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“The pandemic brought about a growing demand for digital services which hasn’t lessened, and customers are increasingly – and rightly – dictating the pace of evolution required for our industry,” she said. “This is one of the reasons we soft launched Moja, AXA Retail’s first digital-only brand, earlier this year. Moja is a direct response to customers’ increased requirements for digitally-led and on-demand interactions.

“Developed entirely in-house, which required a massive effort from our teams, Moja has been benchmarked against tech innovators such as Monzo, Klarna and Amazon so that we could deliver a truly seamless, flexible, and simple customer experience. Expect more great things from Moja in 2023.”

For Matthew Edwards (pictured below), consulting actuary at WTW, regulatory reform has played a pivotal role in 2022, especially the thinking and consultation done by HMT and the Bank of England on Solvency II reforms, where – thanks in part to industry lobbying by the ABI, whom WTW supported – the proposed new reforms feel like a “broadly sensible and positive” step forward for insurers.

The return to ‘real not virtual’ people, has been a milestone, he said, with the majority of insurance and consultancy staff back in the office two-three days a week on average. With so many events not done in person since 2019 restarting, a landmark for the team at WTW has been the return to its actuaries’ life and non-life conferences and the WTW Life2022 flagship client event. In addition, 2022 saw WTW open a new office in Edinburgh, in conjunction with nearly 40 hires over the year, including several actuarial apprentices.

The challenges facing insurance in 2022

Foley noted that 2022 was a year of challenge for the insurance profession with uncertainty and constant change buffetting the sector. Coupled with inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, she said, this has caused significant issues for customers which show no sign of relenting. These factors, combined with the FCA pricing reforms and the upcoming Consumer Duty regulations, have placed even more responsibility on insurers to provide customers with the best possible service and products at fair prices.

“AXA’s latest Future Risks Report found that almost half the UK public feel vulnerable in everyday life,” she said. “So, as we all face these challenges, AXA Retail will continue to look at how we can take an active role in supporting and protecting our customers.”

High inflation became a major factor early in 2022, Edwards said, followed by the market tumult of September/October owing to the short-lived Truss policies. Operationally, finding compromise hybrid meeting arrangements that work, rather than meetings which hitherto had been either almost all in person, or entirely virtual. Also operationally, there has been significant resource strain – and there’s been a huge amount of activity across the sector with commercial pressures (e.g. yet more BPA deals) on top of IFRS-17 preparation.

The opportunities  facing insurance in 2022

However, amid these challenges, Edwards said, the year did bring some opportunities for the market.

“The challenge of IFRS-17 implementation was seized on by some insurers to overhaul their financial reporting processes,” he said. “We were particularly pleased to help one multinational insurer move its reporting on to our enterprise-wide automation platform Unify, replacing most of the spreadsheets previously used with a much more robust and manageable interconnected system of workflows and storage.

“We helped another multinational implement a new and extremely useful reporting analysis system, allowing users to drill down into the results across different dimensions to better understand what is driving any changes in the reported results.”

Foley emphasised that despite the challenges faced by the market, the insurance profession is living through a “truly transformational period” which offers a great opportunity to better serve its customers.

“As an industry, we can help bring vibrant growth to the UK economy and benefit wider society in key areas such as the fight against climate change, improving access to insurance and doing more to prevent and protect people from everyday mishaps and accidents,” she said. “There is now a huge opportunity for the industry to revolutionise the services we provide, how we provide them and how we reach people.

“To achieve this, we also need to widen the industry’s talent pool, offer new digitally focused jobs, and upskill our people to ensure the products and services we provide continue to remain relevant for our customers’ evolving needs.”

How the insurance profession fared in 2022

Amid a year of such challenges and opportunities, there were plenty of things the insurance profession did well and other areas that stood out for improvement. Exploring the latter, Foley highlighted how firms across the sector should focus on improving their digital capability in 2023. The last few years have shown just how much we can leverage and incorporate technology and use it to be more innovative for our customers, she said.

“There is plenty to learn from other brands and industries, particularly the tech sector, so insurers should be taking learnings from this space to develop and improve the overall customer experience,” Foley added. “The majority of people use online services in their everyday lives, so they increasingly expect efficient, easy and even enjoyable interactions with the organisations from which they obtain their services and products.

“The insurance industry isn’t quite there yet, but I’m confident that huge strides will be made in 2023 which will not only be great for our customers but will also help lay the foundations for the sector’s continuing success.”

