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Russell Group has joined the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) as a professional partner.

According to the analytics and risk modelling company, as a professional partner, it is looking forward to broadening the IUMI debate and exchanging expertise and ideas within the marine insurance sector.

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Speaking with Insurance Business UK, Scrivens noted that he came to the insurance profession in a slightly unusual way, through a springboard diving friend, who recommended him to cover maternity in a pan-European company called Europ Assistance in Haywards Heath. 

“While there, I learned the ropes of underwriting in travel, motor breakdown and home emergency before being promoted to senior underwriter,” he said. “The head of underwriting, Fiona McDonald moved to start up the underwriting arm of ROCK Insurance, in Crawley, called OPERA Underwriting, and asked me to move and become the underwriting manager working closely with claims and assistance companies, capacity providers and clients.”

While at OPERA, Scrivens was responsible for travel and travel insolvency and auditing both claims and assistance companies, ensuring the profitability of the portfolio and being the point of expertise for the clients. From there, he said, he made the move to sunny Gibraltar where he worked as a claim analyst for Skyfire Insurance in motor insurance before returning to the UK and his underwriting roots with a role at UK General in Leeds. 

“At UK General I was responsible for a variety of products ranging from travel, wedding and event to motor ancillary, cycle and gadget insurance while managing a team of underwriters,” he said. “I finally decided it was time to move to new challenges and was offered a position I could not refuse at Acasta.”

Now as underwriting management at Acasta Europe, Scrivens leads the team in establishing the design, price setting and implementation of new and existing products, while monitoring its portfolio of products, to ensure that it achieves targets, and managing a team of underwriters to help them develop and grow. This will also include reporting to the board, he said, and building strong relationships with the current capacity provider, existing clients and potential new business partners.

Read more: Top tips on how to be an effective problem-solver

There are several pressing areas of focus for Scrivens and his team in the latter half of 2022 but top of the agenda is ensuring good relationships with Acasta Europe’s existing partners while maintaining a profitable portfolio of business. As with any such business, he said, the team is keen to have a diverse portfolio so will be ensuring that it is diverse enough in the future to weather any potential storms.

“The main topic of conversation at the moment is inflation and the cost-of-living crisis,” he noted, commenting on the market conditions driving Acasta Europe’s strategic objectives. “We need to ensure that we are going to be profitable in the coming years as we price now for the next three to five years. 

“Inflation has a massive impact on this as we need to ensure that we are profitable, while also being customer-centric and ensuring that claims can be paid in the future while continuing to provide products that are affordable. There’s no point in having a product that is either out of kilter with the market or unaffordable.”

Acasta Europe works closely with its broker partners, he said, as it recognises that brokers are a key element to its ongoing success. As part of the group’s commitment to them, the team works closely with its brokers to be sure that their needs are met, and to ensure they are kept educated and informed about the business and the decisions it makes. 

“This also works both ways,” he said, “and it is important to our team to understand not only our customer needs but also our clients’ needs.”

Looking to the year ahead, Scrivens highlighted that Acasta Europe’s overall ambition is to have a profitable, diverse portfolio, as well as growth within its team and growth within its portfolio. What the company should have, he said, is a close relationship with its business partners, with a portfolio of existing and new clients who understand their market and the issues of customers, capacity providers and claims partners. 

“Our plan includes expanding current lines, such as GAP and warranty, to include electric vehicles, and developing our offering of wedding insurance to provide further levels of cover for different budgets and events,” he said. “We are also looking into brand new lines such as travel and gadget, and have also recently launched a cycle insurance scheme which we aim to develop and grow.

“As a bespoke underwriter, and having a close relationship with our capacity provider, we are able to look at a wide range of prospective businesses.”

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That’s not to confuse an expert with a specialist – to my mind they remain separate beasts despite the extensive overlap between them. To be an expert is not necessarily to possess the ability to drill deep into any one subject matter but rather to be on hand with explanations, evaluations and – where possible – answers to the questions of those you have imbibed with confidence in your capabilities. 

