The Voice of Insurance

Today’s guest is a really strong, highly successful well-known and well-respected presence in the market. He is someone great to know because he knows almost everyone, including the most powerful capital providers behind the scenes. He is a real broker’s broker with a career spanning 45 years, culminating as CEO of Willis Re. And he has all the broker’s charm and craft accumulated over that period...

Today’s podcast is a really lively one. As I was listening back I found that there are parts of this recording that are almost breathless. That’s entirely down to the energy levels of who I am interviewing. When I met David Walsh (Group CEO, picture left) and Graeme Newman (CEO, picture right) of London-headquartered MGA CFC Underwriting they were still buzzing after a significant fundraise that h...

Lucy Clarke is a dream interviewee. Of course, her position as President of Marsh Specialty and Global Placement, Marsh gives her a view of the market that only a very few peers would be able to rival, but it is her smart, no-nonsense and direct personality that immediately stands out. Given the global market is in such an agitated and interesting state, this makes for a really compelling and enli...

Today’s interview is one of the most all encompassing I have ever done. That’s all because of the interviewee and his research team who have just produced one of the most comprehensive 1st of January renewal reports I have ever read. The 2022 renewals have been much more interesting than usual with reinsurers undertaking a fundamental rethink of how they view Property Cat alongside taking a view o...

Todays’ guest is David Ibeson the CEO of Apollo Syndicate Management. David is a Lloyd’s veteran with over twenty-five years in the market, twenty of which he has spent in the CEO role at Lloyd’s managing agencies. In an era when so many bemoan the lack of strong personalities, David is an exception that proves the rule. David is also another extreme rarity – that’s because he is a qualified actua...

Historically in our business fast growth has been a red flag and a sign that something might be wrong. The fastest growth has often been followed by a period of significant underperformance later on as the chickens come home to roost. But there are some major exceptions to that rule and today I’m speaking to one of them. Beazley has been one of the most successful, innovative and fast-growing spec...

Today’s guest is John Fowle the CEO of Chaucer. John’s in an enviable position. He has a very large long-term backer in the form of new owner China Re that is effectively providing almost unlimited permanent capital to his business. Chaucer’s new ownership brings the ability to write almost anything as well as access to the vast Chinese-backed Belt and Road global investment initiative But just be...

Todays’ guest is a formidable professional with whom I have been sparring on and off for the last 16 years. But most of the time that sparring would have gone on behind the scenes and not while notebooks were open, or indeed, the microphones switched on. That’s because Caroline Wagstaff, who has just been confirmed in post as the permanent CEO of cross-industry body the London Market Group (LMG),...

Today’s guest is Sian Fisher. Sian has had an illustrious career in international insurance and this has culminated in a 6-year period as CEO of the UK’s well-renowned professional standards and qualifications body the Chartered Insurance Institute (the CII). Sian is a strong and vocal female leader in our sector and in her tenure has been a dynamic and effective agent of change at this venerable...

Mark Wheeler is a Lloyd’s market person through and through. In this interview he even refers to himself as a “Lloyd’s groupie” That’s why it was great to meet him face to face in his London office within 100 metres of the Lloyd’s building. We went deeply into what his new venture Mosaic is really all about. The vision is original and the plan is incredibly ambitious. Mosaic is trying to bring the...

There are two types of journalist – there are those who really don’t like or trust anyone they write about and then there are those that are the opposite and seem to like everyone. I am one of the latter – my natural bias is to get a positive vibe from most of the people I interview. Because of this I make sure I try and balance this inbuilt positivity with a reality check from others around me. B...

It really matters what today’s guest thinks. This is because he has one of the biggest and most influential underwriting and insurance and reinsurance management jobs in the world. Stefan Golling serves on Munich Re's Board of Management and until recently was its Chief Underwriter. He also looks after Global Clients, the North America Division and oversees HSB and American Modern as well as the L...

