Insurance news

Insurance Business UK’s fifth annual Rising Stars report, proudly supported by the Insurance Cultural Awareness Network (iCAN), the African-Caribbean Insurance Network (ACIN), the Managing General Agents’ Association (MGAA), the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA), has begun its search for the up-and-coming stars in the insurance profession.

To be eligible, candidates must be aged 35 or under, and currently working in a role that relates to the general insurance industry.

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Read more: National Apprenticeship Week – Insurance apprenticeships

“It’s a bit of a running joke in insurance that nobody everybody leaves school saying, ‘I want to work in insurance’,” she said. “People tend to either fall into it or are guided into it by family members. A downside of this is that, as an industry, it lacks some diversity. Traditionally, it has been quite white and middle class, which is perpetuated by the families involved and by people not really knowing about insurance unless they’re consumers themselves. That’s something the taskforce is really keen to change and modernise.”

Against the backdrop of an ageing demographic and a shifting cultural mindset about the future of work, conversations about different routes into insurance are more critical than ever. Examining the inroads the taskforce has made since it began, Blunt highlighted that changing how people think about insurance and apprenticeships is a work in progress. However, recent developments in the higher education sector and governmental sectors are going some way to further move the dial.

“It used to be that it was when people hit the £28,000 per annum earnings, they would start paying back their student debt, but that has now been reduced to £25,000,” she said. “There’s speculation that a lot of graduates who are coming out of university with significant debt are going to be paying back money for a very long time.

“Particularly since the pandemic, when online teaching wasn’t giving people the university experience, more people are deciding it’s not worth taking the risk of going to university to potentially learn online and then come out with all that debt. They’re thinking, ‘I might as well start working and learning at the same time’. And more organisations are now putting together apprenticeships schemes, particularly for early careers.”

Read more: Insurance apprenticeships – what to look for

Interest in apprenticeship opportunities is being piqued by a variety of factors including the above, and she noted that the level of prestige associated with apprenticeships is also changing, albeit at a measured pace. One of the key findings to come out of the taskforce was that people take great pride in the professional qualifications they obtain via an apprenticeship from the CII. They’re proud to put ‘ACII’ on their email signature, she said, but they don’t put ‘senior insurance professional, ACII’ which is the designation of the apprenticeship.

The taskforce determined that it was necessary to create a cultural change to empower people to feel proud of that designation, and the dedication and hard work it took to achieve. So it worked with a non-profit organisation called Badge Nation, the CII and Zurich’s Jude Pilcher to come up with a digital badge that companies can purchase and download for apprentices to use on their signatures once they’ve passed their exams and their apprenticeship.

“It’s not instant, but by getting more of that out into the sector, and with people seeing that on other people’s email signatures, over time people start to recognise [the designation],” she said. “Where the prestige for the ACII comes from in a lot of places is that people see it on the signatures of the more senior leaders in the business and think, ‘that’s what I want to have’.“

The Davies team are particularly busy around National Apprenticeship Week, she said, and keep active in the media and on social to raise awareness of apprenticeships and the opportunities they offer. Apprenticeships need to change in people’s minds, she said, they’re not just about trades or even just early careers and graduates. An apprenticeship is an opportunity for all existing staff to avail of further professional development.

Read more: UK insurers commit to doubling apprenticeships

“The levy fund is now becoming an organisation’s first choice to fund people development,” she said. “Many employers are saying they have a levy-first rule. If you come to your L&D department and say you want to do a qualification or training, they will look and see if it can be funded by the levy first. And that means that more people are actually doing apprenticeships at different stages in their lives and careers, and making sure that they receive the opportunity to learn with a supportive, long-term, structured approach.”

Different sectors have different specialist providers who are able to do quite prestigious work, she said, and that’s what Davies is aiming to do for insurance. She’d love to get rid of the word ‘apprenticeships’, as it is a word mired in confusion, but seeing as it’s not going away any time soon, the next best thing is to bring the word out into the open – to open up discussions around it and change the slant of those conversations.

“And the more line managers seen to be getting involved in apprenticeships, the more helpful that is,” she said. “Later this year, we’re launching a new apprenticeship programme called Learning Mentor. It’s a learning mentor level three programme, so if I’m a line manager of 10 graduates, while they’re going through their senior insurance apprenticeship, I can be going through my learning mentor apprenticeship.

