Insurance news

In 2020, MetLife became the first US insurer to sign the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles, which have guided the company’s strategies to close gender gaps in the areas of leadership, workplace, marketplace and community. As of the end of 2020, women represented 52% of MetLife’s workforce, 33% of its board of directors, 30% of its executive group, and 42% of its managers.

“As a global insurer and purpose-driven company, we strive to create a more confident and sustainable future for all of our stakeholders,” said Michel Khalaf, president and CEO of MetLife. “Building on our 153-year legacy of creating financial security, we are strengthening our commitments to the environment and climate, equity and inclusivity, health and wellbeing, and economic growth for disadvantaged communities.”

The report also covers the company’s efforts to create positive change in the more than 40 markets where it operates. Highlights from 2020 include:

• Through premium credits and contributions, MetLife and MetLife Foundation gave more than $250 million in relief to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19.
• MetLife and MetLife Investment Management invested more than $659.6 billion in total assets under management for policyholders and clients.
• MetLife Foundation committed an additional $5 million over three years to promote Black educational and career opportunities, Black business ownership, and racial justice initiatives, supplementing the existing $10 million in annual contributions to support racial equity and diverse communities.
• The company also launched EXCELERATE, a talent stewardship program aimed at accelerating midlevel Black and Latino employees into officer-level roles.
• As part of 11 new environmental goals, the company committed to reducing location-based greenhouse gas emissions by an additional 30% between 2019 and 2030 and originating $20 billion in new green investments by 2030.
• MetLife’s operations have been carbon-neutral since 2016 and its green investments currently exceed $28.7 billion.
• The company launched a sustainable financing framework to further align its investment and business priorities and issued a $750 million green funding agreement, which secured the US insurance sector’s first green funding agreement-backed note.

“We believe sustainability must be central to our business strategy and a guiding force behind every aspect of our operations,” said Jon Richter, chief sustainability officer at MetLife. “The full scope of our people, products and services, investments, and community efforts help us serve as a force for good in the world.”

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Bristol-headquartered Castlemead Insurance Brokers Ltd has joined Brokerbility.

“We are delighted to welcome Castlemead to our exclusive group,” said Brokerbility managing director Ian Stutz (pictured). “Them joining continues our clear vision and commitment to supporting independent broking in the UK insurance market.”

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After over three decades with Allianz, Holger Schaefer is making the switch to international insurance broker Howden.

Coming onboard in September, Schaefer will serve as Howden’s chief executive in Germany. His imminent arrival follows recent CEO appointments for Switzerland and Europe. It will also mark Schaefer’s return to his home country, after previously working in Hong Kong, Australia, the US, and the UK.

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According to LV=GI, the two firms were chosen because of their customer-centric approach and values which are aligned with those of the Allianz-owned personal lines insurer. Both are also whiplash reforms-compliant.

Commenting on the tie-up, Minster Law chief executive Shirley Woolham said: “We are delighted and thrilled to be working with such a respected brand as LV=GI. While we provide legal services as a very proud law firm, we are organised as a digital customer service business.

“Having rethought our business through a digital lens, we have achieved the critical balance of technology and human interaction to drive optimal claims processing cost, scalability of service, and excellent customer satisfaction. Delivering against the exacting brand and services standards that our insurer partners rightly expect is essential, and I’m confident that our digital and customer authenticity will transform the end-to-end claims experience for LV=GI customers.”

Lyons Davidson’s camp, meanwhile, is happy to have extended its existing partnership with LV=GI.

“I’m delighted that LV=GI has chosen to renew our relationship for the next five years,” asserted managing director Mark Savill, “and we’ve worked hard to ensure we understand the brand, culture, and values. We strive to provide a high level of customer service and are proud to have delivered a fully interactive online journey for LV=GI customers across a number of products.

“We’ve already had a high level of usage for our online portal by LV=GI customers and great feedback, which has helped us deliver a service that’s fit and ready for the injury reforms and the new OIC (Official Injury Claim) portal.”

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These opportunities have been coming thick and fast for the group, as it recently hit the £41 million GWP mark and is well on track to reach its target of £100 million GWP in five years. This is from a complete standing start, he said, with no debt and no outside investment, and is the result of year-on-year profit from its inception and, while balancing growth with remaining profitable has been no easy feat, it has been a rewarding journey.