As to what the insurance industry did especially well in 2022, Edwards spotlighted how insurers are now engaging heavily with ESG, with climate being a tangible and large component of that, but with many other areas involved.

“By way of example,” he said, “an IFoA climate working party survey found that all responding participants explicitly cover climate in their risk framework, and explicitly cover it in their ORSAs (albeit that is now compulsory). In a similar vein, the larger insurers are demonstrating increasing care about defining their broader social purpose and contribution to society beyond fulfilling their core insurance offering (which is itself a valuable thing for society).”

From her perspective, Foley said, while the insurance industry has experienced a plethora of challenges in 2022, she believes it has responded well to all of them.

“While there were lots of successes I could call out, one key achievement has been the implementation of the FCA pricing reforms,” she said. “The huge efforts made to meet the deadline earlier this year were worth it, and it has been great to see customers benefitting from more transparency and a level playing field. This in turn has provided them with a better overall experience and gives insurers a greater opportunity to build loyalty for the long term.”

What did 2022 bring for you and your business? Feel free to share your experiences in the comment box below.

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“BAU is fine but how do we then express, learn and stretch ourselves – and how do we get ourselves into the best position to really push on to that next stage?”

That is the question that energises and motivates Michael Williams (pictured), Simply Business’s head of MGA pricing, data and analytics, and his entire MGA team. And so, it holds them in good stead that it’s never a once-and-done question for Simply Business but rather a constantly moving target.

Find out more about the unique range of products and services available from Earnix today

Since joining the team eight years ago, Williams has seen the company go from strength to strength – with the MGA team alone increasing from four to 20 colleagues, while the wider group has increased from fewer than 300 people across two offices to over 1,000 employees across four offices in two countries. It has been a whirlwind journey, he said, and successfully navigating such a phenomenal rate of growth requires considerable strategic planning.

“With the [MGA] team growing at such a pace, we decided to do a strategic review at the tail end of 2017 to find out what we needed to do to be best-in-class, and to enable us to scale, and to have that agility and flexibility piece,” he said. “Having done that, we realised we needed to have a bit more focus around our technical pricing element. Our portfolio management, our underwriting and everything else is best in class, so how can we make sure that our whole MGA [offering] is best-in-class?”

With Simply Business’s technical pricing functionality identified as the key driver to Simply Business reaching that USP, the team entered into discussions with vendors across the market – and quickly zeroed in on Earnix as a potential partner. What stood out about Earnix, Williams said, was not just the solutions on offer but also the partnership-first approach they take to providing those solutions and ensuring they remain relevant and fit-for-purpose.

Earnix both recognised and rose to the challenge of creating a useable, scaleable product for the commercial lines space, given the lack of data that traditionally exists within it, he said. But the Earnix team also went one step further, identifying the governance and audibility considerations that go along with any such solution.

“That’s really key to us,” he said. “Because you have your static methods and manual documentation, but actually having that rigour and that true audit piece, that’s what set this apart as a great all-in-one solution that we could work with. One of the USPs that Earnix brings us is that everything is in one package, you don’t have to bolt-on additional modules.

“With some other vendors in the market, you’ll buy one package to build out your technical model and then you have to buy another module in order to deploy to the market. But it’s all in-house and in one place with Earnix which is beautiful as it gives us one scaleable package that we can deploy to market really quickly.”

Simply Business has not looked back since the partnership began, he said, and has been deploying Earnix’s groundbreaking pricing solution with remarkable success since 2020. The MGA team’s deployment time has come down from months of requiring cross-functional support down to weeks – and in some cases even to a matter of hours.

Williams noted that having that end-to-end ownership of your pricing capabilities and not being reliant on other changes having to go live first is a “complete game-changer”. What’s been especially impactful for him and his team is having this functionality in place during the rapid upheaval of COVID and the ongoing tumult of the inflation spike.

“Inflation has definitely been the challenge for this year,” he said. “We are literally pushing the button with some further changes this week to allow our products to combat inflation but we’re well geared up for the inflationary challenges just due to how much work we did over the COVID period because we deployed and went live at the beginning of the pandemic.

“[It’s interesting] building models where you’re trying to predict customer behaviour and their tendency to buy at different price points because the understanding of customer behaviour essentially goes the window when you have a pandemic thrown into the mix! So, we’ve had that journey from how often we thought we’d have to optimise to how often we ended up having to optimise in order to react to changes in the market and government announcements.”