“That means I’ve got hands-on experience of what it means to be an apprentice, but also that what I’m learning is relevant to supporting [my team’s] learning on that programme. It’s helpful when people see their line managers exemplifying why it’s really important to do this a certain way. So, a lot of top-down leadership is what we need to keep this momentum going.”

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Commenting on his appointment, Swift emphasised the role’s “strong sense of responsibility” amid the transformative movement for the world and the financial services sector.

“I’m proud to be taking on this role on behalf of the Lloyd’s broking community,” he said. “With Brexit receding slowly in our rear-view mirror, COVID’s impact still playing out and the resultant changes in the geopolitical landscape, net-zero, and now Ukraine, brokers are responding to a global economy in a state of flux. During my 32 years in the market, I’ve not known a period during which we’ve seen so many systemic changes interacting and affecting our clients.”

Swift also thanked Dudley for his work during two of the most volatile yet progressive years that the UK insurance industry has known.

“When Richard took over in early 2020, the pandemic’s impact was still to be understood, yet he rose to the challenge, and our members emerge stronger and more closely aligned,” he said.

For the rest of 2022, LIIBA aims to help London’s insurance brokers achieve net-zero carbon emissions amid huge economic and cultural changes in the UK, aligning with the UK government’s goal to make London a global green finance hub.

Swift commented: “While Ukraine presents a set of immediate challenges, we must press ahead with our work on net-zero, having accomplished much in the last two years. The House of Lords inquiry into commercial insurance and the regulation of the London market also remains high on our agenda.”

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Emma Clegg (pictured) has joined Markel Corporation subsidiary Markel International as media and entertainment underwriting assistant.

“I’m pleased to be joining Markel, which has a strong foothold and presence within the media and entertainment sector,” said Clegg, whose credentials include time spent as a broker for film, media, and television at Tysers Insurance Brokers.

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Marsh has announced three senior appointments to its affinity business, international division. Rebecca Bleek has been appointed as affinity leader for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA); Leo Gibbons has been named placement leader for international affinity; and Sam Suen has been appointed business digital strategy leader for international affinity.

Marsh’s affinity business provides insurance products and services that are aligned to clients’ brands, cultures and values and are tailored to customers’, members’, or franchisees’ interests. Marsh’s international division includes Africa, Asia, continental Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, MENA, the Pacific, and the UK and Ireland.

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Dan Maloney (pictured above) MD of Champion Insurance Group and John Jones (pictured below) MD of its specialist division Champion Professional Risks have seen a resulting shift in market conversations which have evolved to increasingly take up an ‘advice over price’ slant. It’s difficult to be all things to all people, Maloney said, but embracing that brings opportunities for brokers to form strong inter-industry partnerships – and to utilise all the expertise available to supply services they might previously have felt uncomfortable offering.

When it launched in April 2020, Champion Professional Risks was founded on that proposition, offering both a retail and wholesale solution to the financial lines and PI market. Jones noted that being a specialist means being driven by the ambition to provide the best solution possible rather than the cheapest, a particularly critical consideration when dealing with such specialist risks.

Since its inception, the brokerage has developed a strong network of quality brokers as part of the Willis Towers Watson Networks, he said, and currently partners with some 30 brokers who regularly refer business to the firm. Jones and his team look to support brokers struggling to place professional indemnity insurance in the market in making those placements but also in guiding them through the presentation process to ensure they approach the market in the right way.

“That means making sure the presentations are correct before they go to market because a lot of insurers have been swamped by inquiries that they can’t read or work out,” he said. “What we’re doing is effectively just helping them along that process… We arrange a Teams call or online call with the client and broker and then go about understanding the risks and getting a better feel for what they do. Then we look through the proposal form and drill down into the question sets to get the right information that we need to get it out to market.”

Essentially, Maloney said, Champion Professional Risks acts as a broker’s in-house PI team to establish tripartite communication channels that make the process easier for brokers and their clients alike.

“What we’ve found traditionally is the Lloyd’s brokers aren’t really interested unless its big-ticket business,” Jones said. “But we’re here at the coalface because of our retail background. From that retail broking point of view, I generally understand what clients are looking for and I can relay that on from that particular point of view to the broker, who can then [utilise my experience] to get the right information from their clients.”

