Changing the Conversation: The People in Insurance theinsurancebroker

What is the Insurance Museum and who is it for? Can it help to reconstitute public perceptions of the industry and to educate children and young people about what we really do?
Given the rapidly evolving nature of our industry today, it’s easy to forget that our work rests on the shoulders of a centuries-old legacy rooted in the heart of London. The founders of the Insurance Museum intend to cultivate a renewed interest in this history and heritage amongst both industry professionals and the general public. In today’s episode of Changing the Conversation, we are thrilled to be speaking with Howard Benge, Director of the Insurance Museum, about the project’s creation, its intentions, and long-term ambitions.
 
Quote of the Episode
“When I first came into this [project], the first thing that that really hit me was how much sandstone, how much history there is. The history and heritage of the insurance sector is so broad and so deep.”
The Insurance Museum was established as a charity in 2020, with the intention of becoming a physical space in London SE3 to tell the global story of insurance from its birthplace. During his research for the project, Howard uncovered an immense array of fascinating material charting the expansion and development of Lloyds and the industry more generally, into what it has ultimately become today. Matching the primarily digital nature of insurance itself in 2024, the museum currently uses digital platforms (linked below) to bring the history of the sector to life.
 
Key Takeaways
The Insurance Industry aims to be inclusive in its outreach, and be suitable both for insurance professionals and the general public: anyone with an interest in the interest, but particularly children and young people. To this effect many components of its digital presence are targeted towards this demographic, with the intention of unlocking an early interest in the insurance industry. Howard notes that roughly 36% of us have chosen our career by the age of seven. The proportion of those children who would consider insurance as their future profession is slim to none – most likely do not know what insurance is, nor the profound extent to which it underpins the global economy.
Thus, the museum aims to inspire, educate, and in the long term, support the industry’s recruitment efforts, by making insurance a career that is actively chosen rather than one that it simply fallen into. If we can positively reinforce children or young people’s interest in insurance, we can begin to shift the tides regarding our industry’s ongoing reputational crisis.
To do so, the museum aims to explain the multifaceted nature of our industry through explorations of an interesting angle. Every child in England is taught about the Great Fire of London at the ages of 6/7, thus providing an ideal springboard with which to explore the importance of insurance, and the applications of numerous subjects through it. Howard emphasises that it is key to emphasise how insurance infiltrates everything we do – it is a fundamental, if typically unseen, facet of our daily lives, which is a very exciting prospect for children to consider. Meanwhile, amongst young adults, Howard suggests a need to tap into their interest in inequality and injustice. For example, presenting the industry from the angle of how the big insurers aim to tackle climate change could facilitate engaging discussions which may enlighten young people about a career they hadn’t previously considered or known about.
The museum ultimately intends to cultivate a deep level of engagement in insurance; to make it fun and compelling for young people, and also enriching and informative for older people and insurance professionals seeking to learn more about the history of their industry. It will not be a museum of policies and fire marks, but an inspiring space where stories are told.
 
Best Moments/Key Quotes
“The reason for the existence of the insurance museum… is to i

We are very pleased to be speaking with Gary Burke, Founder of Rabbits From Hats, about the distinction between transformation and change, and how businesses can smoothly implement transformation projects. In conversation with Sarah Myerscough, Gary highlights the importance of adopting a ‘horizontal view’ of change if transformation projects are to achieve their intended goals for a given business.
 
Quote of the Episode
“Companies look at this stuff far too narrowly, far too vertically. They really need to just pause and look sideways, so they get more of a horizontal view. The organization does not exist in a bunch of disparate silos. It's all connected.”
When contemplating transformation projects, Gary postulates, it’s very easy for business leaders to view their organisations in terms of their composite parts, rather than as a cohesive whole. This misperception can lead to disaster; if a given transformation is not considered on a broader, company-wide basis, certain considerations may be left forgotten. As such, throughout the episode, Gary emphasises the need for a ‘horizontal’ view of change which considers how it might affect the business from every conceivable angle.
 
