The Voice of Insurance

The Voice of Insurance Mark Geoghegan

Insurance is a maze. Don’t get lost. Mark Geoghegan asks directions from all the top people in the Global Insurance and Reinsurance Industry

  1. 3d ago

    Ep311 Richard Brindle Group CEO TFP & Clive Washbourn CEO Navium: Being Brave

    Today’s Episode is one of those interviews that give you a warm feeling of anticipation when you get it in the diary, then when you’re researching and preparing the questions, you’re really looking forward to it, and finally the recording itself session happens and it goes even better than you hoped. Now a couple of weeks later I have just listened back and I’m still smiling because this is something quite special and very different from the everyday. Richard Brindle and Clive Washbourn are two of the most celebrated underwriters of their generation and have each been on the podcast more than once in their own right. For the last five years Richard and Clive have been underwriting under the same group organisational roof in The Fidelis Partnership and Navium respectively. Richard even cited Clive’s new-found joie de vivre at Navium as the inspiration for the bifurcation of Fidelis into the Fidelis Partnership and Pelagos. This podcast is only briefly about the grand issues of the day. My interviewees very quickly deal with these and then we start examining much more timeless and valuable questions. The core of this meeting is really a long discussion about what makes a good underwriter and then what makes a good underwriter a great one. We examine all of this in the context of the AI revolution and how to apply it to the business of outperforming in insurance underwriting. This is a masterclass that will teach you an awful lot. Along the way you’ll also spend quality time with two of the market’s strongest and most charismatic personalities. The result is an instant classic that provides a valuable listen for any insurance professional at any stage in their career. NOTES: At time of recording Fidelis Insurance Group had only just rebranded to Pelagos Insurance Capital, so if there is the odd slip of the tongue, be clear that we should have referred to Pelagos, and will definitely be doing so from now onwards. Richard mentions the Sharpe Ratio, which is an investment metric used to measure the relative volatility of the returns of a company. Events in Iran, the Gulf States and the Straits of Hormuz are incredibly volatile and have already changed fundamentally, even in the short time between recording this interview and its release date. Please keep yourself best informed by using up-to-the-minute news and intelligence sources. Finally Richard mentions that there are two charities. The Fidelis Foundation is The Fidelis Partnership’s charity, and Richard’s personal charity is called The Muriel Jones Foundation. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com

  2. Jul 17

    SpEp Will Ross, CEO Federato: Respecting the Problem of Insurance

    Today’s podcast is a rare encounter with someone looking to revolutionise the insurance industry from its core. We are at one of those generational moments when a big tech question is right at the top of the board agenda in almost every industry sector in the world. That question is AI. Insurance is no different. As AI moves from the experimentation phase to the delivery phase, insurance businesses are going to be faced with a key dilemma – should they try to run AI as a new tech layer on top of their current core IT systems or should they take the plunge and use the opportunity to install a whole new system that has been designed and built with AI at its heart? Will Ross is the co-Founder and CEO of Federato and he is betting that enough companies will choose the latter path. Will is an AI native with post-graduate degrees from Stanford University and has been building Federato over the past six years. He is also a very special type of entrepreneur. He discovered insurance when working on wildfire models, but he saw an even bigger business opportunity across the core of insurance and co-founded Federato while still working on his Stanford studies. Federato has built substantial scale and has raised $180mn to date, with the latest round of $100mn lead by Goldman Sachs. This is clearly a firm that means business and is intent on taking a permanent seat at the Insurance IT table. Will is charismatic and fun to talk to and is probably the best-placed guest I have had on the show to date to really examine what the successful embedding of AI into insurance underwriting will mean for the sector as a whole. Some of what we discussed was highly reassuring, but some of his insights were surprising and challenging to conventional wisdom. Much of the industry is at a crossroads over the AI revolution and the next steps are going to be key. Senior decision-makers looking for guidance on their next move would be well advised to listen to Will set out his clear vision in this enlightening interview. LINKS: For more information visit www.federato.ai

