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Gallagher Re has today announced the appointment of Ian Kerton (pictured) to the role of CEO of the reinsurance broking giant’s UK operations.

In a Press release, Gallagher Re noted that Kerton has served as a partner in its UK business since 2021. Before joining, he was MD of the UK property & casualty team at Guy Carpenter and a director of the UK board. He has held multiple roles within the reinsurance sector over the last 30 years, including a decade spent as executive director at HSBC Insurance Brokers, where he headed up the treaty broking team and was responsible for its business in the UK & Asia.

In his new role, Kerton will report to Wakefield who will take up the position of global CEO of Gallagher Re with effect from June 01.

Commenting on the move, Wakefield said: “Ian is a truly accomplished broker and leader who is well-respected by clients and colleagues alike. Since joining Gallagher Re, he has shown an unwavering focus on client-advocacy, combined with strategic business acumen and strong people leadership. He is absolutely the best candidate for this important leadership role and the fact that we have been able to recruit from within is testament to the incredible senior talent we have within Gallagher Re.”

Kerton also commented on his appointment, highlighting that Gallagher Re has undergone “transformational change on a global scale” since he joined in 2021. He said he is delighted to have been selected to lead the UK team as the firm launches the next phase of its growth in the region.

“As a business, we have an unrivalled blend of expertise, talent, passion and ambition which has allowed us to create something truly special for clients and colleagues,” he said. “I look forward to working with the team to continue to cultivate that point of difference and build on the huge momentum we have within the UK business.”

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A US state appeals court last week dealt a blow to a group of insurers relying on a war exclusion to avoid paying up for a chunk of a $1.4 billion insurance claim from NotPetya cyberattack victim Merck.

The appeal ruling is expected to add further fuel to a flurry of wording tightening and exclusions, and a cyber insurance expert has said that were a NotPetya equivalent to hit today then many payouts would likely be triggered.

In June 2017, malware NotPetya snuck into the systems of organizations worldwide after infecting Ukrainian accounting software. The White House and others would go on to condemn Russian action against Ukraine for the cyber onslaught, which drove collateral damage in the billions, with swathes of businesses affected across a reported 65 countries. Among the biggest NotPetya victims was pharmaceuticals giant Merck.

Now, Merck’s insurers have been told by the New Jersey appeals court that they could indeed be on the hook to payout for its $1.4 billion cyberattack claim, despite a “hostile/warlike action” exclusion in Merck’s all-risks property policies.

An avenue for escalation within the US court system remains, meaning the result may not be a foregone conclusion. Eight insurers are directly affected by the ruling, with many others attached to the suit having already settled; 26 policies were originally at issue. Nevertheless, the industry has been watching this appeal outcome carefully following what’s been seen as an anticlimactic end to food and beverage giant Mondelez and insurer Zurich’s $100 million NotPetya war exclusion case, which settled out of court last November.

Court’s Merck NotPetya insurance appeal decision to “get the ball rolling”.

The NJ appellate division said that the “exclusion of damages caused by hostile or warlike action by a government or sovereign power in times of war or peace requires the involvement of military action.

“The exclusion does not state the policy precluded coverage for damages arising out of a government action motivated by ill will.”

Further, it said that “the plain language of the exclusion did not include a cyberattack on a non-military company that provided accounting software for commercial purposes to non-military consumers, regardless of whether the attack was instigated by a private actor or a ‘government or sovereign power’.”

Prior to the court rulings, though, insurers have “routinely” covered NotPetya claims from companies facing smaller losses than Merck. That is according to Reed Smith partner Nick Insua, part of a team that supplied an Amici brief in the case on behalf of United Policyholders.

“The language at issue in Merck has been used by insurers in one form or another since the 1950s, and the appellate division’s decision is consistent with the body of case law addressing similar exclusions,” he told Insurance Business in the days following the appellate division’s decision.

While the NJ affirmation “by no means establishes an underwriting guideline or an industry coverage position”, it should “start to get the ball rolling” on more certainty for policyholders, Peter Hedberg, Corvus VP of cyber underwriting, said in a comment shared with Insurance Business.