Key Takeaways
Gary pinpoints two fundamental issues typically encountered when insurance businesses implement transformational change:
A lack of understanding about what transformation will involve
Insufficient capability and expertise to deliver it
For Gary, both of these issues are generally derived from there being no overarching, wholesale, holistic view of the business and its innerworkings. This is further underpinned by a common misconception that ‘change’ and ‘transformation’ are functionally synonymous. Businesses adopt small-to-medium-sized change projects all the time, be it the adoption of a new software or the restructuring of a team. Such projects can impact how the business operates, hopefully to drive efficiencies, but without fundamentally altering it. Conversely, transformation projects impact the business at every conceivable level. As such, to tackle a transformation project with the mindset of a change project can never be successful.
Gary suggests that the senior leadership team must set the tone for how the company must behave throughout the transformation process. If several groups, perhaps with conflicting views and ideas, are to be involved in this process, a collective consensus on the intended outcome of the transformation project must first be reached. This establishes a base goal which everyone across the company can defer to. Subsequently, each team can collaboratively work backwards from this goal, to understand the key things needed to achieve it. Once the points of uncertainty about the nature of change have been smoothened over, this can be a non-contentious process – what will be the most effective way to achieve this transformational outcome given the resources held by the business?
To determine the success of a transformation project, a wide array of metrics must be consulted. A holistic approach to measuring success must also be adopted. This must be derived, first and foremost, from the baseline of what the business already has, prior to the implementation of the project. The success of transformational change can only be understood by reference to how the business previously used to function. There is a lot of hesitance, particularly in insurance, to attempt transformation projects. Gary argues that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that such programs inevitably lead to failure. Instead, he suggests, businesses must always understand in detail what exactly they are getting involved in by undertaking them, and consider how their innerworkings will be fundamentally altered as a result.
 
Best Moments/Key Quotes
“As long as you know the outcome, then that's the thing to focus on. The technology is an enabler. It enables you to do something in the best way possible, the most e

What are ‘fronting’ and ‘hybrid fronting’? How do they differ? And what unique opportunities can these solutions afford MGAs and the wider UK insurance market?
In this episode of Changing the Conversation, we are thrilled to be speaking with Paul Jewell, CEO of Bridgehaven Insurance, the first hybrid ‘fronter’ in the UK. At the forefront of this alternative distribution solution’s introduction to the UK market, Paul is well-placed to discuss the disrupting influence of fronting, having already made a sizeable impact across the pond in the US. He elucidates why fronting presents such a powerfully unique and profitable option to MGAs, and its benefits to the wider market.
 
Quote of the Episode
“Simplistically, [fronting] is just a term for capacity or an insurance solution… An insurance company acts on behalf of somebody else, usually a single, or multiple reinsurers. it’s very common for international companies, [such as] Pepsi Cola, a US-based company who may want an insurance solution in the UK, but they may have their own insurance solution provided by a US company. So, what they do is they have a ‘fronting partner’, a ‘fronter’, in the UK that ‘fronts’ for that business, i.e., issues the insurance policy, and they reinsure back to the US under the master agreement. That’s traditional fronting. It’s most common for multinationals and those types of organisations.”
Fronting is a hugely beneficial market solution, enabling multinationals to streamline their insurance provisions to ensure a continuity of cover across the various markets they operate in. Equally, this presents a big opportunity for those insurers, namely MGAs in the UK, who can provide this solution, as it grants them access to unique capacity derived from alternative markets they wouldn’t otherwise have operated within.
 
Key Takeaways
Hybrid Fronting slightly differs from the traditional approach outlined above. In contrast to the Pepsi example, in which the fronting company would reinsure 100% back to the US, a hybrid fronter would retain a variable amount of that risk themselves. Thus, through this model, the insurance company issuing the policy retains risk to their balance sheet. Furthermore, the hybrid fronting model is more focused on underwriting profit. Fronting for Pepsi and issuing a policy to reflect their US-based cover is a matter of compliance, as you’re not allowed to issue American policies in the UK. Meanwhile, a hybrid fronter retains some amount of that risk, so premiums and claims stay in the UK with that insurance company. Thus, hybrid fronters can benefit from hugely diversified portfolios, and a focus on profitability through partnership with a broad range of reinsurers.
Paul anticipates that fronting and hybrid fronting will become an increasingly powerful disruptor in the UK market. He argues that MGAs are particularly well-suited to operate in and benefit from this space by providing unique services and distribution in a more flexible and agile manner to traditional insurers, which aligns with the aims of prospective fronting partners such as Bridgehaven.
Additionally, he suggests that reinsurers themselves can also benefit from this type of distribution. If a reinsurer has relationships in other jurisdictions, and wishes to provide capacity to a particular customer group in an alternative market whilst remaining compliant in the UK, a partner can front for and retain risk on their behalf. Paul also notes that captives may be interested in this solution, particularly given the government’s recently asserted interest in making the UK a jurisdiction of choice for those subsidiaries.
Paul anticipates that many more fronters are likely to emerge in the UK in the next few years. The profitability of this approach has enormous potential in bringing new, diverse capacity to the UK market. He dismisses the notion that hybrid fronters will compete with one another for this capacity; by contrast

In this episode of the Changing the Conversation, we are thrilled to be speaking with Phil Denman, Co-Founder and CEO of four-section MGA, Capacity Insights! In conversation with Macaii’s Sarah Myerscough, Phil explains his philosophy for establishing partnerships with experts external to the insurance industry, and how these can help us to keep apace with customer interests and regulatory demands.
Is it possible for any insurance company to address customer desires without delegating any tasks to external experts? As we rapidly transition towards digitisation, how do we keep an eye on the unintended consequences of new digital practices, particularly with new regulatory measures to consider? Having established what your company is good at and what your customers want, how can you align both of those propositions?
 
