I really enjoyed recording this podcast. That’s probably because since I last spoke to Mark Wheeler, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Mosaic Insurance, a full three-and-a-half years ago, he has been able to execute and begin to reap the rewards of all the plans he laid out in Episode 99. There’s nothing like a sub-80 combined ratio to put a spring in your step and validate the vision you had when you founded the business, particularly when it comes relatively early in a start-up’s life. Mosaic has now built out its global platform and wrote over 660 million dollars in gross premiums in 2024, with that number set to grow as the group continues to scale. This interview distils the group’s highly-specialist added-value underwriter-led philosophy in excellent detail. But at its core, this podcast is really all about a real Lloyd’s expert making the most of all the advantages of the market’s unique syndicated underwriting and capital platform. It’s about the deep understanding of risk and the many shades of diversified capital that that risk can be connected to to create a sustainable ultra-specialist insurance business. Mosaic has its own capital, third-party capital, specialist reinsurance relationships and a large group of syndicated insurance partners underwriting alongside it. It is highly diversified and is set to diversify more. It’s capital-efficient, but certainly not capital-lite. Today this is an almost unique model but at the same time it will be a very familiar one to anyone who knows Lloyd’s longer-term history. As the market splits into leaders, followers and data-heavy portfolio managers, here’s as good a summary of the 21st century lead underwriter model that you are likely to hear anywhere. Mark is a charming guest and this is one of those interviews that just crackled along of its own accord, without prompts. I can highly recommend a listen. NOTES: Mark Mentions a Toby. This is Toby Smith, Mosaic’s CEO of the Americas He also mentions Burkhard, which is Burkhard Keese, former CFO of Lloyd’s. FAL (Pronounced as a word) = Funds at Lloyd’s CISO = Chief Information Security Officer LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com

When I meet someone to record an interview they often ask me how long the podcast is going to be. My stock answer is that it entirely depends upon them. Some people talk more than others and some people pack an awful lot into a lot less time, while others take longer to fully express themselves. You also never quite know where the conversation is going to go and that is a huge variable. Today’s podcast is lively, fun and gets straight to the point. That’s because it entirely reflects our interviewee. Kevin Gill is the Chairman of IRLA, the Insurance and Reinsurance Legacy Association. IRLA is the UK trade body that represents insurance and reinsurance legacy management professionals and this interview will bring you right up to date with everything that is happening in this increasingly mature and sophisticated segment of the marketplace. As legacy becomes ever more embedded as an essential, trusted service provider and capital partner for the live market we discuss how that relationship is evolving and where it might end up in the long term. The legacy market also has its own cycles independent of the live market and so we look at the relative state of the two markets and how this affects dealmaking. We also take the temperature of how the legacy sector feels about some of the more problematic recent live underwriting years, as well as looking at emerging loss trends and prospects for the application of emerging technology such as Ai to the sector. The portrait that emerges is of a confident, professionalised and vibrant segment  that is ready to trade and is looking at interesting growth opportunities as some of the soft-market underwriting years begin to mature.   Kevin is a breath of fresh air and there are no subjects left off the table. My bet is that you’ll finish this episode wanting more. NOTES: ADC = Adverse Development Cover LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com

This might be turning into a bit of a running theme, but today’s podcast is another really positive, really forward-looking encounter with the CEO of a global balance sheet business who is reaping the early benefits of a turnaround and transformation plan. President and CEO of AXIS Capital Vince Tizzio is on really strong form in this interview. In it we tally up where he feels AXIS is currently placed on the journey towards its stated aim of becoming the best specialty underwriter in the world. It’s clear that large strides have been made and in our chat Vince details the ongoing programmes, both strategic and operational that he feels are going to help the business achieve his ambitious goals. We also check in on where the best market opportunities currently lie and how AXIS is planning on making the most of them, as well as how the group is navigating opportunities such as AI and the volatile state of global risk of all descriptions. Vince is a great interviewee because he is authentic and wears his heart and his passions on his sleeve. I certainly came away with the feeling that with him what you see is what you get. Listen on an I think you’ll be able to hear for yourself. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com

Today’s guest is someone pretty unique for our sector because he’s a software engineer who became a senior actuary and then founded his own insurance-focused technology business. Amrit Santhirasenan, Co-founder and CEO at hyperexponential’s story is a classic of the entrepreneurial genre: Frustrated with a lack of an insurance-specific decision-making platform to bring together underwriters, actuaries and the exponentially growing datasets that an increasingly digital world is producing, Amrit decided to build his own. The longer I am around, the more I find that an unorthodox combination of skills and experience often unlocks extra value and Amrit is a great example of this. He’s also not a stereotypical actuary because, amongst his many talents, he has the sort of communications skills that would put many top brokers to shame. So this podcast is an incredibly eloquent summing up of hyperexponential’s business model and a wider and very detailed examination of the state of insurance today. Ironically you could argue that underwriters and actuaries used to work closer together until technology started to get in the way. Amrit is on a mission to bring back a much tighter feedback loop between the actuaries who interrogate the data to uncover insights and the underwriters who have to take those insights and turn them into decisions out in the real world. Pricing is at the intersection of all the most exciting things that are happening in insurance today – it’s where data, brain power and market savvy all come together to try and give carriers an edge over their competitors. Amrit’s great company and a dream guest, so technologists and technophobes alike do listen on as we set the world to rights. You certainly don’t need any tech knowledge to get the benefit of Amrit’s insights. LINKS: www.hyperexponential.com

Today’s guest is someone with a fascinating story to tell. Today Antony Erotocritou is the CEO of Ardonagh Specialty but he has ridden the Ardonagh story all the way from its origins in the debt-for-equity swap for troubled UK retail consolidator Towergate in 2015. Ardonagh has since been on a journey to build its specialty and international operations, which included 2021’s transformational deal to buy the newly-formed Corant Global Group, comprising the brokers Ed and Besso. The organic and inorganic investment continues at high speed. Over the last eight years, perhaps the only part missing from this story has been a clear narrative from the broking group itself. It has given the impression that it is too busy with its head down to worry about what others might think of it. Ardonagh seemed happy to leave a vacuum that many of its peers have been eager to exploit. It’s fair to say that media coverage of the group in the past few years has been chequered, with as many negative stories of team defections as positive ones around new hires or acquisitions. Well, this podcast gives me the sense of being the start of the group getting out on the front foot. Ardonagh Specialty has consolidated its many brands into Price Forbes and Bishopsgate and Antony has a very positive growth story to tell. As a former CFO he is absolutely on top of the numbers and strategy and we have a very detailed discussion about the economics of scaling up an expansive broking platform. He’s excellent company and as someone who arrived to rectify one of UK broking’s most serious mis-steps, here is someone who knows in great detail how expansion should not be done. Here we learn how he thinks it should be done properly and given his unique experience, it’s really worth hearing him out. There’s a lot to learn and plenty of myths to be exploded. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is someone I should have had on the show a long time ago, but I’m really glad has finally got an episode to himself. Tony Ursano is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of Insurance Advisory Partners and is someone who has been right at the top of deal-making in our industry for more than three decades. With roles at blue-chip firms on Wall Street and at Insurance brokers, he’s one of the few people who really excels at making the connection between the insurance industry and the global investment community and has had a hand in a large proportion of the most significant M&A transactions of the last 20 years. Because of this he is a fount of knowledge and is someone whose counsel and analysis it is always worth seeking out. For example if I ask: What will it take for investors to come back to reinsurance in significant volumes? Will higher interest rates take the shine off broker valuations? Or whether the boom in MGAs will run out of steam? With Tony I know I am going to get straight answers and a real feel for where the market is headed that comes from direct and constant experience. He’s also now his own boss and that independence just seems to make it easier for him to speak his own mind. In this discussion I asked all these questions and a lot more besides, and I wasn’t disappointed. And neither will you be. I’ve interviewed and chaired Tony many times over the years and I think our easy and good-humoured rapport comes across clearly in this conversation. So, sit back and get ready for a vintage episode with a real market player. Whether a buyer or seller - or a business looking to raise debt or equity finance or an investor looking for good opportunities in the insurance sector, Tony one is of the first people I’d advise anyone to call. NOTES: I let an abbreviation through. It was SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guests are Paul Templar CEO and Sebastian Prosser, Head of Account Management at insurance technology solutions specialist VIPR. VIPR started out in the London Market 14 years ago. From day one its core offering was to provide a software solution to the endless administrative problem of the ingestion and checking of data in the Delegated Authority (DA) space. With around 40% of the business at Lloyd’s transacted this way, it started life in a very fertile environment that was drowning in a mass of spreadsheets, emails and stray documents. Today it has grown enormously to be the largest player in this segment with over 400,000 bordereaux processed annually relating to around £5 billion of gross premium. This business is at the real coal face of digitisation in our industry and its development is following a ruthless logic: If you can ingest, verify and cleanse insurance data on a large scale, the next step is to start to analyse that data and gain genuine insights into the business you are writing.  And once you can do all this you can also speed up the process of onboarding new partners from a compliance perspective. My chat with Paul and Seb comes as VIPR is making large strides internationally into the US and European markets on the back of significant new blue-chip investment. With digital initiatives gaining traction and prominence all over the insurance world it’s an exciting time for the market and for VIPR. Here we talk about the prospects for a far more efficient, digital and data-driven marketplace, the world of insurance software ecosystems and the exciting expansion opportunities opening up for VIPR and its clients. Paul and Seb are great company and I recommend this episode to anyone looking to learn how to climb the first rung of the digital ladder. NOTES Naturally we mention DA a lot. That’s the abbreviation for Delegated Authority. There is also TPA, which stands for Third Party Administrator (usually for claims). LINKS https://viprsolutions.com/