Last August, Lloyd’s looked to tighten language around state-backed or nation state attacks in standalone cyber policies, having already moved in 2020 to eliminate silent cyber from broader all-risks policies (such as the one at issue in NJ) through mandatory cyber exclusions or affirmative cover. While some brokers spoke out against the latest change, other cyber insurance stakeholders, like CFC head of cyber strategy James Burns, have said that the fresh wordings are only intended to “exclude attacks that are so catastrophic in nature that they destroy a nation’s ability to function.”

In a blog posted in April, defending the Lloyd’s changes, Burns said that as the NotPetya attack was neither an attack on the US nor an attack that had a major detrimental impact on the country, “American companies, like Merck and Mondelez, should have had clear, unambiguous cover.”

Instead, Burns said, the lay of the land meant that “broad traditional war exclusions in both standalone and package cyber policies mean customers are at the mercy of whatever their insurer decides.”

Outside of the war issue, policies continue to be refined, with some cyber underwriters having drilled down further in a bid to combat systemic risk fears. For example, some might now take a dim view of covering a widespread operating system infection wherein the “bones that run” a computer system are down. There has also been greater stress on insureds’ cybersecurity measures, and debates continue over whether there is need for federal cyber backstops or other means of boosting firms’ cybersecurity.

A NotPetya type incident – many policies would pay out today

Despite changes, under the recent ruling, many current policies likely would still cover incidents like NotPetya even if insurers claimed they were not built with this in mind, and exclusions had been woven in. Others may have tighter language. It’s a mixed landscape, and some carriers – domestic US insurers in particular – have been slower to “jump on board” with underwriting changes, according to Steve Robinson, RPS cyber practice leader.

“Cyber policies were not intended, nor are they designed to cover wide-scale physical war, or when cyber ops are a tactical element of such wide-scale physical war,” Robinson said. “The new exclusions are designed to bring more clarity to that intent. But, many carriers are citing NotPetya as a type of single incident that was not a part of a physical war directed at Merck, as a type of incident that would still be covered, even with the new exclusions.

“There are, of course, varying approaches, so this would not apply to all carriers.”

Those carriers that currently exclude “merely nation-state attribution” would likely be able to argue that any future NotPetya event could be excluded, according to Robinson.

“Ultimately, as cyber insurance matures, [insurers are] looking to provide good cover for … targeted, single attacks that can really be detrimental to an organization, while at the same time [the insurers] also want to be clear that neither cyber insurance policies nor any other types of policies were ever priced for appropriately to contemplate such a wide scale event where there wouldn’t be enough capital to support the business if something were to happen,” Robinson said.

Cybersecurity vulnerabilities – the “perfect storm” that could lead to a NotPetya repeat

It does not have to take long for an organization to feel the force of a cyber incident. On that fateful June day in 2017, 10,000 machines in Merck’s global network were infected with NotPetya within 90 seconds. Within five minutes, this had doubled to 20,000. Ultimately, more than 40,000 machines were brought down.

More than half a decade on, vulnerabilities in many businesses’ systems persist, even as insurers push for tighter security. RPS has continued to witness claims come in from large organizations, some of which have not had segmented backups needed to restore systems, resulting in some seeing a costly ransom payment as the “only option”. Ransomware frequency, meanwhile, has been back on the up in the last couple of months, though organizations’ propensity to pay attackers has dropped.

All that could be sitting between the world and a NotPetya repeat is “the perfect storm” of a software provider without proper security controls in place that unwittingly passes on malware to similarly unwitting customers, Robinson said.

The best offense may be a good defense, but even as cyber fortifications evolve, so too do malignant technologies develop. Like cyber-hygiene-conscious insureds plugging security gaps, carriers may well be left patching up policy language vulnerabilities and errors for some time to come. In the interim, whatever twists the courts may churn up and whatever bad actors may throw insureds’ and insurers’ way, it falls to agents and brokers to explain just what the patchwork quilt of cyber policies means for clients, to keep on top of exclusion advancements, and to advocate for and fulfill their clients’ insurance needs to the best of their ability.