“We’ve seen quite a few brokers come and go,” he said. “And we’ve seen a lot of brokers with a lot of financial backing behind them who seem to grow rapidly, and then just make millions upon millions of losses, for a good number of years. For us, our model is completely different, our model is of sustainable growth. And obviously what comes first is profitability, but I think sometimes when you look after profitability and you run a business well, growth naturally comes anyway.”

Rigby started his career in insurance when he left school to work for a local high-street broker which provided him with a solid grounding as his role in the branch allowed him to try his hand at every part of operating the business. After a few years, he moved on to Hill House Hammond before joining Autonet and then setting up a new broker for someone else. After two years of doing that, he decided to use his expertise to create his own business and went into partnership with Paul Dunn to create iRevolution, which has just completed its seventh year of trading.

A few core staples underpin the ethos of the group, Rigby said, including its focus on specific non-standard lines, especially non-standard motor, but also its embracing of marketing and technology. From its inception, the business has been very marketing-led in terms of channelling growth and it has made heavy investments in technology that have particularly paid off during the COVID crisis.

Read more: What’s the key to being successful in insurance broking?

“While we saw a lot of people declining during COVID, we saw a lot of opportunity in it, and it created a lot of opportunity for us,” he said. “We were very well-drilled and well-planned for COVID because we had a senior meeting in January before the first lockdown happened to discuss what was happening.

“We saw it coming from a long way off, so we planned for it and built it into our continuity plans. And because we had embraced technology early on it was quite easy for us to push people into working from home so, when everything actually happened, it was seamless for us and we had people working from home within a day. And because of that, it enabled us to stay quiet, calm and focused.”

This, in turn, has allowed iRevolution to take advantage of new growth sectors and to build on areas in which it already had a solid standing, including courier services and fast-food delivery which both grew rapidly during COVID. For other product lines, it was about stabilising them rather than actively pursuing growth and balancing these two strands allowed the business to stay calm, focus on growth and spot opportunities as and when they arose.

One such opportunity was the recent purchase of a new £1 million headquarters for the group, which will house its Insurance Revolution staff in the heart of Manchester’s Castlefield. It was at least partially due to COVID that the business managed to buy the building, which was initially on the market for £1.6 million.

“I think under normal market circumstances, we wouldn’t have got it for the price we got it for,” he said. “But we were able to move when nobody else seemed able to move and we’ve continued to recruit for the whole of last year when a lot of other people weren’t doing that. And that actually enabled us to bring in some really good people as well, because no-one else was really recruiting.”

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Just five days after Garland passed away, New York City police raided a gay club called the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, NYC, triggering the Stonewall Uprising. The raid sparked six days of riots and violent clashes with law enforcement, and is largely seen as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the US and around the world. 

The convergence of the two events – Garland’s death and the notion of hope inspired by ‘Over the Rainbow’, alongside the violent suppression of freedom in the Stonewall Uprising – inspired openly gay artist and activist Gilbert Baker (1951–2017) to subconsciously couple the rainbow with the gay rights movement.

Read next: D&I plays important role in business resilience

Baker would later go on to create the rainbow flag, which remains to this day a key symbol for the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) community. The original flag contained eight colours (there are many different variations today) which were: Pink – sexuality; Red – life; Orange – healing; Yellow – sunlight; Green – nature; Turquoise – magic & art; Blue – serenity & harmony; Purple – spirit.

You might be thinking: why the history lesson?

Because there’s significance behind the flag, and businesses (insurance organisations included) that mark Pride Month by adding rainbows to their corporate logos would do well to acknowledge that. 

I recently read a post on LinkedIn that described the corporate rainbow movement as “glorified marketing”. It was not an original argument by any means. Terms like “virtue-signalling” and “rainbow-washing” re-emerge every Pride Month, with people accusing companies of slapping rainbows on corporate logos and making statements in support of the LGBTQ+ community without taking any real action.

The message is loud and clear. Just paying lip service to diversity and inclusion (D&I) will meet with backlash. Firms must prove the authenticity of their support for the LGBTQ+ community (and others) through action, advocacy, mentorship, allyship, and by using their powerful corporate reach to influence positive change.