Today’s guests are Warren Downey Group CEO and Lee Anderson, Group Deputy CEO of UK-headquartered intermediary Specialist Risk Group (SRG). Warren was last on the show as part of two very early Special Episodes that SRG sponsored over three years ago. Back then SRG was just about to get a new private equity backer in the form of HGGC. Since that change of ownership the growth has been impressive, with SRG increasing its intermediated premium threefold via a combination of organic and inorganic growth. So far this makes SRG sound like it is treading a well-worn path of PE-backed consolidation, but that would be to fundamentally misunderstand what Warren and Lee are trying to do with this singular organisation. SRG is a fast-growing broking and MGA platform with very high ambitions, but it is in no way a conventional scale-up play on the hunt for market leverage and cost removal. SRG is best described as a growing collection of very specialist businesses that are all operating in niches where it is the depth of its specialist knowledge and relevance to very specific markets and not its scale that allows it to compete. Warren and Lee are a brilliant double act and this is a fascinating and fun insight into a broking group that is building something intentionally different and going out of its way to do unexpected and surprising things. From being agnostic about channels to market, doing M&A differently, running a shadow board or giving staff access to accelerated management programmes and share ownership, there is a huge amount to admire in what this duo is trying to achieve. So listen on – Warren and Lee talk about preferring to show people what they have already done as opposed to telling them what exciting, but as yet unexecuted, plans they have for the future and this podcast is full to the brim of excellent examples. And on a personal note I don’t think I have had a more fun, lively and down-to-earth duo on the podcast in a very long time – the time will fly by. NOTES: Warren refers to growth to 600 million in premium volume. That’s in £ pounds, or $785mn in US Dollars. LINKS: SRG’s website is here: www.specialistrisk.com You can contact Warren Downey at Warren@specialistrisk.com

Today’s guest is Chris Killourhy, Managing director of QBE Re. The reinsurance market has been through some comprehensive changes in the last 12 months and so has QBE Re. In this podcast we delve right into the evolving appetites and re-vamped strategy at this well-respected medium-sized reinsurer. In the past QBE Re was viewed as a highly competent and nimble trader in the markets in which it operated. Today it is evolving into a player that is looking to become a long-term across-the-board partner for the right kind of cedant. Chris hopes that this strategy will deliver a growing, balanced portfolio and a more predictable and less volatile level of earnings than in the past. Chris is a qualified actuary and has had a really varied career to date, which has already included multiple roles within the wider QBE group. But, unlike the apocryphal actuary to be found as the butt of hundreds of insurance jokes, he lays out his stall with great eloquence and his ideas on how to build a more balanced portfolio make for fascinating listening. Listen on for many wise insights and a clear vision for how a mid-sized reinsurer should navigate this market and how it can best compliment and benefit from its ownership by a major global insurance parent group. NOTES: Chris refers to a Jamie. That’s Jamie Cook, QBE Re’s Chief Partnership Officer. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Asta is the largest third-party manager of Lloyd’s Syndicates by quite a long way. As such, today’s guest Lorraine Harfitt CEO of Asta, almost certainly has a better view of what types of new business entrepreneurs and major insurers alike are looking to set up. She also has the best view of Lloyd’s changing appetites around what type of businesses it is looking to allow into - and keep out of - the marketplace. So this podcast is a great temperature gauge on the Lloyd’s and wider international insurance and reinsurance markets. I’m happy to report that I found Lorraine full of optimism and enthusiasm, with a long and diverse pipeline of business in prospect on many fronts, be it new Syndicates in boxes, Captive Syndicates, traditional syndicates, other alternative vehicles or MGAs. As Lorraine puts it, there is always a fear that the appeal of the Lloyd’s and London Market may one day wane. On this showing there is no evidence of this happening any time soon. Lorraine is a an industry professional of vast experience who has worked her way from the Lloyd’s Policy Signing Office in Chatham all the way up into the heart of the market. She knows this business inside and out, she’s great company and this podcast is packed with lots of really nuanced observations. NOTES: Lorraine mentions a Julian. That is of course Julian Tighe, former CEO of Asta and now its Group Director and Chief Commercial Officer at Davies Insurance Services. ICAS, the UK forerunner of the Solvency II regime, stood for Individual Capital Adequacy Standards. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is someone who has had a career now into its fifth decade and is someone who I have been interviewing on an off for just under 20 years. He has held senior roles in broking businesses, underwriting firms and right in the heart of Lloyd’s. Today Julian James is CEO of Global Markets Commercial P&C Insurance at Sompo International. This is a global role that encompasses everything relating to commercial P&C in the Sompo organisation that is outside Japan or North America. Few executives could cope with a role that is this international, stretching from the far east all the way across to Brazil. But it is a job that suits someone like Julian down to the ground because he is someone who has been a globe-trotter for as long as I have known him and has a global outlook on the insurance business But just because I and many of you know already him, it doesn’t mean that Julian has lost the ability to surprise. In this interview I find someone energised and enthused about the challenge of creating and presenting a consistent and coherent Sompo offering to worldwide clients. With myriad jurisdictions, systems, brokers, languages and cultures to deal with, this is extremely hard to do. I also meet someone heading a business that has been discreetly increasing many of its risk appetites while most others have been moving in the opposite direction and which has grown quickly as a result. I also meet a global representative of a huge business that as recently as 5 years ago was not at all well known or understood outside its core Japanese market and has a large amount of communicating to do. Listening back this is a remarkably broad and fun conversation that covers a vast array of topics and lifts the lid on Julian and the wider Sompo organisation’s strategic thinking on the key issues facing the market. We even briefly touch on Eastern and Western philosophy. NOTES We spoke about some ancient history and I promised to put something in the notes about it. Julian worked at Sedgwick (a major UK-headquartered broker) early in his career. Sedgwick was acquired by MMC in 1998, at the height of what was then an unprecedented wave of consolidation that established MMC and Aon as the first genuinely global broking houses: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB904040627273832000 LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is James Drinkwater, the President of Amwins. James is one of the most successful broking entrepreneurs of his generation. But he is also someone who doesn’t give a lot of interviews and so I have been working to get him on the show for quite some time. I am really glad I finally did because this is a really lively and fast-paced interview with someone right at the top of our industry and at a fascinating time in the marketplace. A massive wholesale broking business like Amwins gets to see where all the stress points are in the market far sooner than anyone else and here we identify these and point to the most likely solutions. But it’s in our broader conversation that I think we learn the most about this leading wholesaler and its global strategy. Transforming from being the largest US wholesaler to being a dominant global player will require a clear strategy and a lot of time. And that’s why it’s refreshing to hear James talk about this because unlike many in our business, he certainly gives the impression that he has the patience to play the long game and refuses to compromise the group’s wholesale identity and culture. Also as a Londoner it’s heartening to hear that the group’s London operations are set to play a key role in its global expansion. James is always frank and a straight-talker and our half-hour chat rattles by in no time. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