Read more: Pandemic drives personal liability worries among senior management

Maloney highlighted that an integral part of the business’s offering is that the team offer support not just before a broker goes out to market but also afterwards. Its approach to supporting brokers is to empower them to have every kind of conversation with a client, including the sharing of bad news when that’s applicable.

The ethos of Champion Insurance Group as a whole is to move away from the idea of a “postbox” approach to wholesale broking, he said.

“Off the back of that success, we recognised the real demand for specialist service services for insurance brokers, in areas where they might not traditionally be particularly comfortable,” he said. “So, on December 21, we launched another specialist insurance business called Champion Health & Benefits and brought in a specialist [director, Ed Barnes] who has worked in that area for the last eight or nine years.

“He’s coming in as a director to run that side of the business and his remit is to grow the book for private medical insurance, group life assurance (death in service), group income protection and other employee-related benefits… It’s back to that idea of focusing on [areas] where we have real expertise and making that offering available to direct clients but also to our sub-broker panel.”

It has been a busy start to 2022 with the rollout of this new proposition and the unveiling of a new office based in Manchester city centre. Champion Insurance Group will have been trading for 12 years come May, Maloney said, but its growth trajectory is showing no signs of slowing down, in fact, the last five years have been a time of great acceleration for the group.

Between new business divisions, great new hires, and the growth it is seeing in contacts, prospects and its new business pipeline, the future looks bright for the business. Its new office offers the right environment to continue to encourage that growth, Maloney said – and to continue to evolve Champion’s niche proposition of providing support to brokers who are looking to place risks that would once have seemed a world removed from their comfort zone.

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Discussing what ‘Break the Bias’ means to her, Carla McDonald (pictured above), director of product management, claims, at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, highlighted that the theme is a reminder that despite how far the world has come, bias still exists. As such, she said, it is the responsibility of everybody to help change that in any way they can, in order to ensure people are treated fairly, without discrimination and given opportunities to succeed.

For BT’s director of insurance, wealth management and financial services, Alexandra Foster (pictured immediately below), IWD’s 2022 theme means having the confidence and courage to challenge bias and truly support women on their journey.

“Remote working has provided the opportunity for greater female participation within the insurance industry and the industry has excelled at the entry level,” she said, “with equal numbers of men and women coming into the organisation from education, with both formal and informal mentorships playing an important role helping to level the playing field.”

However, Foster said, despite these recent gains, gender parity remains a major issue and organisations must also be confident, courageous and bold themselves to support women coming through the talent pipeline.

Adding to this, Louise Isaacs (pictured below) chief marketing officer at Cigna Europe, said: “[‘Break the Bias’] means consciously being aware of gender inequality, calling it out when you notice it, and making sure action happens to address it. I think too often we settle into the status quo, and make it difficult for women to move ahead.”

Isaacs will be celebrating IWD with an off-site all-day sales leadership conference. It is great to see equal representation for women across the sales leadership team at Cigna, she said, and she plans to open the day by calling out International Women’s Day and asking each member of the sales leadership team what breaking the bias means to them. Cigna will also be doing a series of activities to celebrate the day, including sharing videos on how the leadership team are ‘breaking the bias’.

Meanwhile, at BT, the team will be able to avail of a variety of planned events, from company-wide panels to more informal gatherings, Foster said. Personally, she is looking forward to spending time participating in the smaller group sessions which provide the opportunity to really listen and understand how everybody can help women progress within the organisation.

“LexisNexis Risk Solutions Insurance will be using IWD as a great opportunity to showcase the female talent we have in our business,” McDonald said, “and to demonstrate the great career prospects that exist for women today in data, analytics and technology across the insurance sector.

“All these segments have traditionally been male-dominated, but we hope to show how rapidly gender balance is being achieved.  We’ll be profiling some of our leading women on social media and showing our support for the Break the Bias theme as well as the IWD mission to celebrate digital advancement and champion the women forging innovation through technology.”

As well as offering an opportunity to reflect on the contributions made by women across every strata of society, IWD also serves as a day of contemplation of what the future has to offer and the role everyone can play in achieving that a brighter tomorrow. Looking at what the future holds for talented women working in the insurance ecosystem, Isaacs said she was very excited about the opportunities she sees there.

Read more: Celebrating International Women’s Day with women in insurance

“I continue to hear about an increasing number of women in senior positions at competitors, at clients, and in brokers,” she said. “And, equally important is that up and coming female talent are getting good opportunities and continuing to push the boundaries. I recently joined the insurance industry from the payments industry and have been encouraged to see how both industries equally have senior females in senior positions and give high importance to gender equality.”

