specialist start-ups focusing on risks as diverse as Cyber, Drones, employee parental benefits or unlocking new business from Africa, Apollo has become one of the go-to market enablers for innovation in the London Market in recent times. James is always incredibly direct as an interviewee – and what you see is what you get – I find he’s exactly the same person whether the microphones are switched on or off. And that’s why this Episode is such a treat, James always says what he thinks - and it’s clear he thinks a lot more than most. Listen on and you’ll learn a lot about what is coming down the track, how some of the vanguard technologies are best being exploited and which of the newest developments at the insurance cutting edge James is most excited about. It’s breathless stuff – I had a lot of fun recording this one and I think you’ll enjoy a listen.   NOTES: Abbreviations: UNL – Ultimate Net Loss. In this context it is shorthand for traditional contract-of-indemnity insurance versus a parametric insurance structure. GUA – the General Underwriters Agreement, which is a leading underwriters agreement designed to govern and streamline how amendments to subscription market placements can be carried out, often allowing a leader or leaders to bind on behalf of following markets. ICX and TCX – Lloyd’s class of business codes for innovation and the energy transition respectively. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com

Today’s guest carries out an incredibly important role representing the whole London Market in the UK’s corridors of power. That means looking out for a market that wrote over $100bn in core gross written premium and controlled just under $160bn in all in 2022, increasing its global market share to over 8 per cent. That also means representing a market that now employs some 60,000 people and produces two percent of UK GDP and eight-and-a-half percent of London’s GDP. Caroline Wagstaff, CEO of the London Market Group, was born to do a job like this. She’s passionate and very difficult to say no to, but she’s also a great communicator and is very good at reading a room and understanding a collective mood. The London Market Group (or the LMG) allows Lloyd’s, Liiba, the IUA and the LMA to speak with one voice on broad London Market-related topics and in this Episode we dissect the LMG’s latest London Matters Report and catch up with what is now top of the LMG’s busy agenda. The Report is an essential companion to this episode and there will be a link to it in the Notes – I highly recommend a read – it isn’t long and is packed full of very useful facts about the London market’s place in the global risk ecosystem, as a well as its direction of travel. Caroline is on excellent form in this discussion and the podcast is crackling with energy. I for one am extremely glad that we have been able to get someone of her calibre to represent us as an industry. London has been doing relatively well of late but listening back to this recording it’s clear that there is zero complacency at the LMG. It’s clear that Caroline is not going to rest until the UK government and regulators are working harder to make it do even better. NOTES: The Latest London Matters report can be found here: https://lmg.london/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/London-Matters-2024-Data-Pack.pdf LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is in charge of a team of around 400, writing a book approaching $3 billion in gross written premium in the largest wholesale insurance market in the world I have had many CEOs on the show who run significantly smaller operations. And that’s what gives this podcast so much weight. Wendy Houser is Chief Wholesale Officer of Markel Specialty and is one of a select group of people with day-to-day visibility of the booming US Excess and Surplus lines (E and S) market. So today we are going to go into quite a lot of detail about the state of this huge and dynamic segment. An unprecedented level of business flow and rate rises has produced something of a golden age for E&S and we’ll be trying answer how much longer this state of affairs can continue. Wendy is great company, so along the way we’ll be getting to know a remarkable and charismatic insurance leader with a huge amount of knowledge and insight, who isn’t afraid of making difficult decisions and certainly doesn’t duck any of my more probing questions. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

In this engaging discussion, Alex Maloney, an executive at Lancashire Group known for his straightforward insights into global insurance, shares the company's recent strategic moves. He dives into Lancashire's entry into the U.S. casualty treaty and excess & surplus markets. Alex emphasizes the importance of selective growth, sound underwriting, and the agility of smaller firms in adapting to market changes. He also highlights the need for a strong company culture to attract and retain talent in a competitive insurance landscape.