It's great to have Clive Washbourn back on the show. The Episode I recorded with him two years ago has been the most downloaded of any so far, so it’s obviously going to be good for business to do a follow-up. But it’s more than that. Clive is one of those people who is famous in the market. He is someone who people tell stories about, so you’ve heard about him even if you haven’t met him. So when he founded his Navium MGA it was a no-brainer to ask him on the show. I had no idea what to expect. What happened was Clive being an absolute force of nature and one of the most revealing and fun interviews I have ever been a party to. We did that one under a lockdown over a video call. This time we are face-to-face in Navium’s office on Lime Street in the heart of the London market. It makes a huge difference to be physically in the room with someone like Clive. He really comes alive. What follows is another tour de force which reveals what is driving this remarkable marine MGA and what has pushed it to produce an amazing $360mn in gross written premium. We talk about the market, Clive’s business philosophy and where Navium is heading and how it fits in with Pine Walk and the wider, and now restructured, Fidelis operation. But because this is Clive, we get into something that we rarely talk about elsewhere: Listening back, we grapple with the true art of underwriting and how to play yourself into a strong market position. We learn how you can be a really technical underwriter without being the least bit boring and how you need to be ultra-selective and teach yourself to maximise opportunities whenever they arise. We also get an idea of how you can turn down large amounts of under-priced business but at the same time make the brokers keep coming back to see you. After two interviews I’ve got my own theory. I think people come to see Clive because they really enjoy his company. I think he is someone you could talk to about anything and he would make it an interesting conversation and an honest an unflinching exchange of views. I get the feeling Clive makes all the people he talks to feel understood and special. Here Clive even reveals a historical interest in the battle of Waterloo and burnishes his prog rock credentials by bursting straight into song! We both had a lot of fun – and I learned a huge amount - and so will you. NOTES Abbreviations: TLO is a Hull insurance abbreviation for Total Loss Only. ULR is the Ultimate (Net) Loss ratio. Rinku Patel is mentioned as being in the room with us. He is CEO of Navium’s incubator Pine Walk and is also now COO of Fidelis MGU as well as being its UK CEO. The quote ‘No battle plan survives the first shots of war/first contact with the enemy’ has been attributed to many, including Napoleon, but probably dates back to an 1871 paper by Prussian Field Marshal, Helmuth von Moltke. And finally, here’s a link to the 1973 progressive rock classic Karn Evil 9 by Emerson, Lake & Palmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLS0Med0s6E the original had to be split into 3 parts so that it could fit on a vinyl LP! Clive’s part comes in at 8’40”… LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s podcast is one of the most positive and optimistic I think I have ever recorded. Andrew Horton Group CEO of QBE has been in the role long enough to have been able to reap some of the rewards of the changes he has made at the global insurer since he took over the top job. Having dealt with legacy issues and posted some remarkable results that have validated his strategy – the mood from this interview is 100% forward-looking and upbeat. Andrew’s QBE has a spring in its step and a growth plan to execute into a global insurance and reinsurance market that seems to be throwing up opportunities almost wherever you look. It certainly helped that this was recorded on a pleasant early spring day in London, with plenty of sun in the sky and blossom on the trees, but the difference between this interview and the last one I did with Andrew two years ago is palpable. Today, Andrew is buzzing with energy and good humour and has audibly grown in confidence. In this discussion we make light work of all the issues of the day, taking in topics as diverse as Reinsurance, D&I, the long-term trends of facilitisation and algorithmic underwriting and their consequences, Lloyd’s and the London Market, and insuring the transition. So listen on as we take a world tour of market opportunities and a refreshed and revitalised player looking to seize the moment. If you are feeling jaded and in need a tonic – this is just what the doctor ordered! LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com We also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series and Data Jam. www.tin.events

Given its 50% share of global premiums, it’s probably fair enough that we spend an awful lot of our time talking about the US market, but sometimes it’s refreshing to broaden our horizons a little. So today we’re going to be looking at Australia. And luckily we’re going to be guided by a real expert and pioneer in this territory. This is someone with an enviable track record and also a very strong grounding in global wholesale insurance. Simon Lightbody has had a very successful 30-plus year career which started as a broker and then an underwriter in London, but really took off 18 years ago when he helped found Miramar, an Australian MGA backed by the growing Steadfast distribution group. Steadfast went public ten years ago and these days its MGAs write well over a billion in annual premiums. After a recent career break Simon is back with Rhodian - a brand-new MGA incubator, set up with support from Amwins. When someone of Simon’s experience and success starts something new it’s always exciting and a chance to find out what opportunity it is they have seen or what gap in the market they have spotted. So what follows is an excellent tour around Simon’s big idea and the opportunities available in the Australian and wider Asia-Pacific markets. Simon’s someone I knew back in my own broking days in the 1990s and I think some of that familiarity comes through in this really friendly and relaxed meeting. But most importantly this is an encounter with a highly successful entrepreneur who knows the MGA business from top to bottom. And because of that I think this Episode has an awful lot to offer any listener, whether they have a particular interest in the Australian market or not. NOTES APRA is the Australian prudential regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. ASIC is the conduct regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Aegis London is one of the most consistently top performing syndicates in the Lloyd’s market. It’s also one of the least volatile. The business has a new CEO, Alex Powell and so it was only natural that I should invite him onto the show for a catch-up. Alex has been with Aegis since the year 2000 when it was a fledgling syndicate so he knows this firm inside and out – to use his own phrase, he’s been sheep-dipped in this business’s culture. It’s clear from this meeting that we shouldn’t expect radical departures from Alex – but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t expect Aegis London to be radical. Because this is a radical business at heart. It’s found a way of putting into practice what many preach but what is enormously difficult to do – grow when you can and preserve capital when you can’t – and all the while maintaining a healthy balance that brings genuine diversification benefits. It’s also pioneered the digitisation of specialist business classes with a large degree of success, which is something many would not have predicted. In this meeting we spend a lot of time examining the market and going over the secrets of Aegis’s success. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but a bit like his predecessor David Croom-Johnson, Alex seems to be a good living example of the culture he wants to engender in his staff. He is easy-going, curious, smart and charismatic and is open and honest about his strategy and what has and hasn’t worked over the years He’s not prone to hyperbole and gives a strong impression that he would be an excellent person to work for. And perhaps that is the real secret as this business looks to make the most out of what remains of this hard market. But don’t take my word for it. You should hear it for yourself. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is one of the best qualified senior insurance and reinsurance executives I have ever had on the show. That’s because in a forty-plus year career David Cabral has been in both claims and underwriting, crossed the divide between Life and Health and P&C and worked at brokers, both in good times and in very bad times. He’s also been in charge of a company in run-off and he has overseen debt and equity capital raisings on the private and public markets. He’s built and run operations, done M&A and has worked at the biggest incumbents as well as the smallest start-ups. His resumé includes amongst many other names: Starr Excess, Marsh, Endurance, Frank B Hall, Lloyd’s and latterly sustainable finance-focused start-up Parhelion Capital. He’s also been a longstanding advocate of business and cultural change and the adoption and application of the best technology in our sector. I don’t know anyone with a more 360-degree understanding of our business than David. That long preamble is important because it means that what he has to say about the fundamental issue of ESG should carry an enormous amount of weight. This is someone with the right combination of intellectual heft and real-world experience to see exactly where we are going wrong as an industry on the biggest challenge our sector has ever faced. To his brains and experience I should also add a fearlessness in telling things exactly as he sees them. If ESG represents the greatest re-set of risk since the industrial revolution, here is someone who has thought things right though to their logical conclusions and wants to help build an insurance sector that is fit for purpose in a world of ever more dynamic risk and exponentially-growing real-time data. David is an outspoken communicator and a great advocate for our sector and the transformative power it wields across the global economy and wider society. I have rarely interviewed someone able to express themselves so freely and this is what I think makes this Episode something a little special NOTES Abbreviations. ESG stands for Environmental Social and Governance IoT is Internet of Things. A Julian is referred to. That is Julian Richardson, CEO of Parhelion Underwriting. LINKS We thank our Special Episode sponsor Stephens Rickard: https://www.stephensrickard.com/ David Cabral: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-v-cabral/

One of the only real qualifications for my job is to be good at getting on with all sorts of people – I really couldn’t do it if I was too cranky or too shy. In contrast some of the people I talk to aren’t natural communicators but as their careers have progressed and they had to take on more public-facing duties within their organisations, they have been forced to learn that particular skill. Happily today’s guest is an insurance professional who is a natural born communicator. Because of this I think this Episode contains way more content per minute than the average. Simon Wilson is President of Markel International and is responsible for a business that operates in 13 countries and counting on three continents. It’s also incredibly diverse, spanning micro retail all the way to the biggest ticket London Market wholesale business placed at Lloyd’s. Simon’s comfortable talking on an extremely broad range of topics – from specialty  classes and the effects of the hard reinsurance market and the discipline of writing net lines in dislocated markets, to casualty reserving and comparative strategies for global business building and the development of highly specialised industry vertical niches. We even dissect ESG and the opportunities that vast swathes of green investment are throwing up for the industry. It’s a breathless encounter that rattles through an enormous amount at a very fast pace. Simon’s clearly enjoying his role and his intelligence, insights, passion and excellent humour shine through every minute of this episode. Listen on, I think you’ll be impressed and you’ll learn an awful lot. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