The early “kitchen table” discussions of any fledgling business will see co-founders mulling over everything from branding to strategy to market outlook to timing. The hallmark of most successful businesses, however, is that no matter how many changes to the above, the ethos at the heart of the business remains clear.

During those early conversations, the founder of health MGA Equipsme hadn’t yet decided on its name, noted co-founder and CEO Matthew Reed (pictured) but there was no doubt in their minds as to its purpose – to allow smaller businesses to do more for their workforces. As it turned out, he said, that commitment to equipping firms with the tools needed to survive and thrive no matter the market conditions, lent in turn to its name.

The roots of Equipsme

“Equipsme came about as a result of us looking at the health insurance market and finding it old, stagnant and complacent,” he said. “Having been an insurer myself, I can say that insurers tend only to innovate when something’s going wrong. Where there isn’t a loss ratio driving the need to do better, there’s not much innovation. And insurtech is changing that a bit but when you think of health insurance as a product, there’s very little to feasibly damage the loss ratio. Even the pandemic didn’t.”

When Equipsme launched in 2018, market research revealed that while 50% of small businesses in England had looked into health insurance, only 5% ended up buying it for their staff. When the team looked into why so many ended up walking away, the feedback was remarkably consistent. People were put off by price and complexity, explained Reed. As a result, it became an elite perk bought only for the staff who would be able to afford it for themselves anyway.

“Our idea was that we can do more and we can allow companies to do more for their people,” Reed said. “At the end of the day your people are your business. A bakery, for example, would rely on their van driver to get their orders out.  You insure the vehicle so why wouldn’t you buy insurance to get the driver in front of a physiotherapist in two days if they hurt their knee?”

When Equipsme started it focused on the definition of SMEs – from two-to-249 people – but it very quickly expanded.

“We found that it wasn’t just small to medium sized businesses who wanted a simple, affordable and practical health insurance option. It was big businesses who wanted to expand health support to more or all of their workforce – and/or do rather more for them than a helpline and a cash plan. We now have businesses with staff in the 1000s – and a self-employed product as well.”

Building an accessible product offering

Working within that broad remit, Equipsme’s focus quickly centred on building a product that “didn’t need any explanation,” he said. The team felt strongly that insurance, and health insurance in particular, had become too jargon-heavy and so set about demystifying the product for the benefit of the average purchaser.

“We made our offering a non-advised product by the definition of the FCA because we felt that if you’re a business that is surviving and wants to look after your staff, you will be bright enough to understand this insurance product,” he said.

“For us, it’s about offering choice.  I think something you’ve got to be very careful about with SMEs is assuming that they’re all going to buy insurance in the same way. We have people who want to buy direct, others who might buy it from their bank, and we have a lot of businesses who buy through their broker.”

Equipsme already works closely with the broker market, Reed said, as when the product was first launched, it was done so with the ambition of allowing general insurance brokers to offer something different to their clients. Consolidation has only made that objective more pertinent.

Consolidation in the health insurance market

Looking across the market, he noted that the general consolidators are now snapping up health insurance brokers. And with that comes the opportunity – if not the necessity –  for independent general insurance brokers to get involved with innovative, simple, non-specialist products which have significant market appeal.

“We didn’t build this to be disintermediated at all,” he said. “We built it to allow non-medical specialist brokers to offer it to their customers. When you think about the general insurance broker, they’ve probably got two or three policies with their clients, and they’re the button that’s pushed when those clients wants insurance advice – whether it’s life insurance or medical insurance, or their general insurance needs.

A COVID-induced focus on health, a competitive job market and the ever-growing NHS waiting list are all fuelling new demand for business health insurance. Indeed, he said, a report published in December found that a fifth of employees on the 7.2 million person NHS waiting list have had to reduce their working hours while waiting for NHS treatment – and a further two fifths (40%) change the tasks they do.