Read more: Embracing diversity at Allianz Australia

And there are many examples of insurance organisations that are doing just that. I’ve spoken to lots of insurers that have launched employee resource groups (ERGs) for the LGBTQ+ community, setting the industry up as a place where everyone is welcome. Others are supporting the community financially through non-profit organisations and by supporting events, and some insurers have even launched queer-inclusive commercials.

Furthermore, more and more insurers are appointing D&I leaders who are setting ambitious strategies and enhancing open communication and education around D&I issues – supporting LGBTQ+ rights being just one of many on the agenda.

Some insurers can hold their heads “way up high” and be proud of the actions they’ve taken to back up their statements of support for the LGBTQ+ community. Others that use the rainbow simply “because it is Pride Month” should reflect on the meaning of the flag and consider what actions they can take to create a more inclusive future for everyone.

Only then, in the words of Dorothy, will “dreams that you dare to dream […] come true.”    

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Read more: Marsh and Aston Lark reveal top tips for remote onboarding

“It has been a tough time for young people,” he said, “especially as the job markets and industries that traditionally employ a lot of younger people at the start of their careers – retail, hospitality, etc. – have been really hard hit. Luckily not so much in financial services, but in other industries when companies hit troubled times, it is often the junior or less-skilled end of the population that gets affected the most.”

To a certain extent, Woodhouse said, insurance, and financial services more widely, seem to have fared better as an industry than many and so they are not coming under the same pressure to make staffing cuts. However, some companies have seen fit to freeze their graduate schemes as they feel it is too difficult to implement these virtually. Meanwhile, Marsh has gone the opposite route. This year, its graduate scheme, which is set to start in September 2021, will take on 65 graduates, up from 50 last year and 40 the year before that.

“When there’s more talent on the market, it’s the time to go recruiting,” he said. “And what I would call the great, forward-thinking companies are actually expanding their early careers and their graduate and youth programmes, because they’re saying ‘right, we need to fund the talent pool for the future’. And the best time to fix a roof is while the sun is shining, not while it’s raining.”

Read more: Marsh Commercial leader on the four key ways to build trust in insurance broking

Marsh has received a record number of graduate applications this year and Woodhouse highlighted that he has seen a broader range of people applying for these opportunities. People tend to see financial services as something of a safe haven in troubled times, he said, and Marsh is not prescriptive on what degrees it accepts, as it’s about the person rather than the qualification.

Another interesting trend he has seen is the rise in people who are interested in a career in financial services opting to explore insurance opportunities. When he first started leading the grad programme at Marsh, Woodhouse saw that most top graduates wanted to become investment bankers. That trend is now shifting as, even in a tough job market, graduates are being more discerning about where they work and more focused on the value set of the organisation they are joining.

“In MMC, we talk about being there for the moments that matter for our colleagues and when I talk to graduates at assessment centres or when they come in, that’s the thing they want to talk about,” he said. “And it’s interesting because, when I started my career, the [main questions] were about ‘where I am going to be working?’ or ‘how much am I going to get paid?’ and now it’s more about what the company does and how that fits into society, about ESG strategies, etc… So the challenge for organisations is to be able to match up to those values-based decisions that graduates are making more and more.”

Read more: Career advice – why choose insurance broking

Insurance is an industry that people are usually pleasantly surprised about when they join it, he said, which is reflected in the retention rates throughout Marsh’s two-year structured graduate and apprenticeship programmes, which run between 95% and 98%. A role in insurance broking means that most of your time is spent thinking about your clients and their businesses, so people tend to find that whether their passion is technology, or cyber, or fine art, they get to explore that and spend their days working within that sphere.  

“I think we’re an industry that has woken up to the fact that we have to grow our own,” he said, “because when I look at the demographics and skill set of the insurance industry, it’s just not where it needs to be. In insurance, we have an obligation and an opportunity to change that demographic and we can only do that by bringing new people through.

“So, in insurance, and definitely at Marsh, we’re becoming less about just going out to hire talent from somewhere when we need it and more about actually developing and growing and keeping that talent. Because that’s how we get our competitive edge. [Of course], there are experienced people around the market that we will go for to fill a particular role but if we don’t grow our own, we’re never going to have the type of diverse organisation we want going forward.”