The more time we spend in this industry the more we learn that there is very little that is genuinely new. Take the insurtech community’s recent discovery of the idea of embedded insurance. To read some of the posts about this on social media, this is an idea forged in the white heat of technology and so recently-minted that it’s still hot to the touch. Well, today’s guest puts that idea into considerable perspective. Keith Meier is Chief Operating Officer of US-headquartered Fortune 500 insurer Assurant and has spent a career of over twenty-five years working in the business to business to consumer insurance space – or B2B2C as it is more often called. Operating in 21 countries, there is almost nothing that Keith and Assurant don’t know about embedding insurance right into the heart of the product offerings of the world’s largest consumer brands. So this is a very mature sector and what follows is a masterclass on how to succeed in this specialist niche of the industry. Keith’s absolute customer-centricity will be a revelation to many listeners from the wholesale world. What’s clear is this is a long-term business that needs the right cultural approach to work for all parties. You have to offer real value or you just won’t last. But when it works, it really works. The insurer grows profitable business and service revenues, consumers get great service and added-value products and the consumer giants get new revenue streams and more loyal and better-quality customers. What’s also clear is that technology is enabling this segment to be so much more responsive than it has been in the past, with new products configurable at scale in a matter of days and weeks at negligible cost. That’s clearly the part that’s exciting the insurtechs – and the growth prospects are indeed considerable. But here is one embedded incumbent who is way ahead and is going to be very, very hard to disrupt! LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is back on the show in a role he has only recently accepted – that of Chair of the London Market Group (the LMG). Sean McGovern is probably the market’s best qualified incumbent for this job, and in this podcast I found Sean completely on top of his brief; Pushing the UK political establishment hard for changes to the UK regulatory regime to make it more accountable and conscious of the market’s global competitive position; banging the drum to attract talent and develop market-wide initiatives that benefit all participants, big and small; and helping to create consensus around and drive adoption of the London Market’s ongoing technological reform processes. We talked about everything – there were no taboos – not even Brexit! In my dealings with him over the years, Sean has always been incredibly direct and often surprisingly candid and this encounter is no different. This episode will get you up to speed on what’s topping the LMG’s agenda and what Sean, and the rest of the team are doing on the London Market and its clients’ behalf to make sure what everyone needs to happen, happens. I also think it’ll make any London Market practitioners listening feel particularly lucky to be so well represented. Well, see what you think. NOTES We refer to a Caroline. That of course is Caroline Wagstaff, CEO of the LMG, last on the show in Episode 141. LINKS We mentioned the London Insurance Life website: https://londoninsurancelife-lmg.com/ I can highly recommend everyone forwards this to any young person looking for a job, whether they are specifically interested in a career in the London Market or not. We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s episode is a real treat because we are doing something that we rarely do. That something is to undertake a genuine appraisal of what has gone well and what hasn’t in a business in the time since we last spoke. I often interview tech-focused entrepreneurs who have visions of how to transform the industry for the better. But what I almost never do is get them back on the show to examine in detail how their ideas fared when the came in direct contact with the often harsh reality of the industry as it is today. But I suppose James York, the founder and CEO of Peaccce is not like other insurance entrepreneurs. In fact I have never met anyone quite like James. Two years ago he was on the show espousing insurance reviews as a way of achieving a new type of consumer insurance platform sitting somewhere between search and price comparison. Now he’s back on the show to report in graphic detail how that experience went – and how he has adapted to the realities of the marketplace. It’s honest, sometimes brutally so. In tech everyone is always going on and on about how it’s so important to nurture the ability to fail fast and iterate – except almost no-one will admit to having done so. Just because your idea is right it doesn’t mean that it will be accepted with open arms. But James a robust enough character to take setbacks on the chin and re-focus. His latest idea on how to advance his vision is spectacularly simple and incredibly useful and his enthusiasm and energy is completely undiminished. This is an incredibly valuable conversation because it is borne form hard experience. It’s also one that anyone interacting with the Insurtech world will easily relate to and learn a huge amount from. LINKS CAR QR: https://peaccce.com/carqr Peacce: https://peaccce.com/

Todays’ guest is a broking pioneer with a very clear vision and an even clearer plan for how to achieve that vision. Steve McGill founded McGill and Partners almost four years ago and first appeared on this podcast about a year into the firm’s existence. It’s been over two years since he came on the show. Two years is a long time for anyone, but for a start-up business it is practically a lifetime. In two years the Steve on this podcast hasn’t change a bit, but the global business he runs has really taken shape. With revenues exceeding $170mn and the core build-out of the firm’s global infrastructure largely complete, the focus is unrelentingly on continuing and trying to accelerate growth from here on. Steve remains hugely focused and the strategy and vision remains the same from day one – acquire talent and customers, not businesses, and stay narrow and deep in specialisms while avoiding head on competition with the biggest global generalist brokers. In this podcast we take stock of how far the firm has come in a short period of time, against a backdrop of broking upheaval caused by attempted M&A, a global pandemic and major armed conflict. We also get insights into the transformed reinsurance landscape, the revolution in insurance distribution through the hybrid carrier and MGA incubator phenomenon and the logical consequences of increased digitisation on the market from one of the finest strategic broking minds in the business. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

My career in insurance was spent largely as a generalist and that’s why when I meet a specialist I really enjoy it. There is something amazing about the level of nuance and detail that specialists can reach into that adds enormous value to the rest of us if we have time to get all of the details out of them. Today’s specialist is James Boyce CEO of Global Specialties at Guy Carpenter which means we are in for a treat because we are getting the best of both worlds. That’s because Guy Carpenter can share as broad a global view of the market as is possible but at the same time we get an incredibly deep level of specialist knowledge and understanding. In today’s show we are focusing primarily on the retro markets. James and his colleagues have been in the thick of it and in this Episode we really clear the decks about where the market has landed after one of the most turbulent renewal periods in its history. I think that the picture that emerges is quite positive. The market has made rational changes that will set it in good stead for seasons to come, but although the product has fundamentally repriced right to the top of its useful range, the market is clearing and is a lot more predictable than it was at the end of last year. The underlying health of the market has also been buoyed by the news that despite Hurricane Ian and the Ukraine conflict, the retro market managed to post a profit in 2022 and has moved decisively back up the value chain, well away from attritional exposures. James is excellent company – well, he is a broker after all – and after this episode you’ll be right up to speed with the mood of underwriters and their capital backers in this the highest, but often least understood end of the capital stack that underpins the global insurance industry. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

I really enjoy talking to people who are full of energy because some of that energy rubs off. Bob Kimmel CEO of K2 Insurance Services’ return to the podcast with K2 CAT’s Head Underwriter David Carson is a case in point. Here we find Bob buzzing with the possibilities that significant new investment from Warburg Pincus can afford the firm as it looks to accelerate growth and double in size to a $3bn GWP platform over the next 4 to 5 years. David’s also full of energy after the decisive rupture in the reinsurance market at 1.1 has produced what he describes as the best market in property cat since 1993. This is an incredibly candid and fluid discussion. Bob is very open about the potential squeeze that may be coming for MGA and other intermediaries’ margins as reinsurers and carriers push back hard on commissions and trim underperforming agencies from their portfolios. But he’s also really happy about having fresh dry powder to make the most of cooling valuations and special situations as interest rates rise and debt-heavy buyers are priced out of out of a hitherto frothy M&A market. Bob also explains why being a hybrid carrier with a balance sheet was great when K2 was smaller and needed to incubate underwriting talent, but became a distraction to the core business as the group scaled to the $1.5bn of gross premiums it now underwrites on behalf of the market. This is fascinating under-the-hood stuff and no aspect of the market and K2’s plans is left uncovered. It’s also delivered at an almost breathless pace and with great rapport between the Bob, David and this interviewer. If you want to get well ahead of emerging trends in the fast-developing MGA world, this is absolutely essential listening. NOTES: Bob speaks first. The abbreviation LOC snuck in. It means a Letter of Credit. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is without doubt the most successful insurance executive I have had on the show.

He’s also completely unique in that he is the only insurance boss I am aware of to have run one of the world’s largest insurers and its largest broking group.

Brian Duperreault is insurance royalty. Having started his career at AIG, he then transformed ACE from a Bermudian upstart to a major global player.

He then ran MMC and set it on the road to a radical recovery, founded Hamilton Insurance and then helped AIG get a spring back in its step

He has now just founded Mereo Advisors in probably one of the most difficult funding environments for balance-sheet businesses in his long career.

But this introduction shouldn’t be a run-through of his superb résumé – most of you know all of that already.

Before this meeting I’d met Brian a couple of times. I had a brief interview with him once in the early days of the Hamilton era and had chaired him onstage at an Insurance Conference.

But today’s episode really showcases why the podcast can be a much more intimate and valuable medium than others.

In this encounter we had the luxury of less time pressure and what resulted was a long and expansive conversation that is something very different.