The critical need for expertise and the role of experts in providing insight has only become clearer in recent months, against the backdrop of a wider society in which so many once theoretical questions around pandemics, cyberattacks and war have become so concrete.

It is those same individuals who have translated their appetite for providing the right resolutions into accessible solutions for their clients and partners who are leading the charge of directing the future of the insurance profession at this time. The CFC Summit 2022 – the first of its kind to be held in the UK – was a particular standout in championing the role of the expert.

Authorities on everything from cyber insurance, to the NFT marketplace, to the burgeoning role of healthcare tech came together to share their expertise with brokers, underwriters and the broader insurance distribution chain. The result was a delight to see. Between the engagement from the audience, the poise and conviction of the speakers, and the enthusiasm for the in-person setting – the willingness of the profession to engage with the future of insurance appears self-evident.

There are examples all across the market of experts and expertise coming to the fore. From in-depth industry reports examining the scale of the challenges the industry faces, to leaders providing insight into pricing stabilisations, to ‘Rising Stars’ offering thoughts on what the future of insurance will look like – one and all, these experts have expertise to bring to the table, and an audience that is uniquely primed to pay attention.

I’d be hard-pressed to name an individual I’ve spoken to yet in my time within the industry who didn’t have some expertise, whether or not they recognise it for what it is. But faced with so many examples, there’s less and less excuse for insurance professionals across the ecosystem not to recognise their own influence and to find opportunities where they can lend their insights.

With so much uncertainty in the global environment right now, the die has been cast. And insurance professionals, and brokers, in particular, need to step up and be the expert their clients don’t just expect but need right now – not the person who claims to have all the answers, but rather the one who knows where to find them and will stop at nothing until they do.

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“Without awareness, the consumer will generally not consider your brand for purchase,” the firm wrote in a guide on its website. “There are rare cases – impulse buying or some lower engagement categories – where the purchase can take place without prior knowledge of the brand, but by increasing brand awareness, you’ll reduce your reliance on consumers finding you by chance – because you’ll find them.”

The company described brand awareness as “people knowing the name of or recognising your brand.” But the most crucial aspect, it added, is that “brand awareness is also about what you’re known for.”

Read more: Ranking how the UK’s top 50 insurance brands are tackling digital marketing opportunities

Why is brand awareness important in the insurance industry?

According to Qualtrics, brand awareness is generally considered as “the foundation to multiple brand equity models,” or in layman’s terms, a metric that shows how a brand’s success can be directly attributed to the consumers’ attitudes towards it.

The firm then listed several benefits brand awareness brings to businesses not just in the insurance industry, but also in all other sectors. These are:

1. It is an indicator of growth.

Brand awareness is the most common measure tracked by top-level executives because it often indicates a business’s progress.

 “As a rule, if awareness goes up, this is a sign of improvement,” Qualtrics noted, adding that improvement means “business success and reaching your goals.”

“If you know the percentage of people aware of your brand, and roughly what your market share is, you can compare and contrast these two numbers,” the firm explained. “The goal should be to turn brand awareness into brand consideration – and ultimately get more people buying from your brand, and that market share percentage will increase.”

2. It keeps the brand on top of customers’ minds.

Qualtrics pointed out how brand awareness should not be a “one-time thing” as consumers’ needs evolve constantly. Because of this, there should also be a continuous effort from brands to send the right messaging to the right people at the right time.

“This will help to keep you relevant,” the firm added. “Prove your worth to the customer, and you’ll increase loyalty too.”

3. It indicates the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Qualtrics also noted how brand awareness can be a good signifier of whether a business’s marketing initiatives are working.

“If you see an improvement in brand awareness, you know your campaigns are resonating,” the firm explained. “If brand awareness isn’t increasing, then you know they’re not effective and something needs to change.”

Read more: The world’s number one insurance brand is…

What are the most famous insurance brands in the UK?