Quote of the Episode
“I see this modern, fast moving insurance market that we work in being a sort of an ecosystem of partnerships. Whether that's technology, whether that's people providing parametric claim settlement, or data services, whether that's partnering with different claims providers where we can. Instead of trying to be everything to everybody, being a leader in the delivery of high-engagement, subscription-type services, as a fully regulated entity, with all of the cost and rigour and robustness that comes with that. We may be compartment with people for some of the faster-moving engagement services, certainly in terms of digital health, digital assistance, digital claims services. We will come outside of our own organisation and partner with people for that, for that engagement layer.”
Phil suggests that the insurance market today will flourish or flounder on account of how quickly and effectively we can partner up with and incorporate the insights of experts external to our industry. Particularly with regard to technological proficiency and digital services, it is key that we can provide a platform that is easy and user-friendly whilst also mitigating any potential unintended consequences to satisfy the regulators. It’s impossible for us to be experts at everything, and outsourcing certain processes to people who can provide those areas will, Phil argues, be the differentiating factor that eventually keeps some companies afloat, and leaves others in the dust.
 
Key Takeaways
Our buying cycles have been completely reoriented by the high-speed nature of the Amazon business model and others of its ilk, fuelling an ‘I want it yesterday’ mentality underpinned by getting products quickly, with as little administrative hassle as possible. Yet, insurance is a complicated product. Phil suggests that delivering a such a simplistic customer journey necessitates a significant amount of complex work and technological expertise. Great products, he notes, are complex products, masked with a veneer of ease and simplicity from the client’s perspective. To facilitate this, Phil argues, it is essential that we begin to collaborate more with digital partners who can provide the expertise you might not have in-house.
‘We can’t be everything to everyone,’ Phil notes, and as such developing such partnerships will become a core means by which our industry can begin to meet these aforementioned customer expectations. Capacity Insights themselves have made many changes in this regard. Phil notes that the company has re-engineered its product process to begin with customer needs, and with regulatory expectations in mind, thereby deploying a 360-degree view of the various levels that products need to deliver on.
Data management is a crucial aspect of delivering a smooth customer journey. While we have access to more data than ever, its oversaturation can often prove a hindrance rather than a help. Phil argues that data should be perceived as a pillar of support rather than an illuminator in determining customer outcomes. The need to carefully navigate the use and implementation of data perfectly exempli

Welcome to Changing the Conversation: The people in insurance.
The brand new, reimagined evolution of The Insurance Broker’s Podcast, brought to you by Macaii Ltd!
In this podcast episode, insurance veteran Bryan Falchuk discusses the need for a fundamental reassessment in the insurance sector amidst changing external dynamics like climate change and supply chain disruptions. Brian argues that traditional cyclicality in insurance rates no longer applies due to shifts in global capital, creating challenges for insurers and customers alike.
He advocates for re-evaluating risk coverage and pricing models to design products that meet today's exposures. Brian highlights innovative solutions like parametric insurance tailored to specific risks such as tornadoes or hail damage.
Additionally, Bryan emphasizes the role of institutions like Lloyd's of London in driving industry-wide change, calling for bolder leadership and operational efficiency.
Drawing parallels between personal development and industry evolution, Bryan encourages resilience and a "how might we" approach to overcome challenges and drive innovation in insurance.
This podcast offers a succinct yet thought-provoking perspective on the future of insurance, urging industry players to adapt to the evolving landscape.
 
Quote of the Episode
"This is about figuring out a completely new way to address the market. It's not just a cycle; it's a shift. Capital doesn't work the way it used to. It's not just a pot of money in one place anymore; it's totally fungible, moving around globally. So when macroeconomic factors like climate change, supply chain disruptions, or labour shortages affect risk and its costs, capital just keeps flowing. We're in a conundrum where insurance is neither affordable to buy nor to sell at a market-clearing rate. That's the fundamental shift—it's not temporal."
 