If you want to know how Brian has found success, listen on – it comes through loud and clear in every sentence.

Brian cares deeply about what he does, but it’s obvious he cares about all the people in the organisations he has run even more. He is a rare CEO, not because he is brave, morally upstanding, strategically audacious, a natural underwriter and risk-taker who is strong when executing difficult decisions and has a clear vision for how create, grow and run great insurance businesses – he’s got all of that in abundance.

But on top of that he is self-aware enough to know instinctively when he should hand over to a successor and try something new. As he puts it, he knows you can let a role define you and it can get really hard to leave when you’re the big successful boss and everyone always laughs at all your jokes!

Some of Brian’s most lasting achievements have not just been the growth and performance of businesses while he has run them, but the robust state he has left them in and the continued sustainable growth they have all achieved after he has moved on.

I could go on – but I think you get the picture by now.

Listening back, I think we managed to do the opportunity justice.

Brian’s also great fun and we ended up laughing a lot more than I had imagined when poring studiously over my research and reading the superb Biography that has just been written about Brian by longstanding former colleague Wendy Davis Johnson in preparation for this interview.

This podcast contains an enormous amount of highly valuable advice. My advice is to listen on and take it all to heart. If as a result anyone listening achieves even a tiny percentage of the success that Brian has, it will have been time well spent.

LINKS:

Faith and Purpose, The Life and Vision of Insurance Icon Brian Duperreault, is out now and available here:

https://duperreaultbio.com/how-to-order-faith-purpose/

I can highly recommend a read.

We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com We also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series and Data Jam. www.tin.events

Today’s guest is Andrew Horton Group CEO of QBE insurance. His job is to run a global insurer and reinsurer that writes over $20bn in gross premium that originates from almost every market in the world. The business has just posted a very solid set of results and at the same time issued guidance for this good run to continue in 2023. Andrew has been in post for around 18 months and in this podcast it becomes clear that he has had enough time in charge to start to execute some of his own vision. It’s not wholesale change, but it is quietly radical. QBE has been built and integrated by his predecessors over the last 20 years, so the job today is not about filling in gaps with acquisitions. The group is already global and hugely diversified. Today’s job is about optimising the business’s global processes, product and people to create a consistently profitable, and innovative firm that can continue to grow organically. This is clearly easier said than done, particularly in a business run as three divisions and present in almost every time zone on the planet. And that is the core of the interview today. Andrew is a very thoughtful and very accessible leader. His ideas on how to make a large global business more cohesive, coherent and consistent while at the same time being fast-paced, nimble and efficient are extremely valuable. He is trying to bring a small enterprise mindset to a huge global insurance group and that is a radical goal to try and pursue. From today’s talk I wouldn’t bet against him. I can highly recommend a close listen. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Welcome to a very special episode because today’s guests are MGA royalty. Luis Muñoz-Rojas (pictured left) is the founder and Richard Clapham (right) is the CEO of the global MGA DUAL Group, which is part of the Howden Group. DUAL is now a business that writes more than $3bn in premium and employs 1,300 people in 19 countries. And the firm is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Luis and I have a bit of history – in the 1990s we both worked for the biggest broker in Spain, Gil y Carvajal. Aon took over Gil y Carvajal in 1998. For me that was the cue to change career and go off and become a journalist, but for Luis it fired the starting pistol on an incredible entrepreneurial journey with a friendly London wholesale broker called David Howden. I’ll let Luis tell the full story later on. But I don’t want you to think that this is a backward-looking podcast, celebrating the achievements of the past quarter century. There’s a bit of the origin story, because it’s a remarkable one. But this is just as much about the here and now of the reality of today’s market and the direction that DUAL and the MGA sector will head in in the next 25 years. Nothing is off the agenda. 25 years ago MGAs were absolutely not in fashion. But today we seem to be on the third or fourth wave of a revolution in how commercial insurance is underwritten and distributed where MGAs always seem to be at the cutting edge. Who better to be our guides than today’s guests? They have built a global insurance underwriting and distribution machine that can bring geographical and product diversification to even some of the largest carriers, and from the tone of this talk, it feels like they have only just got started. You be the judge, but because I’ve known one of the subjects so long I also think it allows us to have a much more open, candid and fun conversation that we might otherwise have had. NOTES: Luis mentions the DGS. The DGS is the Dirección General de Seguros, the Spanish insurance regulator. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Sometimes CEOs can be a little evasive. Of course they’re nowhere near as evasive as politicians, but, particularly if they are the CEO of a public company, they do have to be quite careful what they say to journalists. That can make interviews with them a little unengaging. All this makes today’s guest a real breath of fresh air. SiriusPoint’s various twists and turns in strategy and changes in senior management have made it a little hard to follow in the last couple of years. Was the firm a hedge fund reinsurer or was it a hybrid venture capital-style incubator and investor? Or was it actually a fairly traditional international specialist insurance and reinsurance business? In the past it may well have been all three of these and more, all at once. But Scott Egan is here to do something about all of that. Relatively quickly into the role he has acted decisively and communicated very clearly what his plan for the business is going forward. This podcast lays everything out really concisely. Scott let me ask all the questions I wanted to ask and answered them all very clearly where he could. So if you’ve been scratching your head about what Siriuspoint’s strategy has been all about, allow 35 minutes of Scott’s straight talking to make things clear. Scott’s incredibly direct and engaging and his communication couldn’t be more plain. It’s disarming and refreshing and I highly recommend a listen. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is returning to the show after a 2-year gap. For most that would be a reasonable time difference between appearances on the podcast, but today it’s different because Greg Hendrick is the CEO of the start-up Vantage Risk and two years in the lifetime of a company that is less than 3 years old is practically a lifetime. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do and this episode sets everything straight at a really fine pace. Greg has always been confident and accomplished in his encounters with the media and this meeting is another vintage performance. Nothing is off menu and we rattle through where the firm feels it is performing against its original business plan and the big strategic calls Vantage has made, particularly on property cat. We examine some of the early fruits of the group’s big bet on the application of data analysis and technology in core underwriting decisions and also look at how the hard reinsurance market is affecting the insurance market and Vantage’s own development plans. We also discuss possible medium-term avenues for the firm’s original investors and the Group’s attitude to M&A. Vantage is likely to push through a billion dollars of gross written premium in 2023 and is starting to get up onto the plane as Greg would describe it. Greg himself is always on the plane and this is an energising and fun encounter that will get you right inside the mind of one our sector’s biggest thinkers and most dynamic actors. I highly recommend a listen. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

One of life’s great paradoxes is that when something is so core to everything that you do that you can’t imagine being able to do your job without it, that’s often when take it a little for granted. And I think that’s what the insurance industry is guilty of when we think of loss adjusters and other trusted third party claims professionals. That’s why I’m delighted I was able to have such an in-depth and probing conversation with Andrew Bart CEO of International Operations at Crawford and Company. It’s clear after our meeting that while many in the sector will regard Crawford’s services as a given and a constant, Crawford itself does anything but. This may be a market-leading business with a very strong position globally, but it is constantly challenging, reinventing and disrupting itself as the world develops. For instance, how does an adjuster scale up and scale down flexibly in the face of ever more frequent, severe and global loss events? And what about when these events occur simultaneously at different points in the world? How does an adjuster rise to the challenge of new developments like parametric insurance, the huge increase in intangible assets and social phenomena like the gig economy? And how about resurgent inflation and the mega-trend of ESG and the transition to net zero which is going to change fundamentally how insurers and their customers deal with all claims in the future? Well, the answers are all here. And they involve a huge amount of technology and data and an enormous amount of collaboration as well as a subtle shift in focus from hindsight and learning historical lessons to foresight, prediction, prevention and prescriptive actions. You may not have thought of all these things, but I can assure that Andrew has very deeply. The result is a fascinating podcast that will give you a clear idea of what the third part claims professionals of the future are going to look like. And I think that after this you won’t take loss adjusters for granted ever again.