To find out which insurance brands in the country topped the awareness category, London-based international online market research and data analytics firm YouGov gathered “millions of responses” from the British public through a survey conducted between April and June.

The poll measured two key metrics. Apart from fame, which the company defined as the percentage of respondents “who have heard of an insurance brand,” it determined popularity, indicating the portion of those surveyed “who have a positive opinion of an insurance brand.”

There were more than 60 insurance brands included in YouGov’s survey. AA – the AXA-administered car, home, and travel insurance specialist – topped the fame ratings at 98%. London-based Bupa, which offers high-quality yet affordable health and travel medical insurance, and insurance giant Aviva were tied for second, scoring 94%.

Leeds-headquartered Direct Line secured the fourth spot in the rankings with a 93% rating. The firm provides car, home, and business policies underwritten by UK Insurance. Prominent insurers RAC, AXA, and Admiral ended up in a triple tie for fifth place, all garnering a 90% fame rating. Of these brands, only RAC suffered a drop in scoring from the previous quarter.

Sainsbury’s Bank (87%), Co-operative Insurance (86%), and Prudential (85%) rounded up the top 10.

Read more: Are insurers wasting their time and money on branding?

At the other end of the spectrum were global health services firm Cigna (20%), digital insurer and Ageas subsidiary Back Me Up (18%), life insurance provider DeadHappy (17%), pay-as-you-drive car insurer By Miles (15%), and Northern Ireland brokerage firm Hughes Insurance (13%).

Here’s a list of the 20 most famous insurance brands, according to YouGov’s survey.

Rank	Insurance brand	Rating
1	AA	98%
=2	Bupa	94%
=2	Aviva	94%
4	Direct Line	93%
=5	RAC	90%
=5	AXA	90%
=5	Admiral	90%
8	Sainsbury’s Bank	87%
9	Co-operative Insurance	86%
10	Prudential	85%
11	Churchill	84%
=12	LV=	83%
=12	Zurich	83%
=14	Norwich Union	81%
=14	Green Flag	81%
16	Hastings Direct	79%
17	Saga	78%
=18	Royal London	71%
=18	More Than	71%
=20	Standard Life	68%
=20	Sheila’s Wheels	68%

Source: YouGov

What are the most popular insurance brands in the UK?

Unsurprisingly, almost all insurance brands that topped the fame ratings were also the leaders when came to popularity. AA still got the highest score at 62%, followed by RAC (55%), Bupa (52%), and Aviva (47%). Roadside assistance and recovery specialist Green Flag cracked the top five in the category, getting a rating of 45%.

Read more: Revealed: Top insurance brands for customer service

Famous insurance brands Direct Line, Prudential, AXA, Churchill, and LV= rounded up the top 10. The bottom five brands in the same category also ranked last in terms of popularity.

Here are the 20 most popular insurance brands in the country based on the survey.

Rank	Insurance brand	Rating
1	AA	62%
2	RAC	55%
3	Bupa	52%
4	Aviva	47%
5	Green Flag	45%
6	Direct Line	40%
7	Prudential	38%
8	AXA	37%
=9	Churchill	36%
=9	LV=	36%
11	Admiral	35%
12	Co-operative Insurance	34%
=13	Zurich	33%
=13	Hastings Direct	33%
15	More Than	32%
16	Age Co	31%
=17	Argos Care	30%
=17	Royal London	30%
=19	Norwich Union	29%
=19	Standard Life	29%

Source: YouGov

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Taking cyber solutions out of the realm of the theoretical and into the arena of the practical is at the heart of what Roger Francis (pictured), MD of CFC Response, and his 100-strong in-house global response team do on a day-to-day basis.

Find out more: Discover how CFC prevent cyber attacks for policyholders

Cyber threat analysis is a next-generation cyber service which looks to match the ever-evolving nature of cyber risk through proactive intervention. Touching on what such a solution looks like, Francis highlighted that the word proactive is quite often misattributed, and used to describe tabletop exercise scenarios aimed at creating muscle memory rather than pre-emptive engagement with incoming threats.

