The Voice of Insurance

Epizode

• Ep304 Andrew Johnston Gallagher Re: AI will come to its own rescue 02.06.2026 35min

  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 understand the intersection between insurance and technology. In that period Digital disruption, Blockchain, Parametric and Embedded insurance are themes that have come to the fore. Now AI is the dominant force, so much so that Insurtech and AI are now effectively synonymous. Gallagher Re’s latest quarterly Insurtech report is one of the best pieces of research into AI and insurance that I have read. It goes way beyond AI-related Insurtech investment opportunities and digs right into the profound risk implications of AI as an emerging casualty peril in its own right.Andrew is a dream guest, incredibly sharp, bright and fun to spend time with. He’s that rare kind of person who makes you feel more intelligent for having spent time chatting to them.Listening back there are points in the conversation where whole new avenues of questioning were opening up that I failed to explore. But that’s the mark of a strong interview. It always leaves you wanting more. It’s a bit like when you wake up the morning after a big debate or argument with terrible pangs of regret that you failed to ask the killer question in the heat of the moment. The developments in AI are moving so fast that I feel certain it won’t be long before I have Andrew back on the show to help put everything into context for us. But until then this is the next best thing.NOTES:I highly recommend you download the latest Gallagher Re Insurtech report here: https://www.ajg.com/gallagherre/news-and-insights/global-insurtech-report-for-q1-2026/LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep303 Will Bridger Compre: Beyond traditional Legacy 26.05.2026 47min

  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 skills and different types of insurance capital. Legacy is a case in point. It has long since outgrown its claims administration roots and developed into the provision of increasingly complex forms of capital relief for the live market that are bringing it closer and closer to live risk.Today’s guest is the embodiment of that change. Will Bridger came into the legacy insurance world through investment banking, not claims handling. As Group CEO of Compre he has overseen extraordinary growth with a balance sheet that has moved from the tens of millions to the low-single-digit billions.If you think you already know legacy, you need to listen to Will. For example, Compre’s current plans envisage only one third of group activity coming from what we would think of as traditional run-off. So where are the other two thirds going to come from? Ever closer relationships with live carriers that bring more predictable renewal-style income streams, underwriting sidecars and pre-packaged legacy arrangements with alternative capital providers are all part of the mix. This is a fascinating conversation with someone who has developed into an insurance person as dyed-in-the-wool and baked into the insurance ecosystem as the best of us.Will is fun to spend time with and a great communicator. Forty minutes with him and your whole perspective about the legacy market, where it is heading and the value it might be adding to the global insurance whole will change completely.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep302 Nick Hankin QBE Re: Avoiding surprises 19.05.2026 34min

  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, we should sit up and take notice.This is a podcast full of purpose and positivity. Nick has a clear plan that he wants to execute and makes a convincing case that his ambitions are eminently achievable. On the way we cover all the major issues of the day including the insurance and reinsurance opportunities arising from the data centre boom, the best use-cases for AI as well as the emergence of AI as a new casualty peril in its own right. Nick is good company and a great communicator with a clear vision. The next half an hour will fly by.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep301 Alfonso Valera: Everyone is chasing growth 12.05.2026 40min

  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 insurance business and was always fun, direct and easy to deal with. He was mature beyond his years and was a natural leader. It seemed obvious to anyone who knew him back then that he was destined for great things.That broking business was taken over by Aon in the late nineties. Alfonso stayed on and over 25 years later he is now CEO of International at Aon Reinsurance Solutions. International covers the whole of the Rest of the World other than the Americas, and Aon is the largest reinsurance broker by revenues, so however you measure it Alfonso has one of the biggest jobs in global reinsurance.His job titles and seniority might have changed since we first met, but I can guarantee that he is exactly the same person I knew when I was fresh out of University.  He is still disarmingly direct and straightforward and he is still passionate about the business, but now he is speaking from a vantage point that few in the global insurance market can reach.Alfonso is still great fun to talk to and this conversation took on a life of its own. Whether it’s the state of the market and changes in buyer and seller appetites, facilitisation in reinsurance, the prospects for M&A, the MGA phenomenon, enhanced competition between reinsurance intermediaries or the changes that AI is likely to bring, Alfonso gives me a straight answer every time and we barely pause for breath. Catching up with Alfonso was a joy from start to finish. Listen on and you’ll be bound to agree.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep300 Patrick Tiernan CEO Lloyd's: "Why Not Lloyd's?" 05.05.2026 56min

