Insurance news

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published its October update on the claims data from insurers affected by the ruling in the business interruption (BI) test case in the UK.

According to the FCA, there are still 4,403 claims being settled, for which an aggregate value of £329,368,933 in interim or initial payments have been made. Final settlements, meanwhile, have been agreed and paid in 24,463 claims, to the tune of £766,598,035.

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Broadway Insurance Brokers may still be a relatively new entrant to the UK insurance broking market, but it is continuing to strengthen its operations, an emphasis cemented by its latest senior appointment – Martin Lilley (pictured), who has joined the team as director of corporate services,

During his 25-year career, Lilley has advised some of Britain’s biggest brands in retail, sport and logistics. He is a fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute (FCII) and has spent the last decade working in senior positions with Marsh and Aon. Broadway’s chief executive Daniel Lloyd-John noted that Lilley’s recruitment is in keeping with the firm’s commitment to only hiring insurance professionals capable of enhancing the service provided to its roster of business and private clients.

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The team is headed by Sarah Downey, who joined Lockton in April to lead the LEAP team and executive risk claims. She is one of the nation’s top D&O, digital asset and executive risk claims and coverage experts, Lockton said.

“In addition to being core for digital asset-centric companies, digital assets are playing an increasingly prominent role in more traditional businesses, and there is a growing need for insurance in this space,” Downey said. “The digital asset ecosystem has grown significantly in recent years, creating an even more dire need for insurance in this space.”

The LEAP team works with clients on the most crucial risk concerns in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors, including crime insurance, specie insurance, directors and officers liability, errors and omissions insurance, and cyber insurance. The team tailors coverage and creates new products and new insurance capacity with support from across the organisation, including capital markets, reinsurance, captives and surety.

“The LEAP team is aligned with Lockton’s mission to deliver high-level consultative and risk management services to the marketplace,” said Carl Moore, partner, Global Professional and Financial Risks.

“We are intently focused on working alongside organisations as they navigate the insurance space,” said Rob Russell, regional director of Lockton’s Global Professional and Financial Risks practice in Asia. “Our goal is to help them ultimately promote the growth and continued development of their business.”

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During a panel discussion on ethnic diversity chaired by Maxine Goddard (pictured), senior vice president, strategic distribution & development at Sompo International, insurance professionals lent their insights into how employers can overcome the challenges preventing the creation of more inclusive workplace cultures. Exploring some of these concerns, Goddard noted that recruitment bias is a significant concern within the industry.

“Recruiters will tell us that they’re just the messenger,” she said. “The recruitment companies will say it’s the hiring managers who do the screening. So, we need to be honest with ourselves – what’s going on in our own organisations? Where’s the blockage? Where’s the barrier? Bullying [is another issue], under many circumstances it’s not microaggressions, it’s full-on aggression happening. And it’s not just related to race, of course. But in terms of allyship, it shows why speaking out and really taking a stand is so important.”

Goddard highlighted that inclusion remains a real concern for the insurance sector. People need to treat each other better, she said, and while there’s been a lot of discussion around kindness within the profession, particularly in the last 12-to-18 months, this needs to translate further.

Read more: Sompo International onboards Zurich veteran Maxine Goddard

Reverse mentoring is something that a lot of organisations rely on to promote inclusivity, she said, as sometimes it is the only way that C-Suite executives get a chance to interact with a more diverse range of people. However, it should be recognised that it can be quite draining for an individual to have to instruct their leader on things that should really be in the remit of that leader’s self-education.

Adding his thoughts to the discussion, David Otudeko, assistant director, head of prudential regulation at the ABI said he believes that the financial services profession can become too focused on the easy elements of tough inclusivity conversations. It’s easy to look at the things that companies are doing well, he said, and at where inroads are being made on topics such as gender balance or race but that runs the risk of bypassing more difficult to measure topics such as cognitive diversity.

Read more: Where’s the insurance industry at in terms of female representation at the top?

“And that’s where the rubber hits the road in terms of the benefit a business is going to get from diversity,” he said. “Because you want people to think differently, you want people to bring different perspectives to the debate. We talk about diversity and inclusion [being] a spectrum, with diversity at one end and inclusion at the other but we don’t talk about equity in the middle. You have a lot of programmes called D&I programmes but how do you get from having a diverse business to an inclusive business? You need to consider how you break down those barriers that prevent inclusion and that’s where equity comes in.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is so important, he said, and when it comes to examining the need for DEI, as finance people it can be very tempting just to focus on the numbers involved. And the statistics on the business case for having a truly diverse workforce reveal how this leads to increases in the bottom line, which in turn can catch the attention of a CFO or finance director. But Otudeko highlighted that these conversations have to go beyond diversity being the financially beneficial thing to do, to recognise that it is also the right thing to do.