Today’s guest is returning after a very busy couple of years during which he has re-shaped, re-branded and now floated the business he runs on the public markets. Andrew Robinson came to this meeting fresh from presenting Skyward Specialty Insurance Group’s maiden results. Perhaps understandably Andrew was buzzing with energy, insight and good humour in this encounter and our conversation is at times breathless and interspersed by his characteristic directness. Here we examine in a lot of detail the prospects for the US E&S markets in the light of the major re-set at the last Reinsurance renewal as well as Skyward’s ongoing strategies and growth plans within them. We also set the insurance world to rights. I certainly enjoyed our talk. This podcast will run by very quickly and will give you a very good feel for where Skyward and the wider market is heading in 2023 and beyond. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is John Neal CEO of Lloyd’s, back on the show after an absence of more than two years. Back then he described an ambition to put the Lloyd’s halo back in place. Well, two full years of underwriting profitability later and the market has regained a huge amount of its cachet and prestige and begun to reap the rewards of its painful remediation process. But this podcast is as far as you can imagine from a triumphal romp through the market’s considerable achievements of the past couple of years. It’s about the here and now of this still-transitioning market and the major opportunities it is throwing up for Lloyd’s underwriters. It’s also about a culture change on one Lime Street. Engaging positively with and backing smart businesses with good ideas and being more principles rather than rules-based, while at the same time remaining hyper-vigilant on any backsliding on hard-won improvements in rate and terms and conditions. And it’s about delivery and leadership – delivery on tech reform and leadership on the big calls around systemic risk and on the massive challenges and opportunities being thrown up by ESG and the transition to net zero We even make time to talk about the culture and work environment of the London Market in the post pandemic world. I’ll stop myself there because there’s a danger that these intros become just a shopping list of the topics we address. Take my word for it, we talk about literally everything on the global insurance and reinsurance agenda today and nothing is off limits. But ultimately this is a great opportunity to spend 45 minutes in a very relaxed and intimate conversation with a leader of a very important segment of our global insurance ecosystem. As you’d expect, he’s in great form and it’s clear to me that he is growing in confidence. The confidence and conviction was there before, but there’s nothing like good results to add positive reinforcement. Here is someone who is getting through to the market and clearly feels he is going to be able to carry the market along with him to face the challenges of the future – and do so from a position of relative strength. We haven’t had a Lloyd’s CEO in this sort of position for at least a couple of decades – and that’s why what he says here has more meaning than in the past. The fact is that because of the credible delivery of the objectives of the first phase of his tenure, John’s thoughts about what comes next carry more weight than before. And that’s why I highly recommend a detailed listen.

Today’s guests are a pair of broking executives clearly relishing an opportunity to lead a business through a period of accelerated growth in a market that is extremely favourable. James Baird (pictured left) and Paul Richards (right) are co-CEOs and Managing Partners of Consilium, the wholesale and specialist insurance and reinsurance broker that is part of the expansive Aventum group. Aventum Group CEO David Bearman laid down a marker back in Episode 82 almost two years ago and it’s worth re-listening to that podcast to put this one into context: https://www.thevoiceofinsurance.com/podcast/episode/33b1d9c1/ep-82-david-bearman-ceo-aventum-dont-walk-into-a-crowded-room This encounter is a tour de force. Whilst both James and Paul have worked together for most of their long careers they are relatively new arrivals to the Aventum fold. But you wouldn’t know from listening in here – the two are brimming with enthusiasm for their new home. Consilium already places $500mn of Gross Written Premium and has incredibly ambitious growth targets, but what is refreshing is that we aren’t talking about a familiar tale of private Equity backing, debt leverage, M&A and exit multiples. Here we are only using those terms to define what Consilium isn’t. And that’s what’s so fascinating. Consilium is a young broker with an average age way below that of these two interviewees and this interviewer. It has a progressive mindset on the application of tech in broking, much of which it develops in-house, yet in other ways it is incredibly traditional, balking at debt leverage, external equity investment and M&A for volume. The calculation here is that by growing organically whatever it loses in leverage the broker wins culturally, because it only hires people it feels will fit in and buy into the intermediary’s more stable culture. It also banks on that solid environment being a plus for customers who benefit from continuity of service. It’s definitely different. And with 30% organic growth on the cards, it certainly seems to be doing something right! Listen on for a really interesting and refreshing encounter. James speaks first. NOTES: Some Abbreviations. GL is General Liability and the ULR and ILR are respectively the Ultimate and Incurred Loss Ratios. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today's podcast is slightly shorter than many. At first I was wondering why. but listening back just now it’s actually quite clear. Long conversations come about because there are complicated structures, products and new ventures to explain. Or sometimes it’s because the people I talk to say things that I am not expecting them to say and then we have to spend time clarifying exactly what they mean. With Trevor Carvey CEO of Conduit Re, it isn’t like that. First of all Conduit was founded on the simple premise of being an uncomplicated pure reinsurer and that plan hasn’t changed just because the market has. There are no new platforms or initiatives to dissect here. Conduit is staying true to its original business plan, although better-than-expected market conditions may allow the firm to execute that plan a little quicker than expected. And the relative brevity is also down to Trevor himself. He’s concise and gets to the point and always answers questions head-on and in the most transparent and open way. It’s refreshing and this means that in a short time you can learn an awful lot about the exact state of the reinsurance market and where the best opportunities currently lie within it. There’s a lot of highly valuable detail and strategic insight in here coming from someone whose experience is very difficult to match in the industry today. I highly recommend a listen. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is someone you might not know but I think he is someone you should definitely listen to. That’s because Killian McDermott, Co-Founder & Executive Partner of POP Holdings is someone who is quietly innovating and applying technology and the analysis of data to the business of underwriting. Killian is an insurance professional with a long pedigree and so doesn’t come from the school of insurance disruptors. Indeed he believes that successful insurers have been married to the smart analysis of data since time immemorial and that the term insurtech will eventually have to be retired. He is an insurance person whose career would be typical of many in his peer group and recognisable to all of us, but who has learned to focus on the technology side of the business, not the other way around. What is also fascinating is that, in a world where so much tech innovation is going on in personal lines where numbers are large and premiums very low, his focus is on applying data ingestion and analysis, artificial intelligence and machine learning, digitisation and automation to highly specialist classes of business such as M&A insurance and financial lines. The firm’s ambition is also substantial. Fusion Specialty Insurance and io.insure are the group’s main operating business with licences in many major insurance jurisdictions globally and Killian is targeting a billion dollars of Gross written premiums within five years. So if you want to hear from someone who instead of talking about innovation and insurtech is quietly getting on with making it all a reality, I highly recommend you listen on. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

This week’s guest has probably the best 360-degree understanding of the insurance value chain of anyone I have had on the show. This is because Mike Keating has a career that spans collecting insurance premiums in person and runs all the way through underwriting, backing MGAs, working for and founding MGAs, to working for Private Equity and helping find investment to start new insurance businesses. Now Mike is putting all he has learned into running the Managing General Agents Association (the MGAA) the trade body that represents the MGA community in the UK and Ireland. The MGAA’s members write around £15bn – or just under $20bn - in GWP, so this is an organisation that carries quite a lot of weight in the market. In this podcast we examine the reasons behind the continued success of the MGA as a vehicle for delivering underwriting talent and the prospects for their growth to continue sustainably into the future. We also learn what is on the MGAA’s agenda, in terms of the lobbying work it does as well as what are the latest initiatives from the important educational and networking sides of the organisation. But leaning on Mike’s broad experience, our topic ranges are far wider than that. For example, a large part of our discussion extends to include the application of AI in the MGA space. With the average tenure of the underwriting paper backing MGAs hitting new highs, MGAs providing the preferred career path for many underwriters, and with someone as passionate and knowledgeable as Mike looking out for its interests, the future for the UK and Ireland MGA sector looks very healthy. But most importantly Mike is great company and an insurance player through and through and the best possible reason to listen to this podcast is to get the benefit of some of the insights that his long experience has given him. NOTES: We mention Reg Brown. Reg is a Lloyd’s luminary who ran his own Syndicate and is the driving force behind founding the MGAA, as well as many other market-wide initiatives and collaborations, most notably the Insurance Museum, of which he is Chairman. https://www.linkedin.com/in/reg-brown-62827313/

LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com We also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series and Data Jam. www.tin.events