“We’re seeing more customers now asking their brokers questions about affordable health insurance products,” Reed said. “And most brokers’ first waking thoughts these days are on how to keep the customers they have happy. So, we feel that if, as a general broker, you can respond to your clients’ requests for information or support around their medical insurance needs then that’s going to leave you in a much better position than having to say ‘sorry I don’t know’.”

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Results season continues with the turn of Hastings parent Sampo Plc detailing the insurance group’s financial results in the first quarter of 2023.

Here’s how Sampo Group performed in the three-month period, as reported under the new accounting standard:

Net profit for the company’s equity holders stood at €271 million. The corresponding figure in Q1 2022 was €773 million. Compared to the previous year, both profit before taxes and net financial result in Q1 2023 went down, while underwriting result and insurance service result were slightly higher.

“I am encouraged by the progress on our organic growth initiatives, both in the Nordics and the UK, where we have capitalised on our strong positions,” said group chief executive Torbjörn Magnusson in a release, while pointing to “solid results” across all operations.

Meanwhile the quarterly report is the last with Björn Wahlroos (also known as Nalle) as chair.

“I would like to thank Nalle for his huge commitment and contribution to Sampo for over 20 years and, although he leaves on May 17, Sampo will retain the razor-sharp focus on profitability and value creation that he has instilled in the group over his time here,” commented Magnusson.

What do you think about Sampo Group’s financial results? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Insurance giant Chubb has announced the appointment of Tim Charters as the climate tech practice leader for the UK and Ireland (UKI) region, in a move that further strengthens its Chubb Climate+ leadership team.

In a Press release, Chubb noted that in his new role, Charters will be tasked with expanding Chubb’s underwriting portfolio and creating innovative solutions to support Climate Tech companies in their efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change. His responsibilities will include supporting the efficient and sustainable use of resources, products, services, and technologies that support the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Charters previously served as a corporate finance advisor for the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) since 2019. Prior to that, he held senior roles at BEIS focused on energy efficiency and innovation. He also worked in the energy sector, including for a renewables start-up.

Charters will be based in London and will report to Louise Joyce, head of industry practices, UK and Ireland, Chubb. His appointment is effective immediately.

Commenting on the appointment, Matt Hardy, leader of Chubb Climate+ for the company’s general insurance operations in 51 countries and territories outside the U.S., Canada, and Bermuda, said: “Tim has years of experience working in the energy and renewables industry and brings with him new perspectives and insights that will help our Chubb Climate+ team drive the growth of our Climate Tech business in the UKI.”

Louise Joyce added: “I am so pleased to welcome Tim to Chubb. His background working as an advisor on energy and climate to the UK government, together with the insights gained from his direct involvement in the renewables and energy innovation sector, gives him a unique skillset in insurance that will only serve to benefit our Climate Tech Practice clients and broker partners.”

Chubb Climate+ was launched in January this year, offering a full range of insurance products and services to businesses involved in developing or employing new technologies and processes to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. It also provides risk management and resiliency services to help those managing the impact of climate change.

Aviva, as part of its COVID-19 Pledge to customers in the UK, is paying a further £47 million – bringing the total to £128 million in payouts for private medical insurance claims disruption during the pandemic.  

Lifting the lid on the sum, Aviva said in a release: “The figure represents Aviva’s final assessment of the difference between expected claims costs and actual claims costs for the period of claims monitored, from March 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022, when some treatments and procedures were delayed rather than cancelled.”

In 2022, Aviva returned £81 million to its private medical insurance customers. As previously promised, any further payment made in 2023 will include a 20% increase.

“We value our private medical insurance customers’ loyalty, and it was only right that we pledged to return any difference in claims costs to them after a full and fair assessment of the impact of the pandemic on our claims experience,” said Aviva UK Health managing director Steve Bridger.

“I’m delighted that we have completed our final assessment and that we can make a further payment to customers at this time of increased living costs.”

Brokers and customers will be contacted about the payments over the coming weeks.

What do you think about this private medical insurance story? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

This article was provided by Heather Wilmot (pictured), claims operations manager at ARAG UK.