  Patrick Tiernan has come into the CEO role at Lloyd’s with the market brimming with confidence after a third successive year of strong profitability. Now that competitive forces are reasserting themselves with renewed vigour, the question is what next? From this meeting the future at Lloyd’s is one full of increased velocity and innovation in all things. New leadership, new forms of underwriting, new targets and ambition, new risks, new ways to transact business, new skills and attitudes from the people who work in the market and new capital structures to bear the financial load. Recorded live in the centre of the Underwriting room by the Rostrum on a busy working day this is an energetic encounter from start to finish. If you want to get a clear feel for the charismatic new Lloyd’s CEO’s strategy and modus operandi, this will get you up to speed in no time.Patrick is easy to talk to and is disarmingly frank. From my experiences of doorstepping him whenever I have had the chance over the past five years, I can promise you that we would have had the same conversation whether or not the microphones had been turned on. What you see is what you get. So listen on for an audio roadmap for the market of the next five years and beyond.NOTES: The Sean Patrick Refers to is of course Sean McGovern, Lloyds Council member, CEO of UK and Lloyd’s at AXA XL and current Chair of the LMA.ICX and TCX are respectively the special Innovation and Energy Transition risk codes used to account for novel premium transacted in the Lloyd’s market.LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep299 Dan Topping CEO B.P. Marsh: Small begets Big, Big begets Small 28.04.2026 38min

  The great cliché about our sector is that while business trends come and go – it’s the people who remain the constant. Today’s guest is someone whose business follows this philosophy to the letter. Dan Topping is the CEO of London-focused, publicly-listed private equity firm B.P. Marsh with just under 20 years in the business. The firm he leads is a household name in the London Market with a 30-year often idiosyncratic pedigree backing entrepreneurs in the intermediary segment. Countless brokers and MGAs, including Howden and Nexus have benefitted from the investment and counsel from this singular institution. Given the highly-focused nature of what B.P. Marsh does, Dan and his colleagues will have seen almost every early-stage investment opportunity in the London market of the last 20 years. That gives a kaleidoscopic perspective and that knowledge and understanding seeps through every pore of Dan’s being. The prime job of a podcast like this is to help tease out specialist knowledge accumulated in the market and share it with you the listener.I have known Dan for almost all of his time at the firm and that made this interview really relaxed and much more revealing than most. If there ever were any trade secrets about what has driven the compound growth of this impressive highly-focused business, they won’t be secrets after this podcast. If you want to know what makes entrepreneurialism in the specialty insurance sector tick, this is the place to come. Together we’ll examine some of the surprising trends Dan is seeing in what many would view as an ultra-consolidated intermediary segment. Dan is as eloquent and relaxed as he is knowledgeable and the time will fly by.And perhaps you too will be inspired and emboldened to dare strike out on your own entrepreneurial journey.Clichés come about because by and large they are expressing an underlying universal truth. A quick listen and I think you’ll agree that Dan is living proof that it really is the people that make the market what it is. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep298 Tessa Wardle QBE Portfolio Solutions: Indexing the Market 21.04.2026 32min

  The growth of the portfolio solutions segment of the market has been one of the most exciting and interesting developments in global insurance in the past five years. The streamlining of placements in syndicated insurance markets is producing scale, speed efficiency and cost benefits for underwriters, brokers and their clients alike. And this is a phenomenon that is really only just getting into its stride. Billions of dollars of premium are now being transacted this way as brokers look to facilitise significant percentages of their placements while consortia and other underwriting pooling arrangements proliferate.As Director of QBE Portfolio Solutions, Tessa Wardle runs one of the lead markets for this pioneering form of delegated authority underwriting and collectively her small team underwrite on a scale that in premium terms is many multiples of that achieved by conventional market underwriters.In this podcast we look at where this phenomenon is likely to be heading, as well as delving into the core mechanics of just how business of such a high volume is transacted in practice. What are the core skills of a portfolio solutions underwriter and how do they differ from conventional underwriting practice? And what are the principle levers and controls that senior executives like Tessa have at their disposal to keep these huge contracts on track?It’s a fascinating world that is in many ways revolutionary, but in many others reassuringly familiar. Tessa is an excellent guest and one of the best qualified people to guide us through this huge change in global insurance business flows and give us an idea of where the trend will be heading as it matures. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep297 Scott Egan CEO SiriusPoint: If you fall asleep, you go backwards 14.04.2026 45min