The reality is that nobody is really an expert on the subject of DEI, he said, and the only way to actually tackle these issues is by people being honest about that. Businesses and individuals can talk as much as they want about the things they do well but nobody knows everything and instigating real changes means getting everybody together to pool their knowledge and resources.

As an example, Otudeko said, look to the move of the financial services industry to address what can be done to mitigate the financial risk of climate change. When it came to finding solutions for the most difficult parts of that challenge, financial services companies, supported by their regulators, set up the Climate Financial Risk Forum to allow for knowledge exchange and the sharing of new ideas.

“I don’t think it’s overstating to say that we should probably do the same for diversity and inclusion,” he said. “Because everyone has a good idea and everyone has something that works. And the only way we can basically bring this to where we want to get to is by getting our heads together and sharing exactly what works well in each organisation, and then tailoring it to our demographic.

“So there’s a lot of frustration… I’m happy that the industry is clearly making progress, I’m happy we’ve started having the conversation but I feel there are a lot of nuances we’re missing and that is probably because those are the bits we’re not doing very well.”

If you are interested in further exploring the nuances around diversity, equity and inclusion, you can sign up for the upcoming Women in Insurance Conference here.

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SiriusPoint has announced that reinsurance industry veteran Bobby Heerasing (pictured above) has been appointed as head of international strategic business development, a newly created role.

Based in Singapore, Heerasing will be responsible for the strategy and development of SiriusPoint International’s growth objectives and management of strategic partnerships with key industry partners and clients, focusing first on the Asia-Pacific region, the company said. He will report to Monica Cramér Manhem, SiriusPoint’s president for international reinsurance.

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Arch Insurance International (Arch) has appointed Tom Rivers as its new chief risk officer (CRO), effective immediately.

Rivers has been in the insurance sector for more than 20 years, with extensive enterprise risk management and regulatory experience in corporate actuarial and risk management roles.

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Global insurance group Resolution Life – which has operations in Bermuda, the UK, the US, Australia, and New Zealand – has hired Simon Woods as group chief financial officer.

A PwC, HSBC, and UBS alumnus, Woods was insurance financing head at Goldman Sachs’ investment banking division in London before his move to EY in Zürich where he led client services for complex strategic change and was responsible for a range of senior client relationships across insurance.

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“With the soft market through most the early 2010s through to 2018, it was an opportunity for most people to keep their powder dry and not look to do anything too dramatic in most instances,” he said. “And then since the Decile-10 project and the turn in the market over the last couple of years, people are now seeing their chance to step out of their comfort zone and do something a little bit more entrepreneurial or a little bit more challenging. And some of that flows over into the delegated authority (DA) market, which is great.”

Brexit presented an especially interesting challenge to the sector, he said, as in the lead up to its implementation, there was a lot of thought given to how to access the EU market going forward. The bigger players sorted out their options early on and largely tended to set up their own entities within Europe to handle the transition. DA Strategy opted for this approach, setting up DA Strategy Global in Hamburg to aid MGAs who wanted to have a route to market without setting up a separate entity.

“That offers MGAs, particularly those based in London and elsewhere around the UK, an opportunity to second underwriters into DA Strategy Global so that they then are in an organisation that has an EU licence and passporting throughout the EU and can then underwrite that business, through DA Strategy Global. So what we offer is an economy of scale offering for those MGAs.”

Currently, DA Strategy has got a handful of clients, but adding further clients to this offering will enable the business to add sufficient scale to this model, allowing it to deliver a package offering to clients going forward.

It has been a fascinating mix of businesses that are interested in the facility offered by DA Strategy Global, Rowley said. Generally speaking, they have tended to be smaller businesses who, when they initially considered the implications of Brexit, likely did not consider themselves ready to go into Europe due to their smaller scale or limited business there. At that time, they did not see the business case for setting up a Brexit solution, he said, but they have since reached the scale where this has become necessary.

Read more: MGAs – what are their biggest challenges and opportunities?

“[For many], it’s now too late to set up their own entity in an easy way so they’re opting to use the DA Strategy model to have access,” he said. “So, typically that’s the smaller size firms. We’ve had [several businesses] come to us – we’ve had one come to us that is brand new and we had another that approached us very recently where they have had a new team come on board that they didn’t have last year which wants to write a significant proportion of EU business and they need a solution. So they’ve seen the opportunity to go into Europe, and now want to access it.”

This is an example of the range of businesses looking to access Brexit-friendly solutions, he said, a range that goes from new businesses, small existing firms who didn’t have the opportunity two years ago and existing firms who have taken on new teams that want to access that portfolio. For some of these businesses, there has been an element of waiting for the furore surrounding Brexit to die down before they elected to choose a solution. But the other aspect, he said, has been the capacities appetite to enter Europe. A lot of capacity providers were hesitant about going into Europe through an entity that they weren’t sure was going to be there for the long term.