The latest data released by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), for the final quarter of 2022, make grim reading for anyone who may have to use the employment tribunal system at any time in the foreseeable future.

The headline ‘caseload outstanding’ figure may have dropped slightly from last year’s peak of 506,911 claims, but this total includes multiple claims so will inevitably fluctuate when single cases with perhaps hundreds or even thousands of claimants enter or leave the system.

However, even the new 475,004 headline figure means that there are still nearly half a million people waiting for their employment dispute to be resolved, and the data suggest that many will have to wait at least a year.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published new figures in February, responding to a parliamentary question, that revealed the average waiting time between an employment tribunal claim being received and reaching its first hearing has increased more than 60%, from 30 weeks in 2011 to 49 weeks at the end of March 2021. In many cases, that might be just for a preliminary hearing.

While the half a million employees apparently waiting in the tribunal service queue is a truly staggering number, our analysis suggests that around 50,000 businesses are trapped in the same holding pattern, waiting for a dispute with an employee to be resolved.

There were 44,758 businesses waiting on single claims (those with only one claimant) at the end of last year, an increase of 8% in just 12 months, with over five thousand others waiting to defend a multiple claim, leaving a total open caseload of 50,291 at the end of January this year.

Like all HMCTS services, employment tribunal proceedings were inevitably affected by the pandemic, but the recently released data point to much deeper issues. The number of single cases outstanding, which provides a better indication of the backlog in the system, is the highest on record going back to 2008, roughly double what it was fifteen years ago, and has continued to increase since lockdowns came to an end.

Nor can the MOJ blame recent events. The total number of outstanding claims can rise and fall on the receipt or disposal of a single case with many claimants, but the number of cases accepted by HMCTS has outstripped the number disposed of, almost every quarter since 2015.

The problems this backlog creates are as intolerable for businesses at they are for employees who are waiting for their claims to be heard. Cases that are delayed a year before even reaching a preliminary hearing, leave both parties in a kind limbo. Over such a long time, recollections fade, costs increase, and satisfactory outcomes can be jeopardised.”

Larger businesses with many employees are likely to have experienced claims before and may even be accustomed to the time such matters now take. For the many SMEs that ARAG insures against the costs of legal problems, employment disputes have become even more disruptive.

We do what we can to help them resolve claims through mediation and hopefully to reach a settlement without troubling a tribunal, but this is a long-term issue for the MoJ that needs to be fixed.

In 2015, the Parker Review was set up by the UK government to review and improve diversity in Britain’s boardrooms.

The review’s initial report, published in 2017, provided a set of suggestions and established a target called “One by 2021,” which aimed to ensure that all FTSE 100 boards had at least one director from a minority ethnic background by December 2021. Additionally, the review set a similar goal named “One by 2024” for all FTSE 250 boards.

Valuing diverse talent

The Parker review sets the tone on ethnic diversity across all companies and is a key contribution to a UK business environment, maintaining a focus on ethnic diversity at executive and senior management level.

For larger companies, NEDs, Chairs and Board members may be more likely to come from outside insurance, and these leaders of industry will bring an expectation of diversity from the businesses they oversee. Similarly, it reinforces this topic of importance for investors and potential employees as well as customers.

Target setting works

In March this year, the Parker Review announced the results of its 2022 voluntary census on the ethnic diversity of company boards, showing that 96 FTSE 100 companies now have at least one ethnically diverse director on their boards, up from 89 last year. Of these 96 companies, 49 have more than one ethnically diverse director on their board. In the FTSE 250, 67% of companies that responded to the census met the target of appointing at least one ethnically diverse director, up from 55% last year. 

New targets have been launched for December 2027, with each FTSE 350 company asked to set its own percentage target for senior management positions that will be occupied by ethnically diverse executives.

The Parker Review also believes that there is compelling logic for setting targets for ethnically diverse inclusion within large private companies, and will ask 50 of the UK’s largest private companies to provide data from December 2023. This may well include companies from the insurance sector.

