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Holmes who recently started up his own business, Holmes Compliance Consultancy alongside his wife, after 20 years of doing compliance, risk and governance training for several big insurers and brokers worldwide, has a passion for the regulatory sphere. To date, he has earned over 20 qualifications in the space and now he is looking to utilise these to the benefit of smaller firms who may not be able to afford a compliance officer, or for larger firms who are looking for a fresh set of eyes.

“Having read every single FCA and PRA rule, I can do gap analysis very quickly,” he said. “Most firms don’t read all the rules, but rather a slice of them which is relevant to what they’re looking to target… so it’s a good thing to have somebody come in with this holistic approach. Some firms haven’t got a compliance officer, some firms haven’t got a compliance team – that doesn’t mean they’re not serious about compliance, just that they may not have the resources.”

Read more: FCA’s new rules against general insurance price walking revealed

Holmes Compliance Consultancy has been founded on the premise of providing affordable, bespoke solutions across the broad spectrum of the insurance marketplace and offers a full swathe of regulatory compliance services. Barry and Charlotte Holmes set up the firm as they both relish being challenged, he said, and when COVID hit they wanted to strike out and do something different, having hit every other professional milestone they had set for themselves.

“My wife’s an underwriter, with a lot of experience underwriting so our proposition is that I’ve got the practical and compliance knowledge, and actually she just passed her first compliance qualification, very recently. And she’s also got the underwriting (know-how), so when we hold audits for Lloyd’s coverholders, she can do the underwriting audits as well.”

2021 has been a watershed year for Holmes – in addition to getting married and starting this new venture, he and his wife have moved to Italy to look after an olive grove. Going forward, he said, the ambition is to onboard clients of a range of sizes who need a compliance service, and to work with them to cultivate their success. For its first year, the firm is looking to make a name for itself in changing the narrative of the insurance market about how much of a burden regulation needs to be.

Lately, Holmes said, he’s even been speaking to some appointed representatives who are looking to take the leap of direct authorisation and want to know what it means to achieve that. There’s a lot of misconceptions around what that means, he said, and regarding how expensive it is, but the truth is that it isn’t that expensive, though it does come with more compliance burdens. A lot of compliance services firms are quoting significant figures to help professionals over that barrier which he believes is unfair as, once you understand the forms that need to be filled out, the process is actually very simple.

“Essentially, all you’ve got to do is justify to the FCA that you are competent in your role, and you’ve got the right documents and procedures in place,” he said. “And the FCA has changed the way they process these applications. If on day one, you have submitted everything correctly, and you’re not a complicated business, then you’ll get approved. But then on day one, you know you’ve got everything you need in place because they wouldn’t have approved you without it. And then all you’ve got to do is set up review dates to monitor your procedures and training, etc.”

The focus for year one of Holmes Compliance Consultancy is therefore just to help as many clients as possible and the future is already looking bright, with prospects in the market making themselves known. The beauty of the operational model of the business is that the firm has the flexibility to help a range of people and businesses explore their challenges, solve these challenges and then go about their day-to-day business. Being his own boss is slightly unnerving, Holmes admitted, as it’s very new to him, but he feels buoyed by the range of qualifications that he holds and empowered to help insurance businesses to help themselves.

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Former UK, Ireland, and South Africa (UKISA) financial lines manager Hilda Toh (pictured) is taking on the UKISA property and casualty chief underwriting officer post at Chubb with immediate effect.  

Toh was tapped to succeed Mark Roberts, who recently became division president for UKISA. She brings more than two decades of insurance industry experience to the role, which will see all P&C product line heads in the region report to her.

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The theme of this year’s Dive In Festival is Active Allyship to educate people in positions of privilege on how to be active allies and champions for all.

The festival will cover various topics in different countries. For instance, in Italy, the hosts will cover work-life balance and parenting support. Meanwhile, in Singapore, they will focus on workplace responses to domestic violence. Other topics include:

• generation gap in Nigeria;
• empowerment through inclusive communication in Hong Kong; and
• embracing the power of neurodiversity in the UK.

Speakers and facilitators confirmed so far include UK Member of Parliament Jess Phillips and TV Presenter Anita Kapoor. Attendees will be urged to turn their commitments into actions when supporting underrepresented groups and take responsibility for creating an inclusive workplace.

A host of global festival partners are once again supporting this year’s festival, including AIG, Aon, Arch, Aviva, AXA, AXIS, Chubb, CNA, DLA Piper, Dual, Gallagher, Howden, Kennedys, Liberty Mutual, Lloyd’s, Markel, Marsh & Guy Carpenter, MS Amlin, RenaissanceRe, RMS, Tokio Marine Kiln, Travelers, and Willis Towers Watson.

Commenting on this year’s festival, Jonny Briggs, the group head for talent acquisition & diversity & inclusion at Aviva, said: “The theme of active allyship is more important than ever. The past few years have seen major breakthroughs in diversity and inclusion and have spurred many important conversations.