In many ways today’s guest is an archetype of a traditional Lloyd’s Managing Agency business and the lifeblood of the London Market. It’s specialist, not generalist, it’s not too big but not too small. It’s nimble and agile, but also rarely strays from its chosen areas of expertise. And it’s also fiercely independent and supported - but not controlled by - its capital backers. Duncan Dale is CEO of Dale Underwriting Partners, a business in its tenth year of operation that is set to write around $400 million dollars in gross premium in 2023 following a one third pre-emption in its capacity from 2022. We discuss the recalibration in the market following the 1.1 reinsurance renewals, the opportunities this is throwing up and how long these opportunities might last for. We look at the firm’s expansion plans and the continued merits or otherwise of the London Market as a base, the effects of increased inflation on underwriting and we dissect Duncan’s own personal ambitions for the business he founded. But most importantly we get under the skin of a very singular London-headquartered underwriting business with a very clear vision of what it wants to do and where it wants to be. Duncan is on excellent form and I think this podcast proves that these days there is absolutely no such thing as a Lloyd’s archetype. Every market participant has a different approach and a very different philosophy and set of appetites – and I think that bodes very well for the health of the London Market as a whole. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Todays’ guest is a CEO who has just started in post at one of the London Market’s longest-running independent broking houses. As one would expect James Hands of Miller is full of energy and ideas on how to continue the broker’s impressive run of growth. James is a broker’s broker and our discussion rarely beats around the bush. He tends to get straight to the point. Miller is going to grow organically and by acquisition, but it is going to keep a laser-like focus on client need, culture and playing to the broker’s specialist wholesale insurance and reinsurance strengths. We run through how the tough market is playing out for Miller and its clients, whether third party capital backing has changed the firm’s culture and how the group is reacting the major technological changes that are transforming the way business is done across broad swathes of the market. James is excellent company and gives the impression of an open-minded and pragmatic leader very comfortable with where his business is and where its strategy is likely to be taking it in the future. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Imagine a world where your underwriters can design their own insurance products in front of their eyes. A world where you don’t wait months for developers to come back to show you things they have built that end up bearing no relationship to what you asked them to do. In this world if you don’t like it you can just dump it and start again. And in this world the idea of legacy technology is meaningless- it simply ceases to exist. Here your only development cost is a monthly subscription. Well, it turns out this world is already here and not many of us know about it. I think you can tell from these words that today’s Episode is one that I found incredibly liberating and enlightening to record. I love it when I learn something new, especially when its something I have been hearing other people talk about for a while, but I’ve been too busy or perhaps too embarrassed or scared to ask them to explain it to me. The world of no-code software is one of those things that I’ve been hearing about for a few years, but haven’t really understood in any detail. So it was brilliant to meet Risto Rossar CEO of Insly, which is a business that has been running a no-code platform for the insurance industry for the best part of a decade. Risto is one of us – he’s an insurance guy. His first business was a digital insurance broker he launched around the turn of the millennium. Back then to do this you had to create all the tech yourself because it simply didn’t exist. That firm became very successful in the Baltic States and was sold on. But Risto soon realised he was onto something. Scaling brokers globally was hard but scaling software is a lot easier. He decided his next venture would be a tech business that helped to digitise the insurance sector That is how Insly was born. Now it’s working with 40 carriers and MGAs and around 4,000 brokers from around the world. Listen on for an inspiring conversation with someone who understands that the only way to unleash real innovation is to liberate insurance folk from the need to learn how to code and allow us to get genuinely creative with insurance for the first time in our history. In our discussion we also slay a lot of the myths around other tech buzzwords such as Blockchain and the idea of the moment: Embedded Insurance. Risto is great company and I can highly recommend a listen – you’ll learn a huge amount and hopefully end by feeling inspired and invigorated. LINKS Find out more about Insly here: https://insly.com/en/ And connect with Risto here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ristorossar/

Today’s Guests are Richard Watson and Stuart Bridges of Inigo This podcast is a really enjoyable encounter wholly because of the unexpected way these two executives decided to conduct themselves. In the build up to an interview like this I usually circulate some sample questions beforehand. This is to get the subjects comfortable and to be able gather their best thoughts before we start recording. But the night before this recording Richard emailed me suggesting that we ditch my list of questions and that he and Stuart should interview me instead. A bit of broking later and we ended up with elements of both ideas. I hope you enjoy it. Listening back it’s definitely something different. But then no-one in the 153 Episodes preceding this interview has ever suggested we do any like this. I think what follows is a great advert for the business Richard, Stuart and their teams are building. The two are different, they’re original and they’re free thinkers who are happy to share their ideas and quite a lot of their own unique personalities. They’re clearly also having the time of their lives running a business that is looking to underwrite in excess of 1.2 billion dollars of premium in its third year, which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, ahead of the original plan. NOTES: Richard speaks first. The abbreviations 10-Q and 10-K are respectively a US-listed company’s quarterly and annual results, as filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The figures and letters refer to the statutory forms the companies have to use. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Today’s guest is a real insurtech innovator with a story that is all the more remarkable because is bringing cutting edge tech to one of the oldest and most traditional lines of insurance, cargo. Ben Hubbard CEO and co-founder of Parsyl is an insurance outsider, who now finds himself running a Syndicate in the beating heart of the global cargo market – Lloyd’s of London. How did he get there? The other remarkable part of the Parsyl story is that it is unlike other insurtechs, who see fusty old insurance as ripe for disrupting, Parsyl is born from the idea that it is insurance that completes the tech side of the business because it allows economic incentives and enhanced coverage to be offered to customers to make them change behaviour and run their businesses better in the interests of all. So Instead of just selling technology it is also coming to take on a client’s risk – and that is something much more useful. To give you an idea of the firm’s progress and its potential, the business has just announced a strategic partnership with Lineage Logistics, the world’s largest temperature-controlled logistics solutions provider whose customers spend around $500mn a year on cargo insurance. Ben is a really friendly character who has the charisma and empathy needed to succeed in a multi-brokered market and I think his approach shows the way forward for how best to apply technology in the wholesale insurance value chain. So listen on – you may find inspiration for how to adapt Ben’s approach into your own chosen specialist lines. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Today’s guest is Phil Hobbs President & Managing Director at Liberty Specialty Markets. In the past Liberty Mutual businesses used to be run allowing a lot of autonomy and sometimes geographical and operational overlap. But these days Liberty is a business that has undergone a huge amount of work to unify in structure and present much more of a united front globally. And when you hear that Specialty Markets now produces 24 billion dollars of gross written premium, making it one of the largest commercial P&C insurers in the world, you can see why it makes an awful lot of sense to project and leverage that sort of scale out in the marketplace. That’s what makes this such an interesting discussion. When Phil joined Liberty 15 years ago he had a role in the group’s Lloyd’s Syndicate. Now he has a completely global view and only half of the premium he overseas is written in London. And because the business is a buyer and seller of reinsurance and retro, very few other organisations have such a joined up view of the insurance value chain in its entirety and with such breadth and depth. Given the turbulent state of the market Phil’s view is extraordinarily valuable. Here we talk in depth about how the recent reinsurance reset might affect market dynamics in insurance, as well as grappling with the state of play in core London specialty political risk and violence classes, Cyber, resurgent inflation, ESG and the post-pandemic work environment. Phil is very articulate and his calm and easygoing demeanour permeates our exchanges. He is also very good at making very complicated processes and dynamics much easier to understand and that is why I think a listen today will be very well rewarded. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Todays’ guest is from Insurtech royalty. He’s part of a select club of executives running youthful insurance businesses with valuations exceeding a billion dollars.  Bolttech and its Group CEO Rob Schimek have been in a hurry, building technology and a licensed ecosystem that is connecting large companies and their customers, brokers and other intermediaries, carriers and thousands of their insurance products in 30 markets across three continents. It’s done this from a standing start in only 2020 and today billions of dollars of premiums are quoted through the fluid connections that the business facilitates. I’ve been around insurance and technology long enough to know that getting this kind of traction this quickly is something special and that is why I wanted to get Rob on the show. In the last two decades insurance investment graveyards have been filled with big bold ideas like this and I wanted to get to the heart of what Bolttech is trying to do differently. It turns out that far from disruption the firm’s approach is to bring collaboration and flexibility to everything it does. It is also incredibly focused on the hard and unglamorous technical yards of Insurance that many more naïve insurtechs make the mistake of overlooking. Dealing seamlessly with the complex regulatory aspect of distributing thousands of products in different markets, perhaps through unlicensed entities, is an enormous challenge that this business takes just as seriously as the tech side of things. With a very senior insurance career already under his belt Rob really is one of us. So listen on for an idea of what the future of general insurance distribution is going to look like. And if you were ever dying to learn what all the fuss surrounding embedded insurance is really all about, then you have absolutely come to the right place! NOTES A couple of abbreviations smuggled themselves in: OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer - eg. Samsung for mobile phones. API = Application Programming Interface – ie a way of connecting up different computer systems LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Today’s guests are brokers - a London Market wholesale veteran and a rising star executive. John Sutton (CEO) and Jonathan Tritton (SVP) work together at Acrisure London Wholesale (ALW). The business does exactly what is says on the tin – it’s fast growing retail broker Acrisure’s London Wholesale operation It’s almost five years since ALW was formed and for the incredibly acquisitive Acrisure group, it’s a rarity because it is a business that has so far done all of its growth organically. This is a really lively discussion and one that I think shows this business and the market where it operates in a very positive light. ALW is finding ways of serving its huge and growing retail, and now wholesale, network with product designed and built in London. It’s doing this through a combination of old school savvy and expertise and a youthful nimbleness and technological awareness that is refreshing to see. What’s more as the market has hardened across the board and already hard-to-place covers are becoming even harder to place this duo are adamant that the London Market is standing up and being counted and is rediscovering much of its old creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. NOTES One abbreviation. PV stands for  Political Violence. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