  3. Jul 14

    Ep310 Dan Burrows Group CEO Pelagos: Very few people get to see the whole market

    Today’s guest has a job that is almost unique in the global insurance industry. That’s because his organisation has been formed through a unique exercise that split a standard insurance company into an MGA in charge of underwriting and a balance sheet in charge of allocating capital to risk. All this means that Dan Burrows, Group CEO Pelagos Insurance Capital, is probably the only pure capital allocator in existence. There are lots of investors in the global insurance market, allocating capital to insurance companies, but they are many steps removed from the risk and are only likely to review their allocations annually. What’s unique about Pelagos is that it is much closer to the underwriting process, reviewing risk and capital decisions in almost real time. To paraphrase economic terms, whereas most investors in insurance are macro, Pelagos is very much micro. It takes some unique qualities to pull this kind of thing off and that’s what makes this podcast so fascinating. Dan is a unique character in a unique job with a unique perspective on the market and I’m sure that some of what you’re about to hear will surprise you. In this podcast we examine the re-brand to Pelagos, the maturing of the long-term relationship with the Fidelis Partnership and diversification into other underwriting channels, the prospects for profitable trading as the market becomes more competitive, thoughts around carrier M&A, as well as the big questions such as the best applications of AI in insurance and the seemingly relentless advance of portfolio solutions underwriting. Dan is calm, softly-spoken and thoughtful, but is also razor-sharp and able to provide instant feedback or pushback. In short he strikes me as the ideal foil for smart, entrepreneurial underwriting teams. This is an engrossing and revealing encounter which I can I highly recommend to anyone. NOTES: Dan was too polite to correct my initial mispronunciation of Pelagos. The stress is on the first syllable, not the second. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com

  4. Jul 7

    Ep309 Tim Gardner CEO & Bob Bisset CEO NA, Lockton Re: Feeding the Furnace for Growth

    Today’s Episode is a catch-up with two reinsurance brokers back on the podcast after an absence of over two-and-a-half years. That’s long enough for most guests, but for an executive team that has been building out a Reinsurance broking operation in earnest for only a little longer than this podcast has been in existence, it’s an age. Since we last spoke Tim Gardner Global CEO, and Bob Bisset, CEO North America at Lockton Re have seen the business hit profitability, witnessed revenue push through $300mn and headcount exceed 600. What’s more, in that time reinsurance market dynamics have been transformed and emerging technologies like AI and market phenomena such as facilitisation and portfolio solutions have broken through and re-written business growth strategies. So we clearly had a lot to catch up about. Tim and Bob are brokers’ brokers and that makes conversations exceeding easy to start and even easier to maintain and develop. With these two you always end up with a little more than what you thought you were going to get when you started out. This is a high-energy and fun conversation. So if you want to understand in depth the state of and prospects for global insurance and reinsurance markets and where Lockton Re is positioning itself to serve them, listen on. I had a blast and I know you will too. NOTES: Bob mentions a Keith. He is referring to Keith Harrison, CEO of Lockton Re International LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com

  5. Jun 30

    Ep308 Stephanie Ogden, Munich Re Syndicate: Balancing Realism and Ambition

    I’m really happy about today’s podcast and that’s because today’s guest is a shining example of a new, very well-prepared generation of leaders that is coming through the ranks in the international insurance sector. With senior roles in the company market and inside Lloyd’s itself Stephanie Ogden was already well-rounded before she took on her current role as the CEO of the Munich Re Syndicate at Lloyd’s. Steph is a breath of fresh air – actually I’d say more like a blast. Listening back to this conversation, I have rarely spoken to someone who carries themselves as naturally as she does. I spoke to the same person before, during and after our recording. What you hear is what you get and what you get is a very clear sense of how one of the Lloyd’s market’s most consistently successful businesses sees the market today, where it sees it heading and how it intends to engage. This is a very well-rounded conversation. As one might expect, it’s technical and financial but it’s also technological, commercial, professional, passionate, personal and laced with humour. Steph is highly engaging and is well across the core challenges facing the London and global specialty markets, from the opportunities arising from the internationalisation of the market to the impact of technological transformation and AI. Talking to Steph made me feel a little old – but in a good way. Growing old isn’t easy, but when people really don’t enjoy getting old it’s because they think that things are getting worse than they used to be, not better. Forty-five minutes with Steph and the only conclusion is that many things are definitely getting better and the market’s best days are ahead of, and not behind it. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com