“At its core, our cyber threat analysts focus on reducing cyber risk across the CFC portfolio,” he said. “Something quite unique to the cyber line is that we can actually influence the behaviour of the risk throughout the term of the policy. If you consider the incident response side of the house, we deal with over 2,500 global incidents annually. And these have a whole load of root causes and elements which drive those claims.

Read next: CFC on the solution that’s reshaping the cybercrime battlefield

“What our cyber threat analysts do is create ‘claims intelligence’ where we correlate those risks against claims to see which ones are specific indicators of potential claims, so we can better predict them. Correspondingly, we create tools via which we can proactively scan our entire portfolio to see if any of those vulnerabilities are prevalent. This allows us to reach out to the insured and help them through the remediation process, making them a better risk in the long run as a less likely target for threat actors.”

What sets CFC’s cyber threat analysis offering apart, Francis said, is that the team actively search for precursor malware – the tools a threat actor will deploy before they encrypt an environment. CFC’s scale and global breadth enables it to engage with a broad range of resources from private sector feeds, to government feeds, to the proprietary feeds it has built itself – and to democratise threat intelligence by disseminating this information for the benefit of policyholders everywhere.

“At CFC, we are very technically-minded in terms of our approach,” he said. “And that’s not only driven from how we respond from an incident response perspective in helping organisations actually recover from an incident, but also in terms of how we look to protect our portfolio.”

There are several different stages to how this threat analysis is carried out – including scanning, identifying, building patches and notifying. What a lot of people don’t quite realise, he said, is how difficult disseminating the information amassed can be. Looking across the security industry, there are so many disparate players who each hold critical insights into cyber threats but communicating all that data in an actionable and timely manner is another matter entirely.

“The way we’ve tackled that at CFC is by building our Response mobile app, which gives us a direct link into our insureds and allows us to push out alerts to them immediately,” he said. “A good example is what happened with ProxyShell in August 2021, when we were able to build a scanner within 24 hours which identified several thousand potentially vulnerable systems and several hundred systems that had already been compromised.

“We then leveraged the app to reach out to those organisations so they could go ahead and remediate and resolve them. What started out at the beginning of the week, as thousands of vulnerabilities, we were able to remediate down to the low tens – and there will always be some organisations that you can’t reach. But we vastly changed our risk profile by identifying the threat, building the scanning tool and reaching out to the insureds, helping them remediate and making them better risks in the long run.”

Discover more: Find out more about CFC’s market-leading cyber insurance offering today

The threat analysts’ work in such moments of crisis is an example of a truly proactive solution in action, and Francis noted that brokers, in particular, have had an “overwhelmingly positive reaction” to the offering. The market has been calling out for a new-age threat intelligence solution that provides actionable insight rather than reams of inaccessible data. There are around 10,000 Common Vulnerability Scores (CVEs) out there, he said, but that doesn’t mean there are 10,000 considerations people should be worried about.

It is by correlating those scores against claims that allows you to identify the vulnerabilities which are being actively exploited as part of a threat actor’s campaign, he said. The idea is not to bombard insureds with doomsday scenarios about hypothetical threats but rather to alert them to specific vulnerabilities that have implications for them and their business.

Read more: CFC on what’s happening around cyber insurance pricing

“When we send them out an alert, it’s to say we found this specific vulnerability on this specific server or domain, here’s a set of recommendations on how to solve it and, if you have any questions, contact us,” he said. “It’s a proper, actionable service. And sometimes we have people asking why they haven’t heard from us, and our response is that it’s a very good thing!

“But I think it’s important to differentiate threat intelligence as part of the security industry, which is something that people try and package and sell, versus what we’re trying to do, which is proactively de-risk our portfolio and taking that offering one step further – by reducing the noise of 10,000 vulnerabilities down to just the handful that we know drive claims, and therefore that we want to focus on.”