I’m delighted to say that todays’ guest is a returning visitor and he returns very much the insurance executive of the moment. Adrian Cox is the CEO of Beazley which since we last spoke has cemented its reputation as the most dynamic and pioneering of the London-headquartered global specialty insurers and reinsurers. Late in 2022 Beazley raised fresh capital to deploy into the hard reinsurance market. It did this in an environment when almost nobody else could get financing away. And just as we were about to do the recording the firm announced it had placed the first ever Cyber cat bond. So perhaps understandably Adrian was absolutely buzzing in this episode. The firm’s core markets have all reset and Beazley’s positions within them look extremely attractive In this crackling podcast we cover the market resets in property reinsurance, specialty and cyber classes and where Beazley fits in with them, as well as the ongoing ESG transition, the prospects for rising tech efficiencies in insurance and the emergence of new ways of working in the post-pandemic world. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Today’s podcast carries on where we left off after the State of the Reinsurance Market Special Episode which was released after Monte Carlo. We already knew this renewal was going to be difficult, but the subsequent intervention of Hurricane Ian stiffened reinsurers’ resolve further. The result was a bruising and often frustrating encounter. You should already know the headline numbers by now: Dedicated reinsurance capital shrank by the most since the global financial crisis of 2008 Global property catastrophe pricing was up 37% - the largest 1.1 increase since 1992 And there was a 50% increase in retro pricing, which means this highest echelon of reinsurance is now 165 percent more expensive than in 2017 The aim of this podcast is to put all of this into historical context, ask the big questions about who the winners and losers were and to examine what the change means for the 2023 outlook and the long-term strategic direction of the market and those who invest in it. To help me I have representatives from three of the top four reinsurance broking groups. David Priebe is Chairman of Guy Carpenter and brings experience and a global market view that few can match, although James Vickers Chairman of Gallagher Re International should certainly feel he is a peer. Finally David Flandro Head of Analytics at Howden brings his unique research-focused mind to bear and to give us a bigger macro take on what has been happening. A quick note. You must read Gallagher Re and Howden’s respective 1.1 reports as an essential accompaniment to this podcast. Both are hugely informative and insightful and are wholly complementary to each other Links to both are below. This was a bit more work than usual but I really enjoyed my three interviews and the subsequent time spent blending this highly accomplished trio’s thoughts together. I think it brings the renewals to life and will be useful for anyone wanting to navigate the re-set markets of 2023 ABBREVIATIONS IRR: Invested Rate of return EVA: Economic Value Added D&F: Direct and Facultative NOTES: David Flandro acknowledged the work of principal Howden 1.1 report author, Head of Research, Julian Alovisi. LINKS The Howden report is called The Great Realignment: https://www.howdengroup.com/news-and-insights/the-great-realignment-2023 The Gallagher Re report is called Market Turns: https://www.ajg.com/gallagherre/news-and-insights/2023/january/gallagher-re-first-view-market-turns/ We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ And our advertiser Bolton Associates: https://www.bolton-associates.co.uk/

Today’s guest is making a return to the show after a three-year gap. That’s way too long for me because the last time she was on the podcast she made such a strong impression that I described her as a dream interviewee. But there are good reasons for the gap – not least a year’s gardening leave as she moved to take on one of the biggest jobs in broking. Luckily for all of us Lucy Clarke, President of Risk and Broking at WTW is back on the show. She’s still the dream interviewee and given her important new role and Willis’s re-stated ambitions to restore the sheen to this historical jewel in the global broking crown, she’s more of a dream guest than ever. This podcast doesn’t disappoint. In this interview I found Lucy on top form, fully established in her new role and clearly revelling in the task in hand. Here we unpick all of Willis’s strategy, from it’s ambitious return to reinsurance to its audacious digital broking initiatives, and we put all this in the wider context of Lucy’s extraordinarily broad view of the market’s ebbs and flows as well as its permanent structural changes and external opportunities and threats, such as those presented by AI Nothing was off the menu and with Lucy what you see is what you get – her drive and passion are always on display. Here’s someone with their sleeves rolled up and clearly enjoying a dream job scenario unfolding in front of them. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com We also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series and Data Jam. www.tin.events

Todays’ guest is a highly experienced broker. And since right now is a market absolutely made for brokers of his calibre and experience, in this podcast Alastair Swift and I get stuck straight into the reality of the global specialty insurance market and the ultra-hard reinsurance market. Alastair is Head of Corporate, Risk & Broking Global Lines of Business at WTW and is CEO of Willis Limited, so has a view of the state of play in London that is hard to match. Listen on and you’ll hear: How net lines and greater syndication are the order of the day as insurers’ outwards reinsurance renewals stall Why the market is like an open pair of scissors – up where there are aggregation, and therefore reinsurance-related, issues and down where there aren’t. You’ll learn why clients have had enough, and alternatives such as captives and parametric solutions are booming. How the cyber market has stabilised and is ready to continue its exceptional growth. And why some insurers may choose to increase market share by absorbing higher reinsurance costs themselves and not passing them on. Alastair’s been on the show before and it shows through in his confidence and the concise way he answers all the questions I throw at him So listen on for an intensely concentrated description of the state of the market today, right from the eye of the storm, with someone completely on top of their brief. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is Alex Blanco, CEO of Vantage Insurance. Alex has been dealt a rare hand in the insurance world, because he has had the chance to build something from scratch with no legacy. What would you do if you could start a specialist insurance business from a clean piece of paper, and in a pretty favourable insurance market environment?  What lines would you start with? How would you use technology? Would you stick to the E&S market or would you add admitted capabilities? How would you approach alternative distribution such as MGAs? Would you go international? These are the core questions at the heart of this podcast and Alex puts his multi-decade executive experience to providing the answers. Alex is a great guest and this is a really robust and far-reaching conversation. I can highly recommend a listen. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

Today’s guest is one of the smartest people in the insurance sector and I am really lucky to have been able to spend time talking to him fairly regularly over the course of the last few years. I first got to know him just as the whole insurtech movement started to really take shape in around 2016 to 2017 and ever since that time he’s always been open and honest about the way he appraised the new wave of technological investment sweeping through the industry. He never lost his critical faculties and never got caught up in the hype that defined part of that era. But that doesn’t mean he’s a sceptic either – he’s actually quite a rare animal – an enthusiastic but realistic adopter and promoter of better ways of doing the business of insurance. Today’s episode is one I am really pleased with because it does the job of a podcast properly. Over the years I have had many enlightening conversations with Adrian just like the one you are about to hear. But up until now I had never recorded one. So prepare yourself for a masterclass in what the smart money thinks about the state of insurtech. Embedded insurance, insurtech bubbles – whether they existed and whether they have now burst – how the hard reinsurance market will affect start-ups and even the very logic of the phrase insurtech itself are all addressed in the discussion. I’ll wager you’ll get more benefit from listening to Adrian for 45 minutes than you will from attending any 3-day Insurtech conference. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/

TRANSCRIPT https://www.thevoiceofinsurance.com/post/ep145-adrian-jones-transcript -------- The views expressed are the views of Adrian Jones as of the date hereof. Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (“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. The HSCM Public InsurTech Index (HPIX) tracks the price movements of a portfolio of common equity securities listed in the last 10 years by companies operating in the United States insurance sector with novel business models differentiated by technology. The HPIX components, currently 22 companies, describe themselves as having novel business models differentiated by technology. The Index components also meet certain criteria, defined in the Index Guideline (available at Solactive.com), concerning minimum size, length of public listing, geography, and certain other aspects of the business model. The chart illustrates the price movements of HPIX starting with an initial value of 100 on the first trading day of 2020. Solactive AG (“Solactive”) is the licensor of HSCM Public InsurTech Index (the “Index”). The financial instruments that are based on the Index are not sponsored, endorsed, promoted or sold by Solactive in any way and Solactive makes no  express or implied representation, guarantee or assurance with regard to: (a) the advisability in investing in the financial instruments; (b) the quality, accuracy and/or completeness of the Index; and/or (c) the results obtained or to be obtained by any person or entity from the use of the Index. Solactive does not guarantee the accuracy and/or the completeness of the Index and shall not have any liability for any errors or omissions with respect thereto. Notwithstanding Solactive’s obligations to its licensees, Solactive reserves the right to change the methods of calculation or publication with respect to the Index and Solactive shall not be liable for any miscalculation of or any incorrect, delayed or interrupted publication with respect to the Index. Solactive shall not be liable for any damages, including, without limitation, any loss of profits or business, or any special, incidental, punitive, indirect or consequential damages suffered or incurred as a result of the use (or inability to use) of the Index. For more information about HSCM, including risks and other disclosures, please refer to www.hscm.com.