"We need to not tinker; we need to start afresh. We've iterated on policies forever, but we must stop framing ourselves in the old world. We need to ask: What is the exposure? What are the core coverages needed today? Building coverage fit for the actual exposure is crucial. Then, we must reassess how we analyse risk and price for it. Just raising rates won't fix fundamentally broken risk analysis and pricing models."
 
Key Takeaways
Shift in Insurance Dynamics: The interview highlights a fundamental shift in the insurance industry, moving away from traditional cyclicality to a new paradigm driven by global capital fluidity and macro-economic factors like climate change and supply chain disruptions. This shift challenges traditional approaches to risk analysis, pricing, and coverage.
Need for Fresh Perspective: There's a call for a fresh perspective in insurance, advocating for a departure from tinkering with existing policies towards a complete reassessment of exposures and coverages. This entails designing coverage tailored to modern risks and leveraging better data and processes to analyse and price risks accurately.
Embracing Adaptability and Innovation: The industry's response requires flexibility and innovation, both in creating and adjusting coverage to meet evolving needs and in operational leadership to drive efficiency and effectiveness. Embracing a mindset of resilience, learning from failures, and persisting in the face of challenges is essential for personal and industry-wide progress.
 
Resources
Bryan Falchuck - https://bryanfalchuk.com/
Bryan Falchuck LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanfalchuk/
Insurance Evolution Partners - https://insurance-evolution.com/
 
About the Guest
Bryan is a best-selling author, speaker, and life coach who has overcome major adversities to achieve success. Bryan has drawn lessons from his experiences to inspire others to succeed.
His book "Do a Day" has earned praise and awards, including the Literary Titan's Silver prize and 5-star ratings from book reviews. His upcoming book, "The 50 75 100 Solution: Build Better Relationships

Welcome to Changing the Conversation: The people in insurance.
The brand new, reimagined evolution of The Insurance Broker’s Podcast, brought to you by Macaii Ltd!
In light of the wide array of changes across insurance we have observed recently, we are shifting the direction of the podcast to speak to those in the industry who are doing things differently, having identified a sticking point which they hope to resist against.
This new iteration of the podcast is all about highlighting the people, the passion and the professionalism that drives our industry.
In today’s episode we are very pleased to be speaking with Ajay Mistry, Co-Founder of iCAN! Ajay is an expert in all things networking, and throughout the episode, he offers his advice for approaching industry events, and his insights for maximising your presence on LinkedIn.
 
Quote of the Episode
“Networking is all-encompassing… it's all about building relationships, and whether that's through stuff after work, whether that's in meetings, whether that's phone calls you're having with colleagues internally – there's so many different types of networking. One thing that's really fundamental is that things are changing; people are more accessible than they ever have been, because of social media and LinkedIn. There are more networks available than ever to join. So, if you’re ever lonely, there's a really quick way to find people.”
Networking has always been closely associated with insurance. It is an inherently people-facing industry. Now, through LinkedIn and other social media platforms, we have immediate access to the very people we could and should be forming promising connections with, There are more networks than ever to join. This can, in one respect, make the prospect of networking feel even more mountainous and daunting than before. On the other hand, digital networking can provide a less pressurised way to get to know a potential contact before meeting them in person. It grants a platform through which an initial layer of trust and connection can be established before that first meeting where it can more organically flourish.
 
Key Takeaways
For most of us, the prospect of networking is profoundly uncomfortable. It can often feel shrouded by a certain seediness; since there is a ‘business’ element underpinning each conversation you might have at a networking event; it can make the process feel inauthentic. Ajay suggests that it is always key to establish a personal connection first and foremost, and not to worry about the bottom line. A mutually beneficial connection can only ever emerge from any given conversation if both parties are genuinely interested in one another, and demonstrate this by actively listening to one another. If you find yourself lost about how to start a conversation at an event, for example, remember that everything is in context. Talk about the event, or a speaker you just heard from. This provides a springboard from which you can transition into a casual, personal conversation.
Ajay offers five top tips for networking, all of which can help you to forge more organic and authentic connections:
What’s the worst that’s going to happen?
The world is full of abundance, not scarcity – there will always be more opportunities to network
If you don’t ask, you don’t get
Have a plan – come to every event knowing what you want to get out of it
You’re the product of your systems, not your intentions – if you want to network, put an event in your diary and go to it
Ajay is also an expert in using LinkedIn to effectively distribute your unique message. It provides an excellent form of passive communication, by distributing your message across the homepages of all your connections and empowering them with the choice of whether to engage with it or not. Consequently, regularly posting effectively does the networking for you, even when you’re not in the room. Using LinkedIn to talk about important topics relevant to the