If you look at insurtech in particular, Foster added, the number of women playing an active role, including in leadership positions, is high when compared to the fintech industry as a whole. The growing number of women working in finance and technology is an exciting trend to watch.

Lending her thoughts on what the future holds, McDonald noted that even just by looking at the people she is lucky enough to work with – including LexisNexis’s newly appointed senior manager of claims, Kajal Vakas – and those that she has the opportunity to meet from across the industry, it’s difficult not to feel hugely positive about opportunities for women in insurance.

“We have some fantastic role models making big waves in this market and while they are still in the minority compared to their male counterparts they are showing that barriers can be broken in insurance,” she said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to join the industry, with the changes to risk and consumer expectation driving new data-driven innovations. It’s a privilege to play a key part in changing what the face of the insurance market looks like.”

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In the last 20 months the insurer has moved at pace, she said, and she feels it has made “tremendous progress”. Aviva has completed eight disposals and collected £7.6 billion in proceeds, resulting in it becoming a much simpler business with market-leading positions in its core markets of the UK, Ireland and Canada. Its success with disposals has allowed Aviva to rebuild its financial strength and deliver a £4.75 billion total capital return to shareholders (subject to relevant approvals).

As to transforming its performance, Blanc highlighted that Aviva has generated excellent momentum across the board.

“Aviva is growing and growing profitably,” she said. “Savings and retirement net fund flows exceeded £10 billion in 2021 – that’s a record for Aviva. General insurance premiums are at their highest for over a decade at £8.8 billion with a combined ratio of 92.9%. Life insurance sales grew by 23%, driven in part by bulk purchase annuities with a record of £6.2 billion of volumes at robust margins.”

Looking at the success of this strategy date, she emphasised how integral the group’s people have been, and how important it is that they can share in the value they’ve helped create. Therefore, Aviva is giving each of its 22,000 employees £1,000 in Aviva shares to say ‘thank you’. That people piece is a through line connecting many of the items addressed by Aviva in its recent earnings report.

“One key area I would like to highlight is the reduction in our property footprint,” Blanc said. “We’ve already exceeded our original aim of a 30% reduction. And I’m delighted to announce that we will be moving our headquarters to 80 Fenchurch Street over the course of 2023. This will deliver a 47% reduction in our head office footprint, deliver significant cost savings and an improvement in our carbon footprint.”

Blanc strongly believes that Aviva is a better company when it combines the benefits of its people working in the office with the opportunities that come with people being able to work from home. The team has done a lot of research into the subject, she said, and spoken at length with colleagues to determine that, on average, people are coming into the office about three days a week. That’s the aspiration and the team is confident that this balance is right and sustainable.

During the media briefing, Blanc touched on several pressing topics of conversation in the marketplace right now including Ukraine, the recent Corbin & King ruling, rumours of Aviva establishing a Lloyd’s syndicate and the insurer’s plans for the general insurance market. She started the briefing with a reflection on the situation in Ukraine and the human tragedy that is unfolding there, expressing deep sympathy for everybody caught up in the turmoil and her hope for a swift end to the trouble.

Aviva has no operations in Russia or the Ukraine, she said, and has a very minimal exposure to Russia via its Aviva Investors business. That exposure is less than 0.1% of some of its Aviva Investors funds and the group will be divesting of that exposure as soon as it practically can.

On the recent ruling with regards to non-damage denial of access cover in the case of Corbin & King vs AXA, she highlighted that Aviva is not directly involved in the litigation but will be examining the judgement in detail. The expectation is that the outcome of the matter will not have any material impact on Aviva, she said, but she imagines every insurer will be undertaking similar analysis of the situation. 

Concerning the rumours of Aviva establishing a Lloyd’s syndicate, Blanc said: “We look at all of our options to see what distribution opportunities we might or might not be considering. Lloyd’s is a topic we will keep under review, but there’s no final decision that has yet been taken.”

Aviva’s acquisition of Succession Wealth for £385 million is an example of how the insurer is looking to conduct its M&A activity – by seeing where capability gaps exist and bridging those gaps with the right deal. Looking into whether Aviva is open to acquisitions across the general insurance space, she said the group has very strong market positions, particularly across its general insurance business which occupies the number one position in commercial lines and a strong, growing position in the retail market. Any M&A opportunities will therefore centre on further strengthening that offering.

