The Voice of Insurance

Today’s podcast is a really strong conversation with someone in a significant strategic position within the global Facultative reinsurance, Wholesale and Specialty market. That’s because across 26 business lines, with platforms in the US, London and Singapore they run a business that is closing in on $4bn in Gross written premium in 2026. Jason Keen is the CEO of Global Wholesale and Specialty at Everest Insurance and...

There’s a lot of received wisdom in our industry. You know, the sorts of things that we tell each other often enough that we all begin to accept them as true without really questioning the assumptions behind them with rigour. Here are three common ones: you have to have meaningful scale if you want to get involved in Reinsurance, or open up operations in the London Market or the US. This podcast is with the leader of a bus...

Today’s podcast is with someone who has one of the biggest and most important and influential jobs in our industry, yet you wouldn’t necessarily know that if you spoke to him. As the CEO of Hannover Re Clemens Jungsthöfel may be carrying a very large reinsurance stick, but he speaks very softly. He is approachable and someone who inspires trust. You get the feeling you could tell him anything, or come to him with...

Over the past couple of years we’ve been talking a lot about the potential applications of AI in insurance and where in the value chain it is going to make the best impact. But what we haven’t done is follow the logic further and start to look into the medium term consequences for the industry. This is why what follows is so interesting. My conversation with George Beattie (pictured, Left), Head of Innovation and Chri...

This podcast was a really satisfying one to make because it is unrelentingly positive in its outlook and highlights how insurance can underwrite its own sustainable growth by being in the right place at the right time. The promise of Africa is alluring - 54 countries, a vast land mass with huge untapped resources, a young population, growing trade that is now freeing up and massive potential economic development. But it’s no...

Most episodes of this podcast deal with the here and now, the day-to-day cut and thrust of what is going on in the market. This podcast is completely different because it gives us a view into the future of broking. Clyde Bernstein is the Placement Technology & Trading Analytics Leader at Aon and in the first half of this podcast we examine the global broker’s new Digital Placement Exchange (DPX) placing system, designed...

Today’s Episode is one of those interviews that give you a warm feeling of anticipation when you get it in the diary, then when you’re researching and preparing the questions, you’re really looking forward to it, and finally the recording itself session happens and it goes even better than you hoped. Now a couple of weeks later I have just listened back and I’m still smiling because this is something quite ...

Today’s podcast is a rare encounter with someone looking to revolutionise the insurance industry from its core. We are at one of those generational moments when a big tech question is right at the top of the board agenda in almost every industry sector in the world. That question is AI. Insurance is no different. As AI moves from the experimentation phase to the delivery phase, insurance businesses are going to be faced wi...

Today’s guest has a job that is almost unique in the global insurance industry. That’s because his organisation has been formed through a unique exercise that split a standard insurance company into an MGA in charge of underwriting and a balance sheet in charge of allocating capital to risk. All this means that Dan Burrows, Group CEO Pelagos Insurance Capital, is probably the only pure capital allocator in existence. ...

Today’s Episode is a catch-up with two reinsurance brokers back on the podcast after an absence of over two-and-a-half years. That’s long enough for most guests, but for an executive team that has been building out a Reinsurance broking operation in earnest for only a little longer than this podcast has been in existence, it’s an age. Since we last spoke Tim Gardner Global CEO, and Bob Bisset, CEO North America a...

I’m really happy about today’s podcast and that’s because today’s guest is a shining example of a new, very well-prepared generation of leaders that is coming through the ranks in the international insurance sector. With senior roles in the company market and inside Lloyd’s itself Stephanie Ogden was already well-rounded before she took on her current role as the CEO of the Munich Re Syndicate at Lloy...

Everyone who works in the Insurance Industry knows it is a great business. The great cliché is that people fall into the sector via all sorts of roundabout routes and then they stay. They rarely pick the industry as a first choice. But once in there are many amazing benefits that take new entrants by surprise. In the UK the vibrant national and regional professional communities facilitated by a great institutions such as the CII,...

Today’s podcast is a masterclass with an expert in a class of business that has exploded with growth over the past decade. M&A insurance is a broad church that holds a large number of products that are all related to inter-company transactions. Representations and Warranties, potential tax liabilities, litigation risk and other contingencies related to M&A are the subject of this incredibly innovative segment of ins...

It’s been three years since today’s guest has been on the show. In that time the business he runs has doubled in size through a combination of organic growth and targeted acquisitions. Group CEO of Miller Insurance Services, James Hands, is looking for growth at a similar pace for the next three years and this interview is an excellent 360-degree guide to how he plans to achieve his goals. A focus on specialty insuran...

In insurance we usually spend a lot more time talking about innovation than we end up doing it. So this podcast focuses on two of the do-ers putting innovation into practice. It’s now ten years since Hiscox launched its market-first, tech-enabled, live quote and bind FloodPlus product and this Episode examines the story of that product’s development and its growth into a market opportunity that was primed for expansio...

Today’s podcast is one of those conversations that stretched my ability to keep up with my interviewee to the limit. Andrew Johnston is the Global Head of Insurtech at Gallagher Re and has been at the forefront of understanding and chronicling the Insurtech phenomenon since it emerged over ten years ago. Gallagher Re’s quarterly reports on the topic have been required reading over the past decade for anyone wanting to...

In insurance we love to divide ourselves into different mutually-exclusive tribes. Life and non-life, property and casualty, marine and non-marine. Long and short tail Traditional balance sheet reinsurance and Insurance-Linked Securities. And not forgetting - live and legacy. But the fact is that as the global insurance ecosystem becomes more sophisticated there are really only two major differences. Different types of insurance ...

Today’s guest is running a global reinsurer with bold ambitions to double in size over the next five years. Nick Hankin is Managing Director of QBE Re. Now into his fourth decade in insurance and reinsurance, Nick has market experience in abundance, so when, despite the recent relatively rapid softening in the reinsurance market at the most recent renewals, he says he still sees plenty of opportunity for profitable growth, w...

I first met today’s guest just under 34 years ago on my first day at work in the London Market. Back then Alfonso Valera and I worked in the London-based Lloyd’s subsidiary of the biggest broker in Spain. Alfonso was my senior and had already been in post for a year and patiently helped show me the ropes. He spoke perfect English, was a confident, skilful and forceful negotiator who was incredibly passionate about the ...