“But this year’s festival will focus on acting on these conversations and standing up for what is right, allowing us to accelerate the pace of change. After the ground-breaking global success of last year’s virtual Dive In, we look forward to embracing this year’s hybrid format and welcoming attendees from all around the world for a programme of insightful and interesting events.”

This year’s Dive In festival will be held from September 21 to 23. Attendees are urged to participate in the festival’s Active Allyship video and social media campaign, sharing how they show active allyship and what active allyship means to them. The videos will be aired on Dive In social media channels in August.

You can register for Dive In 2021 on the Dive In Festival website. Full details about events and speakers will be available on the website and later to rewatch on the Videoflex platform.

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International insurance group Howden Group Holdings (Howden) has appointed Kelly Lyles as the new independent non-executive director of its board.

Lyles has over 35 years of industry experience and a solid global perspective. She began her career with AIG in New York and then moved to London and Paris, where she held multiple leadership roles with responsibilities across EMEA. She eventually moved to XL Catlin as a member of its group leadership team, responsible for managing the insurer’s presence around the world, a role that she continued when XL merged with AXA.

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International insurance broker Howden has appointed Charlie Connell as its head of entertainment, a newly-created role to boost its Sports & Entertainment practice group.

Connell joins Howden from EC3 Brokers, where he served as the head of contingency and entertainment for four years.

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“COVID-19 stole lives, and its harm to the US and global economy has been catastrophic,” said Greenberg. “We should, in my judgement, take the lessons learned to improve our health response capabilities to future pandemics. We can also lessen the economic blow by building a financial backstop that is triggered when economic activity is disrupted. To this purpose, the insurance industry can play an important role in partnership with the federal government.”

Read next: The challenge of making pandemics insurable

Pandemics are different to other catastrophic events like earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods in that they are not limited to a specific geography or time period. They can affect entire economies and most of the global population at the same time, and their duration is often prolonged and uncertain. We’ve seen that with COVID-19, with many countries now entering into third or fourth waves of the virus and having to reintroduce lockdowns and other strict health and safety measures.

Systemic events, like global pandemics, can result in “losses so great that the event is uninsurable for business interruption coverage by the insurance sector alone,” according to Greenberg. He pointed to his native United States, where COVID-19 related business interruption losses have far exceeded the total capital of the US P&C insurance industry, and stated: “The industry simply does not have the wherewithal to broadly assume such risk. Our balance sheets are finite, and the risk for all intents and purposes is infinite.”

To address the economic damages brought about by COVID-19, governments around the world have enacted assistance programmes, largely to keep businesses afloat as they adhere to mandatory shutdowns.

“While these programmes have been largely successful, their ad hoc nature can lead to inefficiencies, delays, and uncertainties,” Greenberg commented. “There may be a better way forward – a public-private partnership between the insurance industry and the federal government to provide business interruption protection. Combining the insurance industry’s risk insight and experience with the government’s balance sheet provides the foundation for an affordable, efficient liquidity backstop for small businesses, and a market-based programme for larger businesses.

“A public-private partnership would provide greater certainty to businesses so they can keep employees on the payroll and pay their bills. Ultimately, private sector participation will encourage the development of direct and secondary markets, which can reduce the government’s financial burden over time.”  

Read more: Governments must be “insurers of last resort” for pandemic risk

Chubb has proposed a public-private partnership programme that distinguishes between the unique needs of small, medium and large businesses. Through Chubb’s proposition, smaller businesses would have access to “rapid liquidity, providing predictable, efficient and prompt payment,” Greenberg explained, which would require government subsidisation of the premium charge to ensure affordability and participation in the programme.

Larger businesses with greater financial resources would not get subsidisation of premiums under the Chubb plan. Rather, the government would create a reinsurance facility solely to cover business interruption pandemic risk for those entities at an appropriate price.  

“Private insurance companies could write policies at market terms, retain a portion of the risk, then reinsure the rest of the government facility,” said Greenberg. “Our proposed framework builds on these concepts. Depending on the severity of a future pandemic, this may only turn out to be a partial solution. However, it is a robust, fiscally responsible plan.”

Not only has Greenberg called for public-private partnerships to deal with future pandemics, but he has also expressed his thoughts on pandemic management. Using the US as his example, he said: “Shutting an entire economy down for an extended period of time and spending the kind of trillions of dollars we’ve spent as a way of managing pandemic is not a future solution.

“We have to have much better healthcare response early on, and learn from this. Our ability in PPE, our ability with masking early and social distancing, coming to grips with the notion of digitally tracing and isolating – those are ways of restricting the time we need to be shut down, and if we can restrict the time, then we can restrict the overall amount that the economy suffers and the length of time it suffers.

“A public-private partnership solution may not be a total solution in insurance, but it is a more substantial solution than the one where the economy is shut down for 18 months or potentially longer.”  

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Allianz came on top in the non-life segment, with 57,772 million euros of premiums last year. It was followed by AXA with 52,444 million euros, Zurich with 31,153 million euros, Talanx with 27,179 million euros, and Generali with 22,147 million euros.

