The Voice of Insurance

This episode is all about the state of play in Bermuda and what is happening on the island. Two weeks ago I had a Zoom call with Chris Bonard, CEO and John Turner, Chairman of Ed Broking Bermuda. As independent intermediaries looking to capitalise on what the island’s insurance and reinsurance markets have to offer, their view is really interesting. Each decade has seen a relative USP that Bermuda...

How is the UK insurance industry really responding to the Covid-19 crisis?  The Voice of Insurance teamed up with Specialist Risk Group (SRG) and brought together three hugely experienced broking CEOs to find out.  Brendan McManus of PIB, Peter Blanc of Aston Lark and Warren Downey of SRG have traded through many crises in their careers, but probably nothing quite like this.  What's working? What'...

As a journalist one of the best things about my job is being allowed into the far flung and most fascinating corners of our industry to find out how things work. Protection and Indemnity - P&I - is exactly one of those places. And it would be easy to ignore were it not the source of so many of the biggest insurance stories of the past decade. For example a mega claim like the Costa Concordia was a...

One of the most eye-catching parts of the Lloyd’s of London Blueprint reforms has been the Syndicate in a box initiative. The idea of a fast-track, light-touch, low-cost, fast-fail Syndicate has gone down very well with the market. This is because over the past two decades many players have bemoaned the steadily increasing cost of starting a new Lloyd’s business and have wondered where the next ge...

This podcast is a new feature - I’m calling it Voice of Insurance Solo. It is really an editorial in podcast form – let me know what you think. Is insurance going to get unfairly punished by governments and judiciaries for the systemic global failures exposed by the Covid 19 pandemic? And if so might state-backed Pandemic Reinsurance vehicles be the logical result of the new deal that will follow...

How well prepared is the 2020 global insurance industry for the challenge of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic? The best thing about being a journalist is about being able to access the top minds and experts to make sense of the world. So today with economies and our clients being forcibly shut down, events cancelled, sovereign and corporate bonds undergoing spectacular gyrations and share prices...

The hardening market and the upcoming renewals, ILS, the vexing casualty question and of course the mega-brokers getting bigger - this interview doesn't miss anything out. Jonathan Parry is a highly experienced and well-regarded underwriter with many decades of experience. He knows the insurance and reinsurance markets inside and out. If you don’t know him already I think you’ll like him – and you...

This episode’s guest is Toby Esser, chairman of independent London wholesale broker AFL. Toby is a veteran of the London market broking scene and is the former CEO of Cooper Gay which grew manyfold under his ambitious and energetic leadership both organically and by high-profile M&A. I have interviewed Toby many times over the years and it shows in this interview. Toby is not shy and his personali...

In this episode I’m talking to Nicolas Aubert, Head of Great Britain at Willis Towers Watson and CEO of Willis Limited. As a Frenchman who has forged a successful career in London, in many ways he is a personal embodiment of the kind of global, multi-faceted and diverse marketplace that London would like to present to the world. The insurance market has been through a lot of soul searching in the...

Dan Trueman is global Head of Cyber at Axis Insurance and is one of the true cyber market pioneers with a 20 year career centred on insuring unconventional enterprise risks. He has developed into an industry spokeperson and an ambassador for the cyber class globally. In our wide-ranging discussion we got to the heart of what has triggered the explosion in cyber growth and the latest in price, dema...

If you are not a techie but want to be properly informed about what is coming down the Insurtech track and want to know how analogue insurance folk should be reacting, this podcast is 100% designed for you. I caught up with Matthew Grant and fellow Instech London founder Robin Merttens earlier in the month. Matthew and Robin are decades-long veterans of what we now call Insurtech and have spent ca...

There is a lot to play for in 2020 The reinsurance market has a lot invested in the major 2020 renewals and has high expectations of re-pricing in April, June and mid-year. Japanese Typhoon has been active in the last couple of seasons and loss development has re-written the models and taken everybody by surprise. Florida has been busy developing its losses of 2017 and 2018 in new and surprising w...

The Voice of Insurance was lucky enough to catch up with Phil Smaje the CEO and Marcel Chad the President of newly-launched London-based aviation challenger broker Piiq Risk Partners. Piiq is part of BGC Partners, which is also the owner of wholesale brokers Ed Broking and Besso. It is an interesting new addition to the line-up of London specialty intermediaries because Phil and Marcel are both av...

Following Gallagher's deal to buy out 100% ownership of Capsicum Re - the reinsurance broker it founded as a joint venture with former Benfield boss Graeme Chilton and colleagues back in 2013 - The Voice of Insurance caught up with Capsicum Re CEO Rupert Swallow and Simon Matson, the CEO of Gallagher’s UK Broking & Underwriting division. What were Gallagher's plans now that it had finally broken s...

This week saw the launch of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2020 at a big set piece media event in London ahead of the major annual summit in Davos, Switzerland. MMC has been one of the risk report’s longstanding sponsors and I was lucky enough to grab a brief catch up with John Drzik Chairman of Marsh & Mclennan Insights for a dive into the report and what it means for the world of...

Rick Lindsey is the CEO of US E&S insurer Prime Insurance Company. The US E&S market has the most interesting dynamics anywhere in the insurance world. Contrasting heavily with the soft global market of the past few years, some of its more stressed classes have experienced capacity withdrawal and consistent compound rate rises. That is why I was delighted to catch up with Rick in London. Rick has...

David Flandro is Managing Director, Analytics at Hyperion X. I caught up with him following the publication of Hyperion-X's 1.1 2020 renewal report. He is one of the smartest people I have ever met in insurance. He is also good at explaining complicated ideas. If you don't already know David I would highly recommend listening to him on any insurance topic that you want to master. So if you want to...

Willis Re is the big 3 global reinsurance broker behind the excellent and timely 1st View reinsurance renewals reports. Given the shifting global market, the 1.1 2020 1st View has been the most keenly awaited such report for over a decade. From a first read the key words this year are Divergent, Judicious, Discerning and Client-centric to describe reinsurance markets and reinsurer behaviour. The V...

Mark Geoghegan talks to Sheila Cameron to dig into the detail of the much-discussed Lead-Follow reforms proposed in the Lloyd’s Blueprint One plan. Myths are busted and misconceptions set straight as the CEO of the Lloyd's Market Association and one of the principle architects of this process, explains what the new proposals concerning the future of Syndication of Risk at Lloyd’s are, as well as w...