Speaking from his personal experience, Woodhouse said, he classes himself as incredibly lucky to have ended up in the right role at the right company at the right time, and he is passionate about leading Marsh’s forward-focused talent trajectory. The insurance sector is facing a time of significant change and opportunity and companies have to be prepared to face that.

“If I look back 10, 15 years, we were a very different organisation, with quite a different culture,” he said. “But that coming together of a seismic industry change, an organisation the size of us with the scope and obligation to make that change and the right leadership culture within the organisation do it – those three things have come together at the right time to create a really interesting time to be in this industry and in our company. And it’s not just about us, it’s about the whole of the insurance sector and companies that have got the right culture will thrive in the environment that we’re in.”

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Insurance Ireland has previously stated that the probe was against it alone and not its members, and therefore the maximum fine that could be imposed would be 10% of its own turnover. However, The Irish Independent’s report noted that legal sources who specialise in competition law have agreed that the EU Competition Directorate can fine organisations – if it finds against them – 10% of their worldwide turnover.

The EC had opened its probe into Insurance Ireland’s data-sharing system in May 2019 and its findings follow a two-year investigation after claims about “cartel-like activities” by Irish insurers were credited with keeping competition out of the market. The EC has said that its preliminary view is that Insurance Ireland breached EU antitrust rules by restricting competition in the Irish motor vehicle market.

In a statement, the EC noted: “The European Commission’s preliminary findings show that Insurance Ireland arbitrarily delayed or de facto denied the access of certain insurers and their agents to Insurance Link. Since at least 2009 and until today, access has been linked to membership in the association.”

The EC also highlighted that Insurance Ireland sets the conditions of access to Insurance Link, which is made up of a non-life insurance claims data pool and a data-request facility for claims. The Commission said that Insurance Link assists its users (firms offering motor vehicle insurance) in better assessing risk and in detecting and defending themselves against potential fraud.

“The commission’s preliminary view, outlined in its statement of objections,” the EC said in a statement, “is that lack of access to Insurance Link has the effect of placing companies at a competitive disadvantage on the Irish motor vehicle insurance market in comparison to companies that have access to the database.

“This affects negatively costs, quality of service and pricing. It also acts as a barrier to entry and thus reduces the possibility of more competitive prices and choice of suppliers. Lack of access to the relevant data contained in Insurance Link also has an effect on cross border trade between member states, resulting in the potential partitioning of the single market.”

Executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: “Motor insurance is a significant cost in the budget of every family and business. Access to data is key for insurers to evaluate the risk they take and to offer competitive contract conditions to customers.

“We have concerns that certain insurers and their agents were put at a competitive disadvantage because Insurance Ireland denied or delayed access to its data-sharing system, compiling valuable information on insurance claims. This prevented competitive entry of new players and thus reduced Irish drivers’ choice of motor insurance policies at competitive prices.”

She also highlighted that non-discriminatory access to data sharing systems is important to foster competition in markets relying on data.

In a statement on its website, Insurance Ireland recorded the decision of the EC and said it is important to note that the Statement of Objections sets out the EC’s preliminary views only and was not the European Commission’s final decision. It stated that Insurance Ireland will now have an opportunity to respond to the Statement of Objections over the coming weeks.

“Over the last four years, Insurance Ireland has cooperated with the investigation of the European Commission and we will continue to do so through this stage of the process,” the association said. “We will now assess the points set out by the European Commission and we are confident that we can allay the European Commission’s perceived concerns.

“Insurance Ireland notes the European Commission’s statement states that  ‘Opening a formal antitrust investigation and sending a statement of objections does not prejudge the outcome of the investigations.”

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Positive pricing momentum has driven premium growth in the global reinsurance sector in the first quarter of 2021, according to a new report from Willis Re.

The firm tracked the performance of 17 of the biggest global reinsurers with significant commercial lines or reinsurance operations over the course of Q1 and found that most firms achieved “meaningful premium growth” over the quarter due to momentum from favourable pricing.

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The WOMAD Festival may have to be cancelled this year because of the lack of insurance coverage for the event – and the industry, including one particularly big name, is calling for the government to step in.

Peter Gabriel, the singer-songwriter who co-founded WOMAD, told BBC Radio that the UK government should introduce “something like an insurance scheme, some sort of underwriting scheme,” adding that the organizers would likely have to cancel if there is no government support – especially when the festival had faced bankruptcy on two previous occasions.

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