Simply Business has a substantial ‘high street book’, he said, which was especially impacted by the constant COVID-related shutdowns and as such, demanded great proactivity from insurance pricing to navigate rapidly shifting consumer demand. Being able to be so proactive, and to build such advanced predictive models and track consumer demand and behaviour has been integral to the company’s continued success.

“It has been a fun, but challenging time and a massive learning curve at the same time,” he said. “Because there was so much happening all at once across all of the market, it was all hands on deck. And that tooling allowed us to react to that market and come out of it in a really good position.

“We were one of the few insurers that were actually able to really grow in that space. Naturally, it was not at the rate we would have liked to but our books weren’t as severely impacted as some of the market has been. And it was great to be in a position to come out of that go into the [post-COVID] period and kick on from there.”

Working with a partner so keen to both shape and support your ambitious growth trajectory has been critical to the success of Simply Business in the last few years, Williams said, and has allowed the insurance businesss to really zero in on its core value proposition – that of delivering a valuable product to the customer. With Earnix’s proactive, predictive model capability strength behind it, Simply Business is well-placed to truly tailor prices to its customers based on their unique risk profiles, a proposition that is translating extremely well across the insurance ecosystem.

“What we’re able to do is be really fair to our customers and make sure we’re targeting the right cohorts of customers so they get the unique offering that they deserve,” he said. “One of our mantras at Simply Business is that we appreciate that every small business is different. And trying to provide cover to so many different businesses online is really a challenge but we’re here to make sure we can do that and provide an accurate price for that risk.

“And Earnix have been instrumental in working with us on that… It has been a long process but it has been a pleasurable experience…. They definitely push along to that next avenue and that next stage, and they’re always keen for us to test new solutions that they’re bringing to the market and we’re always happy to embrace that as well. I have nothing but good things to say about the partnership. And for anyone who tries to get me to move to another platform, I’m afraid I’ll have to humbly decline.”

Find out more about the unique range of products and services available from Earnix today.

Michael Williams joined Simply Business eight years ago. He now serves as the firm’s head of MGA pricing, data and analytics.

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Equine and bloodstock insurance broker Lycetts will continue to back British National Hunt jockey Charlie Deutsch (pictured with Pink Legend), renewing its sponsorship which goes back to 2017.

“I’m delighted not only by Lycetts’ continued support, but by its longstanding dedication to the world of racing, especially during these challenging times,” said the Gloucestershire-based hockey, who achieved his first Grade One win at Sandown in February.

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As mentioned by Barnes, “cynical” is a word that’s been used to describe the recent development in the ongoing CII-PFS rift. Past presidents Sarah Lord and Garry Hale both chose this descriptor.

On LinkedIn, Lord – who is co-opted to attend and speak at PFS meetings until next year’s annual general meeting – also wrote: “As immediate past president, I strongly refute the allegations made by the CII.”

As previously reported, the CII had cited “serious and significant governance failures” at PFS, as well as a failed independent mediation between the two camps.

Meanwhile, Insurance Business can reveal that there’s a sign-up page asking PFS members to “act now to stop the CII coup” and make their voice heard.

It’s unclear who specifically set up the page, which displays a message asserting that the CII needs PFS members more than PFS members need the CII.

“The PFS is responsible for the vast majority of CII ‘group’ revenues, and all of the surplus,” reads the message. “When exam fees are included, we estimate this to be over 60% of group revenue. There is £19 million of surplus revenue, which was paid by, and belongs to, the PFS membership.”

Part of it, referring to the board appointments, also says: “Make it clear that the membership is deeply unhappy with this move.”

On the other side of the fence, new CII communications director Christopher Shadforth defended the wider body by posting a list of supposed myths and misperceptions surrounding the relationship between the CII and the PFS.

Shadforth, who came onboard in October, stated that it’s a myth that the CII has bullied its way on to the board of its subsidiary.

“The PFS Articles of Association establish that the PFS board should include institute directors, and there are provisions for the CII Group to appoint the majority of PFS board members,” he declared. “That is the mechanism that the CII Group board has needed to utilise, given the serious governance failings that have been observed.”

As of this writing, the said governance failings have yet to be outlined publicly.