The rest of the top 15 European insurance companies with sky-high premiums in the non-life segment last year were:

• MAPFRE with 16,110 million euros;
• Ergo with 14,018 million euros;
• Covéa with 12,670 million euros;
• Aviva with 12,071 million euros;
• R+V with 9,608 million euros;
• Groupama with 9,598 million euros;
• RSA with 8,195 million euros;
• Unipol with 8,107 million euros;
• Sampo with 6,242 million euros; and
• Mutua Madrileña with 5,468 million euros.

The report indicated that the life segment took a hit from the COVID-19 pandemic and the low-interest rate environment. As a result, the 15 largest European insurance groups in this segment – headed by Generali, AXA, and Prudential – recorded a decline of -11.0% in premium revenue.

Despite the business impact of the pandemic that led to a 19.8% drop in net result (which fell to 27.86 billion euros), MAPFRE Economics found the sector’s resilience in terms of solvency noteworthy – with 10 of the 15 groups mentioned above having recorded significant improvements in this area by the end of 2020.

European insurers’ main response to the pandemic focused on ensuring the health and safety of their employees while striving for business continuity and meeting their contractual obligations to provide their clients with adequate customer service and advice.

“Lockdowns and social distancing measures have challenged insurers’ business continuity policies, accelerating the digitisation processes already underway and leading to a transformation that now seems unstoppable,” said MAPFRE Economics in the report.

“And let’s not forget the exceptional measures implemented, the mobilisation of resources to dynamise the economy through direct donations to society, and measures to help the policyholders, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed workers. These measures have, in many cases, been supplemented by other support initiatives.”

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However, it did see its operating margin decrease by 50 basis points to 23.3%, largely due to the negative impact of 470 basis points from the repatterning of expenses outlined in the first quarter.

In terms of the terminated Willis Towers Watson deal, it outlined that transaction costs would have been and will be incurred by the company through the third quarter of this year. It also announced that Aon and Alight executed an amended agreement to divest the Aon Retiree Health Exchange, and that the previously announced agreement to sell Aon’s US retirement business had been terminated.

Looking at its individual businesses, its Commercial Risk Solutions unit was up 20% year-on-year to $1,349 million; its Reinsurance Solutions business was up 12% to $500 million; while Retirement Solutions was also up 12% at $440 million. Health Solutions, meanwhile, saw a 19% rise to $307 million.

“In the second quarter, our team delivered 11% organic revenue growth, our strongest growth in over a decade, that translated into 17% growth in earnings per share, and contributed to 13% free cash flow growth for the first half,” said Greg Case, chief executive officer. “These results demonstrate the incredible resilience of our colleagues and the power of Aon United. We are moving forward at an accelerated pace, with a proven leadership team and an enduring strategy. Our ability to innovate on behalf of clients remains unrivalled and continues to translate into significant progress against key financial metrics and shareholder value creation.”

There were no comments issued from Case with regards to the WTW deal as part of the financial results release.

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“We are delighted Eric is joining us,” said Tony Lawrence, chief digital distribution officer at Rokstone. “We are an entrepreneurial, people-led business, and the launch of this exciting new agriculture division is part of our strategy to expand in North America and diversify our specialty product range. Our specialist knowledge, use of technology and approach to underwriting means we can provide broader, more relevant cover that’s quicker to secure than anywhere else.”

“I am really excited to be joining Rokstone – its entrepreneurial DNA and its focus on creating long-term value are inspiring,” Conklin said. “We’re launching this new division at such a pivotal moment in US agriculture underwriting. It is an area that has suffered from lack of innovation, and the hard market has been punishing. We plan to kick off and disrupt the underwriting approach with one of the US market’s first online quote-and-buy facilities. Rokstone has had outstanding success with this approach in the UK, where its agricultural team, iFarm Underwriting, is now the fastest-growing agricultural MGA in the UK. We plan to leverage that expertise and technical capability here in the US, and will be supported by A-rated capacity partners.”

Read next: Rokstone launches new terrorism facility in the US

Rokstone is one of the world’s largest MGAs, with offices in the US, UK, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It currently underwrites $500 million in gross written premium in several specialty lines, including marine, terrorism and political violence, direct and facultative property, treaty property, construction and engineering, liability, and agriculture.

“Rokstone is an entrepreneurial, people-acquisitive business, and the launch of this exciting new line signifies the latest move in our group-wide strategy for considered growth,” Lawrence said. “We now have more than 150 staff group-wide, and our recruitment strategy has shown no sign of slowing down during the global pandemic. Rokstone has a great heritage with some of the market’s strongest underwriters in its specialty lines, and I’m delighted that as a group we continue to appeal to the best talent globally from across the market.”

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Global investment in the insurance technology sector totalled US$7.4 billion in the first half of 2021, setting an all-time high and exceeding full-year investment in 2020 and in all previous years, according to a report by Willis Towers Watson (WTW).

The second quarter saw 162 deals yield more than $4.88 billion in investment, a 210% increase over the same period last year and 89% from the previous quarter, according to WTW’s Quarterly InsurTech Briefing. This was largely driven by 15 mega-rounds of $100 million or more, representing $3.3 billion combined. Most of these funds were raised by later-stage players seeking expansion.

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