  6. Jun 26

    SpEp Helen Sanson CEO The Insurance Charity: Insurance for Insurance people

    Everyone who works in the Insurance Industry knows it is a great business. The great cliché is that people fall into the sector via all sorts of roundabout routes and then they stay. They rarely pick the industry as a first choice. But once in there are many amazing benefits that take new entrants by surprise. In the UK the vibrant national and regional professional communities facilitated by a great institutions such as the CII, BIBA, Airmic and other bodies are obvious examples. But the connectivity goes way beyond our trade bodies. In places like the London Market there is an incredibly diverse and vibrant array of sporting and cultural activities available to all. From Sailing to Bridge to Art, if you can imagine it, there is probably an Insurance-related Club or Society devoted to it. There is even a London Orchestra with a direct connection to the sector that I only discovered by relative chance after at least 15 years of complete ignorance. But did you know there is another group that all insurance practitioners in the UK and Ireland also belong to? We are all potential beneficiaries of the Insurance Charity. This is a Charity that is 124 years old and was set up to look after any current or former insurance practitioners, and their families, in their hour of need. This week is the Annual Awareness week for the charity and so today’s guest is its CEO Helen Sanson. In this short discussion Helen guides me around the Insurance Charity, everything it does currently and everything she plans to do with it in the future. It’s a fascinating chat. You may also be relieved to hear that although donations are welcome, the charity is actually well funded. What it really needs from you is your attention, awareness and advocacy. Helen is a charming, warm and passionate guest. Who knew? Another benefit of working in insurance – we have our own charity and we have exceptional people like Helen and her team to administer it for us. NOTES: PIP is an acronym for Personal Independence Payment, a UK State benefit LINKS: https://theinsurancecharity.org.uk/

  7. Jun 23

    Ep307 Alistair Lester, CEO Private Equity & M&A EMEA, Gallagher: Industrialising M&A Insurance

    Today’s podcast is a masterclass with an expert in a class of business that has exploded with growth over the past decade. M&A insurance is a broad church that holds a large number of products that are all related to inter-company transactions. Representations and Warranties, potential tax liabilities, litigation risk and other contingencies related to M&A are the subject of this incredibly innovative segment of insurance. Three decades ago Alistair Lester was in on the ground floor as the class of business developed out of the D&O market. Today this is a class that is producing $10-12bn in annual revenue and can put out very meaningful maximum limits of around $1.5bn dollars for any one deal. But it’s a class that most of us won’t be familiar with, or perhaps one that some of us might think we won’t be suited to because we imagine it’s full of people who first trained as lawyers and then got into insurance. Now Gallagher’s CEO of Private Equity and M&A for Europe the Middle East and Africa, Alistair is proof that this is a class where traditional insurance brokers can thrive. This is one of the most energetic and fun conversations I have had on the show for some time. Alistair’s passion and enthusiasm are contagious and through the course of this interview I learned an awful lot about this exciting class and its enormous commercial potential. We all know insurance is often a grudge purchase and always marked down as a cost, but here it can be an investment that immediately pays for itself many times over. That’s incredibly rare and perhaps explains why this class has so much opportunity and is giving Cyber and renewables a run for their money for the title of highest-growth segment of the global insurance market. Time with Alistair makes it clear that despite growing tenfold over the past decade, this maturing class has a huge amount of growth left in it. So listen on. If after 45 minutes you’re not as enthusiastic as Alistair or I, I’d be enormously surprised. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com

  8. Jun 16

    Ep306 James Hands Group CEO Miller: Specialty with Scale

    It’s been three years since today’s guest has been on the show. In that time the business he runs has doubled in size through a combination of organic growth and targeted acquisitions. Group CEO of Miller Insurance Services, James Hands, is looking for growth at a similar pace for the next three years and this interview is an excellent 360-degree guide to how he plans to achieve his goals. A focus on specialty insurance and reinsurance, investment in people and expertise and making the most of growth synergies from the firm’s acquisitions are very much the order of the day. Expansion into MGAs, and investments in technology and facilitisation are also going to be part of the mix. This is an exceptionally well-rounded interview with the leader of a business making the most of its best-of-both-worlds position as an independent with the scale and resources to be able to keep up with larger global broking groups, whilst retaining the speed and agility of a smaller business. James is relaxed and is brimming with confidence in the prospects for Miller and the global specialty broking market. A quick listen and a clear picture, as well as lots of market tips and insights, will come into view. NOTES: James refers to David Robinson. David is Miller’s MGA CEO LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com

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5
out of 5
27 Ratings

About

Insurance is a maze. Don’t get lost. Mark Geoghegan asks directions from all the top people in the Global Insurance and Reinsurance Industry

Information

  • Creator
    The Voice of Insurance Mark Geoghegan
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    372
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2020-23 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Voice of Insurance

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