The progress made in the past few years shows that target setting works, but this is not the time for self-congratulation and resting upon laurels. There are still outlier companies within the FTSE 100 who did not meet the original target, and despite the more positive picture at the top there is a long way to go to ensure inclusion at all levels of businesses.

Nonetheless, the Parker review provides strong evidence to counter any spurious argument that driving diversity in the boardroom somehow dilutes the quality of the executive level, and suggests that progress is being made towards achieving the goal of diversity and inclusion.

Ashwin Mistry, non-exec director at Broker Insights states “Having sat on a number of Boards throughout my career, I have learnt that coming from a different background brings with it a different and positive perspective. It may not be that values and ethics differ greatly, but life experience teaches you that your upbringing is somewhat different and elements of exposure bring with it a valuable sense of respect, structure and passion. I know that I think differently from other colleagues and that makes me extremely proud of my heritage “

Board diversity in insurance

Although there are only a handful of insurance companies in the FTSE 350, the Parker review is important for insurance companies to take notice of because the industry has historically lacked diversity, particularly at the executive level. The ABI found that just 2% of insurance executives came from an ethnically diverse background, compared to over 14% of the working population being ethnically diverse. Furthermore, its research last year found that the proportion of ethnically diverse entry level employees in insurance has worsened, from 10% to 9%, a worrying trend for the potential pipeline of talent not reaching the sector.

The importance of representation

Having diverse representation at the top level of our industry not only brings in a variety of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds that greatly benefit businesses, but also serves as inspiration for underrepresented individuals, motivating them to pursue careers in the insurance industry.

At iCAN, we are committed to championing multicultural talent within the financial sector at all levels. We firmly believe that the ethnically diverse talent pool contains immense untapped potential, with the ability to emerge as future board members. It is incumbent on all of us to create clear and robust pathways for this talent to flourish and reach their full potential, and therefore important to have diverse role models in leadership positions today who can inspire and guide the next generation of leaders.

AXIS Capital Holdings has announced that Vincent C. Tizzio has assumed the role of president and CEO of the company.

Tizzio officially assumed the role Thursday, timed to coincide with the company’s annual general meeting at its headquarters in Bermuda.

Tizzio’s promotion to president and CEO was announced in December. He succeeds longtime AXIS president and CEO Albert Benchimol, who will continue to serve as a strategic advisor to the company through the end of the year.

“On behalf of the board of directors and our entire team at AXIS, we couldn’t be more excited to name Vince as the company’s president and CEO,” said Henry Smith, chair of the AXIS board of directors. “Vince is a stellar leader who brings the vision, expansive specialty underwriting knowledge, and passion needed to take our company to the next level. He is also an excellent people leader who perfectly embodies the company’s culture and values.

Tizzio joined AXIS in January 2022 as senior advisor for insurance market strategy and future insurance CEO, reporting to Benchimol. In June 2022, he was promoted to CEO of specialty insurance and reinsurance.

“I’m deeply honoured to be named president and CEO of AXIS and to have the opportunity to build on the foundation established by Albert and the team,” Tizzio said. “I express my gratitude to Albert, Henry, the board of directors, and our colleagues worldwide for placing their trust in me. It’s my strong belief that we are only just beginning to tap into our potential as a great underwriting company that stands apart for the specialty expertise and acumen of our people and the value that we provide to our customers. In the current dynamic market, there is a greater need than ever for the tailored specialty insurance products and services that we offer.”

“Serving as president and CEO of AXIS has been the highlight of my career,” Benchimol said. “Words cannot express the gratitude that I feel towards my colleagues at AXIS, as well as to our brokers and partners, for their partnership, commitment and friendship. I’m proud of all that we accomplished and excited for the future that stands before AXIS. In Vince we have a fantastic leader who has the vision and ability to take AXIS to even greater levels of success.”

“The board and I are grateful to Albert Benchimol for the leadership that he brought to AXIS for close to 13 years,” Smith said. “Under Albert’s direction, AXIS transformed and refocused as a specialty leader, cultivating a strong and vibrant workplace culture, while taking crucial steps forward in building a pathway to lasting, profitable growth.”

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