They were thinking ‘let’s just hold back’, he said, but now that those capacity providers and other market players are getting back into the City to trade, there’s more of a relaxed attitude. Now carriers are opting to help firms who are looking to add a section to write European business, which is part of the reason why MGAs are now opening that door.

Going forward, Rowley does foresee continued interest in market players looking to enter the European market, particularly because a lot of the UK carriers are building a lot of their portfolios in that open market, direct business.

“So I think that though the DA business and the DA market, instead of growing as it has done over the last two decades, was pretty flat in 2020 and the first half of 2021, it’s now starting to pick up again,” he said. “And I think that activity should flow through into the demand for European access.”

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For the second straight year, Hertfordshire-based vehicle leasing company Vanarama assessed the 100 most common job titles in the UK to find out which professions pay the most on insurance premiums. 

The firm gathered data from the Office of the National Statistics, broadcasting company BBC, and database firm Statista to paint a picture of the average UK driver. What Vanarama came up with is someone who drives a Volkswagen Golf, travels 7,600 miles each year, has comprehensive cover and no previous accident claims to their name.

Here’s the complete profile of Vanarama’s hypothetical average driver.

• Named driver: 39-years old
• Years driving: 15 years
• Vehicle: Volkswagen Golf 1.5L 2020
• Cover level: Comprehensive
• Miles per annum: 7,600
• Voluntary excess: £500
• Day parking: Factory or office car park
• Overnight parking: Locked garage at home

Read more: Top 10 car insurance companies in the UK

The company then entered these details, along with the same birthday and date when the licence was obtained, into the nation’s largest car comparison website changing only the job title. The results revealed how much car insurance premiums are charged for each occupation.

Here are the 10 most expensive and 10 least expensive job titles for car insurance in the UK based on Vanarama’s research.

10 most expensive job titles for car insurance premiums

Almost all professions in the top 10 shot up the rankings from last year. Recruitment consultant topped this year’s list moving from 30th in 2020, with premiums more than doubling to slightly over £815 from about £350. It was designer, however, which experienced the biggest jump from 98th last year to second place in 2021. Premiums for the profession cost on average £776, up from £312.

Social worker and counsellor were tied for third place, with average car insurance costs at about £714. Physiotherapist, midwife, and nurse followed paying about £707 in annual premium. Hairdressers, who dropped from third to eighth, needed to shell out about £506 in premium cost, while senior manager and supervisor rounded out the top 10 paying slightly over £498 in car insurance.

Rank	Job title	2020 ranking	Annual premium
1	Recruitment consultant	30	£815.24
2=	Designer	98	£776.51
3=	Social worker	7	£713.80
3=	Counsellor	14 (tied)	£713.80
5=	Physiotherapist	6	£507.07
5=	Midwife	9	£507.07
5=	Nurse	19	£507.07
8	Hairdresser	2	£505.90
9=	Senior manager	17 (tied)	£498.02
9=	Supervisor	43	£498.02

Source: Vanarama

One additional factor that Vanarama researchers found was that female drivers were being charged about £18 higher (£462.94) than their male counterparts (£444.89), rising from about £15 from last year.

Read more: Revealed: The average cost of car insurance

 10 least expensive job titles for car insurance premiums

At the other end of the spectrum, IT-related professions, which include web developer and software engineer, dropped to the bottom of the rankings after placing in the top 15 in 2020. Average car premiums for these occupations were about £326.

Barrister, personal assistant, secretary, and driver, which experienced the biggest drop, were also among the 10 least expensive professions for car insurance, with annual premiums ranging from £355 to £374.

Rank	Job title	2020 ranking	Annual premium
91	Driver	1	£374.31
92=	Secretary	77	£358.27
92=	Personal assistant	78	£358.27
94	Barrister	49	£355.45
95=	Software developer	13	£326.41
95=	Web designer	14 (tied)	£326.41
95=	Web developer	14 (tied)	£326.41
95=	Software engineer	24	£326.41
95=	Programmer	51	£326.41
95=	Developer	69	£326.41

Source: Vanarama

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Lloyd’s Insurance Company S.A. (LIC or Lloyd’s Europe), the Belgian subsidiary of the Society of Lloyd’s, has appointed Mark Cooper (pictured) as head of LIC’s UK branch.

Subject to regulatory approvals, the appointment is effective on November 01 and will see Cooper replace Keith Stern. The latter, who will continue to focus on his role as regional manager for UK and Ireland, has been the branch manager of LIC UK since 2018 – the year the branch came to life to carry out regulated activities in the UK under Temporary Regime Permission.

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