It’s a solution that works for the benefit of brokers and insureds alike while safeguarding the stability and longevity of the cyber insurance market. For brokers, who have seen first-hand how CFC’s threat analysis team has prevented ransomware incidents and protected insureds’ systems, he said, threat intelligence has proven itself a real game-changer.

“The feedback from the brokers and the insureds when they realise there’s no ulterior motive to this and it’s just us purely trying to help them avoid what could be one of their worst days is incredible,” he said. “And we work largely in the SME sector where there’s a lot of business owners who have everything wound up in their businesses, and who have enough problems on their plates right now. So, it’s nice for them to know there’s someone else out there, looking over their shoulder and making sure that the worst-case scenario doesn’t happen.”

Find out more: Discover how CFC prevent cyber attacks for policyholders

Roger Francis is a security specialist with over 15 years of experience in protecting organisational assets from threats. He joined CFC in 2019 to head up CFC Response.

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In this executive insights edition of IBTV, Richard Webb, director at Manchester Underwriting Management, offers an overview of the broker E&O market, the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and the benefits of direct interaction with insureds.

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Read more: Why we have a duty to win the war for talent in the insurance sector

Having previously worked in insurance himself, he recognises the challenges that exist around coming up with new ideas for insurance products and services. In fact, he said, insurance was picked for the inaugural report because of, not despite, its challenging nature.

“We thought insurance was a good way of showing how hard we can actually set the challenges for teenagers,” he said. “Because, out of all the industries out there, insurance is probably one of the hardest to understand if you have to just jump into it from a standing start. The fact that [the cohort] actually came out with risk-bearing products was amazing and the way they identified the really hairy issues that are transformation issues for insurance was super fascinating.”

The reason why the programme engaged with teenagers is that they are at peak creativity, Pickford-Wardle said. But additionally, they represent the future customer and they’re closer to the future customer. The conclusion by Pickford-Wardle and his co-founders that teenagers would prove a font of creativity quickly showed itself to be an accurate one, with hundreds of ideas generated that showcased how quickly young people can identify, understand, and problem-solve even the most complex of concepts.

Offering examples of the ideas generated, he highlighted a product called ‘Meta-Protect’ on the new risks side of the opportunity which offers protection for properties and items purchased in the metaverse. On the ‘new claims’ side, an edugame entitled ‘The Flipside’ posited a video game where players can play as a claims handler and interactively learn more about the insurance proposition. Finally, on the new distribution side, a product called ‘Devinsure’ suggested an app that would remove the need for you to research the best insurance quotes yourself.

These are just three of the ideas generated through the programme, he said, and serve as a spotlight on the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of young people. But the real power of the programme is not just its product creation potential but also the introduction it offers young talent to the insurance marketplace.

“What happens is, they come in for the money and then they get opened up to the opportunity presented to get involved in something interesting,” he said. “And insurance is fundamentally interesting, it is representative of the world around us. It carries all the risks of the world around us and is an opportunity for you to explore whatever you’re interested in. And the big thing is, they realise that their own ideas are valuable. And that’s what they get super hooked on to because that value piece increases their confidence.”

To track how attitudes changed toward insurance, Startup Sherpas did a pre-and post-programme survey gauging interest in an insurance career. The answer was a resolute and blunt ‘no’ across the board, Pickford-Wardle said, but by the end of the syllabus, there was a 267% increase in interest in an insurance career. This can serve as a mechanism to change the dialogue around talent attraction and retention into insurance and to scale up the results seen among the 100-strong sample size offered by the programme. 

Read more: Bridging the insurance talent gap – Marsh ‘Rising Star’ on routes into insurance

While it might be assumed that a report of this nature, with its emphasis on the insurance customer of the future, might cater exclusively towards personal lines insurance, he said, it has been crafted in such a way to appeal to businesses of every size and sector across the insurance ecosystem. That’s because the team’s ambition for the report is to communicate that talent and the future of insurance are vital considerations for any and every insurance business.