  Todays’ podcast with Scott Egan is a tour de force. I think there are various reasons for that. The first is that whereas when we first spoke in 2023, Scott was relatively new in the CEO role at SiriusPoint and his strategy hadn’t had time to bed in and take full effect, now we were speaking after a year when the business had posted another set of consistently strong results and any talk of a turnaround was clearly a question belonging to the past. Secondly this was now the third time that Scott has been on the podcast and his confidence and comfort in doing this kind of thing has grown, but third and most importantly - this is a podcast that is completely forward-looking and optimistic in tone. Because SiriusPoint has rebuilt credibility and has demonstrated an ability to grow profitably it now has more strategic options at its disposal than it did three years ago. What makes this such an engaging interview is the chance it provides to examine those strategic choices, particularly now that the market environment is becoming more challenging and competitive.Listening back it is Scott’s confidence and clarity of purpose that shine through in this encounter and that’s why I can highly recommend a listen for anyone looking for a route map though this transitioning market.NOTES: I let one acronym through.PYD is Prior-Year Development.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep296 Ivan Gonzalez CEO Swiss Re Corporate Solutions: Our strategic priority is to lead 07.04.2026 45min

  Today’s guest is the CEO of an $8bn GWP global insurance business. Ivan Gonzalez has spent 25 years travelling the world within the Swiss Re organisation, from his native Colombia to New York and China. He now runs Swiss Re Corporate Solutions. After undergoing a turnaround process a few years ago this is an organisation that has regained its strategic direction and confidence and is now posting combined ratios in the 80s. So it is from a position of strategic strength that this conversation developed. Ivan is an excellent guest because his passion for the role shines through and won’t allow him to mince his words. He is demonstrative and you quickly understand where he stands on any given issue. Given Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ global capabilities and market relevance, that means we could have long and very detailed discussions on all the key market issues of the day. As such, the Corporate Solutions strategy, the opportunities arising from the global data centre boom, the application of AI in insurance and AI as a newly emerging peril, as well as the growth in MGAs all get the same unambiguous treatment. Ivan is a strong and charismatic leader who is fun to talk to. He is a dream guest and this makes for a highly recommended listen for anyone looking for clues on how to navigate a global market now clearly entering a softening phase.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep295 Richard Milner CEO Chaucer Group: Let's do what we're good at 31.03.2026 31min

  Today’s guest is Richard Milner, CEO of Chaucer Group. Chaucer is a global specialty insurance and reinsurance institution with a great pedigree and significant scale, both inside and outside the Lloyd’s market. Richard is coming up for two years in post as CEO and is beginning to make his mark on the business’s long-term strategy. Richard has had the sort of underwriting career that makes him a very relatable guest. He worked his way up from photocopying slips at a Lloyd’s box to travelling the insurance world. Now he’s in senior management he’s easy to talk to because he’s still unambiguously an underwriter to his core. As a result this interview is really down-to-earth and practical in focus. In it Richard lays out his five-year plan for Chaucer and we dissect the issues of the day in great detail and variety, ranging from how rates and business flows are holding up in a more competitive market, to an assessment of AI as a new emerging peril and potential new line of business.Richard is great company and I can highly recommend a listen. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep294 Sean McGovern LMA Chair: Building the market of the Future 24.03.2026 47min