Shadforth also denied the move as being a “cash grab,” while making a direct pronouncement that “there is no plan whatsoever” to deregister the PFS.

Meanwhile, it’s been reported that an emergency PFS board meeting failed to take place on Thursday due to a lack of attendees from the institute directors’ roster. All member directors, including Barnes, were present.

PFS member Anthony Villis, managing director of First Wealth, said “we have a right to be angry” on LinkedIn.

What are your thoughts on this? Share in the comments below.

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Howden Group business UKGlobal Leeds has acquired Logic Insurance Services for an undisclosed sum.

“We look forward to welcoming Craig Dinnewell and his clients into the business from January 3, 2023, and want to extend our thanks and gratitude to the people in both teams who helped make this happen,” said the expanded brokerage.

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Lonmar Global Risks, dba Ropner Insurance Service, has named John Naughton (pictured) as executive director, as part of its marine cargo team.

According to a release, Naughton’s appointment will help drive growth plans for its marine cargo team, particularly when it comes to freight and logistics. Naughton, who joins from Gallagher, will report to Lonmar managing director of cargo Simon Wilson.

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International insurance brokerage Howden has agreed to acquire Assimovie, a TV, film and advertising insurance broker based in Italy.

According to Howden, the transaction is part of its commitment to invest in expertise by creating a sport and entertainment specialty for the benefit of Italian clients. The deal will also give it one of the largest TV and film production books of business in Italy, with a goal of becoming a leading sport and entertainment broker in Europe.

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QBE Asia has announced that its P&I operations in Singapore will take on the name of British Marine, beginning Jan. 1.

The move brings back the British Marine brand in Singapore, after QBE acquired the company in 2005. Founded in 1876, British Marine is one of the largest fixed P&I insurance providers, specialising in marine insurance for owners of small, medium-sized and specialist vessels.

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The tribunal found that Olivier Argence-Lafon, a former ARK senior underwriter, had been unfairly dismissed under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act, but it did not have jurisdiction on one allegation relating to protected disclosures, and a claim under section 103A of the act failed. The tribunal also said it was not “well founded” that protected disclosures by the claimant had led to him being put on a performance review plan.

Claim concerns

Argence-Lafon, a senior underwriter with 17 years’ experience who joined ARK in 2018 when the business acquired part of PartnerRe’s marine and energy portfolio, had raised concerns about Italian oil company ENI and joint venture partner Essar E&P’s 2019 Ken Bau claim relating to an “underground blowout” when drilling a Vietnamese offshore well, according to a tribunal document.

Argence-Lafon raised concerns following a loss adjuster report that found the $63.7 million claim was covered and the acceptance of the claim by its insurers, of which ARK was one. He continued to raise doubts despite a second independent loss adjuster’s assessment that corroborated the initial report’s findings.

“Based on the information provided, I am convinced this is not a valid claim,” Argence-Lafon said in a September 2020 internal email.

Performance targets

That November, the claimant was set nine personal objectives and “expressed reservations” about three of them, according to a tribunal document. At the time, the team had underwritten a total of 283 risks, with another senior underwriter on the team having underwritten 203 of these, and the claimant having underwritten 22, “which was lower than the risks” underwritten by junior underwriting colleagues, the tribunal document said.

A series of performance related meetings took place between the claimant and his manager, at which Argence-Lafon disputed the “appropriateness” of his objectives but ultimately grudgingly accepted them, according to the tribunal judgment.

In an April 2021 meeting with ARK group CEO Ian Beaton that followed these, Argence-Lafon again raised concerns about the Ken Bau claim, as well as alleging that “negative competition and ego were at play” in the team, the tribunal document said.

A “complex” claim

ARK carried out an investigation into the ENI and Essar E&P claim that month, under Beaton’s instruction, and reviewed some 300 pages of documents. It concluded that there was “no evidence to support the claimant’s allegation that the ENI claim was fraudulent and no merit to the claimant’s view that there had not been an underground blowout”, according to the tribunal document.

“This is clearly a highly technical and complex claim,” the report said.

“Whilst there must be an element of subjectivity over the exact quantum and indeed the cause of the claim, based on preliminary investigation, there is little evidence to substantiate even a suspicion of fraud.”

The claimant continued to raise concerns around the energy claim’s validity, and in May 2021 submitted a report entitled “Why I consider the ENI Ken Bau loss is fraudulent”. He also continued to allege that three of nine of his performance objectives were not “realistic or achievable”. This is according to the tribunal document.