“We want to tap into the responsibility of insurance to support the report and the work that we’re doing to get teenagers to recognise insurance as an industry to work in and start that conversation,” he said. “This report should spark opportunities for insurance businesses to start what is a five-year transformation process.

“Because this is not an overnight project and while Generation Alpha seems far away now, if you start these transformation projects now and have blueprints created that the industry can use to design what the future of insurance will look like then in five years you’re in a good place.”

In terms of what Startup Sherpas hopes the industry will take from the report, it comes down to three key ambitions. Firstly, he said, he would like insurance businesses to buy the report and discover what’s useful to them within it. Secondly, he hopes they will go one step further and identify the opportunities highlighted by the initiative and take a deeper dive into some of the avenues opened up by the programme.

Thirdly, he highlighted the opportunity for insurers to get involved on an industry-wide level, rolling out a broader programme aimed at helping insurance reflect the world it operates in and to design solutions that will equip the next generation of talent to meet the trials that the market will face. This is a chance for insurers to get to grips with the UN ESG expectations and to start exploring more innovative solutions to the underwriting challenges of the future.

Pickford-Wardle noted that he understands implicitly how easy it is to talk about the solutions of the future, and how hard it can be to truly put them into practice.

“What you need is incredibly well-trained people who are all speaking the same language and actually structurally understand how to make a global level change,” he said. “And that requires innovation to move away from just brightly coloured post-it notes in the corner to become a discipline – that’s what is required to make the future we want rather than the future we want to avoid.”

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How big an issue is insurance fraud in the UK? In this edition of IBTV, Rich Tomlinson, managing director at Percasyo Inform, explains how insurers can break down the barriers of using quote data to reduce fraud and how to boost customer retention.

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The global reinsurance sector is expected to feel continued pressure due to several headwinds, according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings, but a predicted increase in underwriting profitability might also be the catalyst for a much-needed turnaround.

S&P has given the sector a negative outlook due to the “endless barrage of headwinds” experienced in the last few years, reflecting expectations of credit trends over the next 12 months, including the distribution of rating outlooks, as well as existing and emerging risks. As of August 31, 19% of ratings on the top 21 global reinsurers were on CreditWatch with negative outlooks, the report noted, while 76% had stable outlooks and only 5% were positive.

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“One of the undoubted highlights of building this business has been working with Tom, who has been both a great colleague and friend. I look forward to continuing to work with him and supporting Rothesay’s ongoing success in my role on the board going forward.”

Rothesay, which Loudiadis founded with Pearce in 2007, secures the pensions of more than 830,000 people. With assets under management of over £60 billion, the insurer pays out in excess of £230 million every month.

Commenting on his promotion, Pearce stated: “I am delighted to take on the role of CEO following Addy’s outstanding leadership of the business. Since we founded Rothesay, we have always had a shared vision of creating a modern insurer which combined scale along with an innovative mindset, and it has been hugely exciting to work with Addy as we brought that vision to life.

“Addy has been a personal inspiration to me along with so many others in our industry, and I look forward to continuing to benefit from her unparalleled insight and expertise as we continue to deliver on our ambitions for the business.”

Aside from staying on the Rothesay board, Loudiadis will also continue in her role as a trustee of the Rothesay Foundation.

“On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Addy for her exceptional leadership over the past 15 years,” declared Rothesay chair Naguib Kheraj. “She has always led from the front and built an entrepreneurial culture which values excellence, innovation, collaboration, and teamwork. While growing the business rapidly, she has also successfully focussed on effective risk management through volatile markets which included the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As one of the longest serving CEOs of a UK-based insurer, we understand the time is now right for Addy to step down as CEO, and we are pleased that she has agreed to stay on as a member of the board. With Tom’s appointment, Rothesay’s future could not be in better hands, and we look forward to supporting him in continuing to grow the business in the years ahead.”

Described as the biggest pensions insurance specialist in the UK, Rothesay has a most recent valuation of £5.75 billion.

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