Today’s episode is a masterclass with two leaders in the North American professional liability market. Often on this show we talk about the big picture in very broad brushstrokes, but today is refreshing because we are getting into specific and specialist detail about some of the most broad-reaching and dynamic classes of business anywhere in the world. Danielle Librizzi, Head of Professional Liability, and Chris Cooper, Head of Media Liability, at QBE North America have a lifetime of market experience between them and this is a lively discussion. Casualty is under the spotlight the world over, but nowhere more so than in North America, so these two senior underwriters are right at the frontline in the battle to keep on top of new perils and trends in the world’s fastest-moving and highest stakes market. Here I ask what Danielle makes of casualty rate adequacy and I ask Chris how the pandemic, the trend to digital platforms and the writers’ strike have affected the media liability risk landscape. How is QBE’s professional liability division responding to the call for the globalisation of QBE’s offering and far great collaboration between departments? And how is QBE utilizing Artificial Intelligence on the ground in its own underwriting processes and, perhaps more importantly, how does Chris view it as an emerging media liability and potentially systemic general E&O peril? I got all the answers I was looking for and if you stay tuned so will you. Danielle and Chris are excellent company and this will be a very rewarding listen for anyone wanting to get a better perspective on the North American professional liability market LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s podcast is one of the most eclectic and far-reaching I have produced since founding the Voice of Insurance over four years ago. And that is entirely down to today’s guests. Ian Summers Global Business Leader of AdvantageGo (pictured top) is a well-known figure to anyone who has worked in the Global Insurance Market and has a full career of pioneering market modernisation behind him from within the market as Global Information Officer at Aon and serving the market at major Software companies. And if were possible, Bill Pieroni (pictured bottom) has had an even more all-encompassing career to date than Ian. Starting outside the industry at top consultancies, a senior role at State Farm and five years as Global Chief Operating Officer at Marsh followed. For the last eight years Bill has headed up global insurance data standards body ACORD. But if you thought that meant our chat would be limited to global data standards, you’d be completely wrong At their core what Bill and Ian do is provide the tech and the utilities to help insurance get on and do what it does best. Bill and Ian have only been so successful so far because they understand the industry inside and out and that means this podcast is far more wide-reaching than you would imagine. For instance, you wouldn’t expect tech experts to commission a historical study on the efficacy of M&A for the insurance industry, would you? But these two have, principally because they are so embedded into the sector that their level of understanding matches most of the most seasoned Executives and analysts. So get ready for a real feast. The winners and losers in insurance M&A, really-detailed insights into the best applications for Artificial Intelligence, the real reason why insurance is so hard to transform and the prospects for the London Market if its latest digital reforms are successful are all to come. And the style of delivery may surprise you. If Ian is a strong and forthright character, Bill is almost off the charts in the energy and passion that he brings to this discussion. I had a real blast and learnt a huge amount. Listen on and so will you. NOTES: The M&A study we discuss can be downloaded here. I highly recommend a read – it’s fascinating stuff (and could potentially save you $billions!)

Top-tier MGA CFC Underwriting has undergone some very well-publicised leadership changes in the last few months and Andy Holmes is the business’s newly-appointed CEO, so I’m delighted to have him on the show as this week’s guest. Andy’s been part of this organisation since very early in its remarkable growth story and was previously its Chief Underwriting Officer, so he knows the business inside and out. Nothing was off the table in this discussion, so we started where we needed to, but soon got swept away in a whirlwind of M&A, new product launches and insights into the world of cyber, embedded insurance, parametric covers and, of course, Artificial Intelligence. Andy is incredibly engaging and easy to talk to and in this podcast he reveals a huge amount of accumulated insurance business wisdom and fills in many details about CFC’s original and highly successful insurance philosophy. Listening back to this interview it’s clear that although CFC might have had big changes at the top, it’s definitely not slowing down and its body corporate and innovative culture remain as effective and worth studying as ever. NOTES: We mention Ciaran Martin, who is former CEO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and chairs the Technical Committee of the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC). The CEO of the CMC is William Mayes. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/      

Today’s guest is well on the way to cracking a problem that has been vexing the market for thirty years and something I have been writing about specifically for the last twenty. We all know that the process of syndication of risk in the London and other international insurance and reinsurance markets is full of inefficiencies and ripe for reform. But just because a problem has been around for a long time and has been well documented, it doesn’t make finding and implementing a solution any easier. I have lost count of the number of insurance and reinsurance exchanges I have seen launch and then wither and die over the last two decades. Gilbert Harrap, the CEO of InsurX is someone who is setting out to change all of this. Many exchanges failed either because they were founded by people with little understanding of complex insurance or they alienated their potential users, particularly the brokers, who often rightly or wrongly perceived them as a threat to their businesses. InsurX is different because Gilbert is someone with market experience who is focusing on building a utility that could help both underwriters and brokers increase volumes and improve margins. This is a fascinating conversation with someone running a business that has already gained significant traction in two classes of business and is looking to expand across the board. Gilbert is one of us and I think that’s a big part of why InsurX has been well received. He is laser-focused on helping brokers serve customers better while allowing underwriters to diversify in smart new cost-effective ways. He doesn’t want to be an underwriter or a broker – he just wants to be the one connecting them using intelligent new methods that add value to both parties. I really enjoyed my time with Gilbert and left feeling that InsurX might be one of the first exchanges to make it in the complex syndicated risk space. I also ended this conversation feeling much more optimistic about the future of the London Market and its prospects of increasing its global share of high-quality insurance business.   LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/