“[As to investment in regional brokers], Adam [Winslow, UK & Ireland GI CEO] has got some really exciting plans to grow in the regional market,” Blanc said. “We’ve already got a really strong position and with our Fast Trade broker platform, I think we’ve seen some really great growth. So, he’s getting on with recruiting regional underwriters… We’re on track to continue to invest, we strongly believe in the importance of the regional broker market and a vast majority of Aviva’s business is intermediated. We want brokers to succeed, and we want to help them succeed.”

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Arch Insurance International (Arch), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arch Capital Group Ltd, has promoted ceded reinsurance senior vice president Krista Bonneau to chief reinsurance and exposure officer, effective immediately.

In her new role, Bonneau will be responsible for developing and managing the ceded reinsurance and exposure management functions across Arch’s portfolio. She will be based in London and will report to Arch president and CEO Hugh Sturgess.

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As a supplier of end-to-end insurance policy management systems to insurance businesses, the team at Ignite Systems (a Verisk business) has seen first-hand how the landmark pricing overhaul has impacted brokers. Speaking with Insurance Business MD Toby MacLachlan (pictured), highlighted that while there are some brokers on the Ignite system who are struggling with the change, the majority of them are doing remarkably well.

“We’ve got two different brokers who’ve seen over a 400% increase in new business this January compared to last January, with February looking fairly similar,” he said. “Those two are price comparison website based brokers and the churn in that market has been extraordinary. This is good for them and I suppose it’s good for the public at large.

“But there are some who, if they haven’t got the pricing strategy quite right, if they’ve got larger renewal books and they’re being too protective of the renewal book, they tend to keep fees relatively high, and they really can’t win any new business at the moment. With some of them, we’ve seen new business at about 30-40% of what their budget was. So, we’ve seen really big swings in the market.”

It’s the market players with big renewal books that falling behind on the new business side of things, MacLachlan said, but what’s been interesting to see is that most businesses now have real-time pricing so that isn’t offering a particular competitive advantage anymore. Looking at the mood of brokers in the market, it’s a mixed bag as those who are doing well are making hay while the sun shines, while those who aren’t are feeling the pinch.

Among the latter, he said, there’s a certain lack of understanding about where it is they’re going wrong and what they could be doing to make it better. The fact is that the brokers who are doing the best right now are the ones who weren’t really affected by the price-walking ban as it wasn’t a practice they’d engaged in before and the insurers they work with didn’t either. Not much has changed for those businesses as they haven’t had to engage in an aggressive new pricing strategy.

Read more: MD on recent acquisition, growth plans and striking major industry partnerships

“I think the regulation from that point of view just works, in that the ones that did do price walking are now the ones casting around to try and work out that sweet spot [for] balancing their new business and renewal rates,” he said. “They’ve not really found it yet and I’m not sure if there necessarily is a sweet spot given their operational model. I think this is one of those occasions where the regulation has really hit its mark.”

For those brokers who are being challenged by the new lay of the land, MacLachlan noted that there are opportunities ahead if they’re willing to seize the impetus to embrace new opportunities for differentiation. Ignite is currently working with some of its partners on initiatives primed to go live in Q2 2022 that are aimed at switching up the traditional ways of thinking about insurance services and instilling a digital-first mentality as standard.

“In both of the cases that I’m thinking of it’s not actually completely different products but rather a newly priced and slightly refined product under a different brand, and with a completely different software system and digital-first mentality – which is geared around new business,” he said. “Something that we often see as a model for brokers taking on new software these days is to do it on a particular product or product line, rather than switch the whole business day one.”

About 40% to 50% of Ignite’s projects with existing brokers are done like that, he said, and it gives those brokers incredible freedom. The important thing to remember is that a lot of these brokers are essentially entrepreneurs. They’re people who either set up the business or have been involved for a long time and they’ve been successful because they got ideas about how to sell their services and how to serve customers well.

“They’ve often got to know systems and processes very well in that time,” he said. “And so starting with a clean slate, with a new system, a new product, and being forced to do so by regulatory change, gives them this incredible lease of life. So, we’re working with a few [brokers] that are struggling to get that price point on these new types of projects which will lift them out of the gloom and give them something exciting to stake their future on.”

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