On May 6, the claimant was offered a settlement agreement that would see him exit the business, with salary to be paid until the end of the year, according to the document.

In a letter that followed in June appealing a grievance process, the claimant’s solicitors alleged: “In both cases our client believes that employees of Ark […] have deliberately ignored the ENI claim fraud and/or been complicit in it.”

“Our client has clearly stated that he believes that EB and PD set unreasonable objectives and created unjustified concerns about our client’s performance because of his protected disclosures about the ENI claim fraud,” the letter further alleged.

In August, the claimant was terminated, with the business having concluded there had been a breakdown of “trust” in the team and that his objectives had been appropriate for a senior underwriter.

Unfair dismissal

The tribunal ruled that while Argence-Lafon had made protected disclosures, this had “played no part” in the targets that the claimant was set, nor had later disclosures that were not protected led to him being put on performance review.

However, it did find that he had been unfairly dismissed.

Over 2.5 years at the business, “he had not had regular appraisals, he had not been set personal objectives, it had not been made clear to him what targets he was expected to achieve, it had not been drawn to his attention that what he was achieving in terms of risk and submission count and premium income was significantly below what was expected,” the tribunal said.

Under the 2020 targets, he had been expected to double monthly premium income and boost submission and risk count by 7.5 times and 5.5 times, according to the document.

“The respondent failed to conduct such investigation as was reasonable and, had it done so, it might have come to a different conclusion,” the tribunal said.

ARK also did not give advance notice that a “breakdown of trust and confidence” would be considered at the dismissal hearing, according to the document.

“For the reasons given above, we concluded that the dismissal was unfair,” the tribunal said in its December judgment.

Argence-Lafon and ENI were contacted for comment.

ARK declined to comment. The business had said it would look to reduce any compensation due in an application to the court “on the grounds that the claimant’s conduct had contributed to his dismissal and because of subsequently discovered misconduct”, according to the tribunal document.

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AXIS highlighted that under Benchimol’s guidance, the firm has led a multi-year transformation program, repositioning the company as a leader in specialty underwriting. Commenting on his tenure, Henry Smith, chair of the AXIS board of directors, said the firm is indebted to Benchimol for his leadership.

“Under Albert’s direction, AXIS has had a remarkable transformation, refocusing itself as a specialty leader while building a balanced and resilient portfolio and placing the company on a pathway for lasting profitable growth,” Smith said. “Albert has also been a great culture leader, growing a workplace environment that is both performance and people-oriented, and under his guidance, AXIS has become a best place to work in the industry.

“Underpinning all of this is a customer-service mindset that permeates every aspect of the company’s operations, resulting in strong and enduring bonds with brokers and customers – a testament to Albert’s legacy.”

In a Press release, Benchimol said that serving as president and CEO of AXIS has been “the most fulfilling and rewarding experience” of his professional career. He said he was grateful to his fellow colleagues, both past and present, for their support, commitment, and dedication, and “incredibly proud” of what they’ve accomplished together.

“Even with all the progress that’s been achieved, I believe AXIS has only begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible,” he said. “I have enormous confidence in Vince and his leadership, and I have comfort knowing that I am leaving the company in very strong hands.”

Smith stated that AXIS was very excited to announce Tizzio’s appointment as the future president and CEO. During his first year with the company, Tizzio had made an impressive impact, he said, challenging AXIS to build on its progress and identifying new avenues to grow the business.

“In addition,” he said, “Vince is an energising and committed people leader who will continue to help our team and company unlock their significant potential.”

Tizzio said it was both a “privilege and an honour” to succeed Benchimol as president and CEO of AXIS and to have an opportunity to build on the great work that he and the team had done.

“My experiences in my first year at AXIS only further intensified my belief that there’s tremendous opportunity to further profitably grow the business and deliver even greater value to our employees, shareholders, and customers,” he said. “Moreover, in today’s market environment where brokers and insureds are looking for specialised insurance and risk solutions, we were literally built for this moment.”

“Vince is deeply committed to our strategy of advancing AXIS as a leader in specialty,” added Benchimol. “In a short period of time, he’s made an enormous positive impact, mobilising the team to even further elevate our ambitions, leverage our extensive market knowledge and relationships, while delivering added value to our customers and the market.”

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