Patrick Tiernan Chief of Markets at Lloyd’s has the broadest job description of almost anyone in insurance. He is responsible for whole abstract ideas such as ‘Underwriting’ and ‘Distribution’ at a vast global insurance marketplace which can make it sometimes hard to know where to start. My job as a journalist is to take the abstract and turn it into something really specific and so listening back...

I love catching up with Robert Lumley (Top) and Stephen Brittain (Bottom) from the Insurtech Gateway because whenever we do we always have a really fascinating conversation. But I found recording today’s podcast not just fascinating but actually inspiring and energising. First of all a huge amount has been going on since we last spoke and the pace and maturity of insurtech investment is accelerati...

Today’s guest is one of those people I always enjoy spending time talking to and was really looking forward to having on the show. I first met him when he was running Scor’s North American P&C operations when he would often appear at Insurance conferences I was chairing in New York. Back then Jean-Paul Conoscente was unfailingly charming, calm and very straightforward and open in his approach and...

It’s a long time since legacy was a dusty dead end of the insurance industry where old underwriters went to eke out the remains of their days before retirement. And at the same time it’s been a long time since the era when fronting was seen as a bit of a dirty secret of the industry. These days both segments have matured and taken up their rightful place in the insurance ecosystem. But it’s rare t...

Today’s podcast is crackling with energy. When I listened back to the recording it was unmistakable. The reason is obvious – the subject matter we are discussing is Gallagher’s imminent takeover of Willis Re. This is the biggest thing to happen in reinsurance broking since Aon bought Benfield back in 2008 and here I spend some time with an ebullient pair of senior executives, clearly ecstatic abou...

I have met Andreas Berger at various times in the last 15 years and he has been consistently impressive every time I have met him. It was therefore no surprise when in 2019 Swiss Re came calling with a major task to fix its consistently misfiring and loss-making Corporate Solutions, or CorSo, business unit. Two years later and the turnaround at CorSo has been remarkable. I think if you listen here...

Bob Kimmel the CEO of K2 insurance services came on my radar and that of most other London-based insurance folk when last year his US-based MGA group picked up the remnants of what had been the Pioneer group of MGAs to form K2 International. K2 owns a major collection of MGAs in the US, writes over a billion dollars in premium and is highly acquisitive both of talent, new agencies and other ancill...

Today’s podcast is something a little different because instead of talking about our market from the inside we will be looking at it through the eyes of insurance professionals who access our products and services from the outside. What do our customers really think of us and what are they looking for when they come into the international insurance and reinsurance markets looking to do business? M...

In insurance and reinsurance we hear a lot of talk about partnerships, but in truth we know that many relationships are marriages of convenience or indeed opportunistic liaisons that are not designed to last. If I was a reinsurance buyer I would like my reinsurer to be committed to supporting me in the long term and someone who was unlikely to run away if I have had a bad year. I’d like to be able...

Jeff Radke is someone who has had senior roles in many areas of the insurance and reinsurance spectrum. His career ranges from reinsurance broking at Guy Carpenter to running PXRE, one of the last major Bermudian specialist retro writers. He then played a large variety of senior roles in over a decade at Argo Group, the internationally diversified specialty insurance and reinsurance group formed o...

One of the best things about this show is that it gives me the perfect excuse to meet people who I have been meaning to meet for ages. Monica Cramer Manhem, President, International Reinsurance at SiriusPoint is one such guest. Over the last fifteen years many mutual friends have recommended I try to get an audience with her, saying that we would get on really well. Well they were right. Monica is...

Today’s podcast is in two parts. It starts off as a quick run through the state of the market through the eyes of two very senior underwriting practitioners But then it dives right into the heart of the state of the underwriting profession itself and how the life of an underwriter is going to change in the future. In their high-profile careers both Group Head of Portfolio Underwriting at Swiss Re...

When my notebook is put away and the microphones are switched off, after a couple of drinks, people in the market often lament the lack of personalities in the modern insurance and reinsurance industry. They say that it’s just not like it used to be and that massive consolidation has pushed the individual to the sidelines within ever larger, ever more soulless corporations. Today’s guests prove th...