  Today’s guest is one of the best qualified people in the London Market. In a thirty-year career he has been a senior executive right at the top of Lloyd’s and has either chaired or sat on the board of almost all the institutions that underpin the market and represent it to the outside world. Today Sean McGovern is the CEO of UK & Lloyd’s at AXA XL and has just taken over the Chairmanship of the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA), the trade body that represents corporate capital in Lloyd’s. Sean will speak for both organisations at varying times in our chat today. The timing couldn’t be better.In recent years the LMA has really set the agenda on some of the most strategic developments in the way that underwriting takes place in the subscription market and this discussion goes right to heart of how a future Lloyd’s will underwrite, how business will be brokered and how capital and new talent will access the market. I have been interviewing Sean for twenty years and he has a great skill in communicating in a really eloquent, but also very direct and concise way. He is very good at speaking plainly and making complicated ideas easy to understand. Today’s podcast is no different and this is one of the most broad-reaching and enlightened conversations I have had with anyone since founding the podcast over six years ago. As Lloyd’s embarks on a fresh five-year strategic plan this is a great primer on what all the issues are, where the opportunities lie, and what strategic decisions have to be taken for the market to continue to prosper.NOTES: The latest LMA report is on Lead and Follow. I can highly recommend a read: https://lmalloyds.com/campaigns/lead-and-follow-in-the-lloyds-and-london-market-beyond-the-binary/And if you haven’t already read the LMA’s seminal publication on Enhanced Underwriting you can access it hereLINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep293 Mark Christer CEO Wakam UK: Fixated on Velocity 17.03.2026 44min

  As regular listeners will know, the Voice of Insurance usually interviews people from the global wholesale, speciality insurance and reinsurance end of the market, insuring the type of risks that tend to have to cross borders to find the right type of coverage. Today’s podcast is a slight departure from the norm because I am talking to someone who is working in the general insurance space in the UK. But they are doing so from a wholly original wholesale and tech-enabled angle that also incorporates one of the hot trends of the past few years – embedded insurance.Mark Christer is CEO of Wakam UK, a firm that uses the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) and MGA models to go to market in niche lines of business where it can stay under the radar of the volume and scale players in the UK’s hyper-competitive market. Wakam UK is the UK subsidiary of the rebranded French insurance group which can boast an illustrious 200-year history as France’s oldest private insurer, La Parisienne.Mark came into insurance because of his work in IT and has enormous experience in the UK market He is the former managing director of personal lines for RSA in the UK, where he looked after the high-profile digital brand More Than.Given Mark’s background it is perhaps unsurprising that Wakam UK is aiming to bring technology, including AI, to speed up the insurance process and go live with new prospects within weeks rather than months. Wakam UK already had reasonable scale in its legacy form, but in its new tech-first guise seems likely to achieve substantial growth. I think regular listeners will learn a lot from Mark and find a lot in common with him. In a world of hype, here is someone with all the experience and knowledge to make the promise become reality.His enthusiasm and positive energy is infectious, so I can highly recommend a listen.LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep292 Miguel Rosa CEO Mapfre Re: Write the Client 10.03.2026 39min

  Today’s podcast is with the CEO of a reinsurer that wrote just under $8 billion dollars of Gross premiums in 2025. Miguel Rosa runs Mapfre Re, a Global Top-20 reinsurer with a reputation for long-term strategic thinking and consistency in an often unstable market. As the reinsurance market softens, at a significantly faster rate than many reinsurers were expecting, it is fascinating to hear Miguel’s view on the prospects for profitable growth in 2026 and beyond. With 2 decades of reinsurance experience, topped off with three years in motor insurance Miguel brings an exceptionally well-rounded perspective to his role. In this podcast we look at the dynamics affecting the reinsurance market and the growth opportunities remaining within it, but we also broaden the discussion out to include more specific themes such as the opportunity in MGAs and AI, both as an aide to operational efficiency and more skilful underwriting, but also as an emerging peril in and of itself. Miguel is great company and the time will pass extremely quickly. I learned a lot and I think you will too. LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep291 Jonathan Tritton MD Burns & Wilcox Global Solutions: Seeking Harmony in the Value Chain 03.03.2026 40min

  I really enjoyed today’s interview because it outlines what is quite an original proposition in a very competitive marketplace. Jonathan Tritton is the Managing Director of Burns & Wilcox Global Solutions, which is the London and International wholesale broking arm of the US-headquartered Kaufman Group. The group has been formed via the coming together of the Chesterfield and Lochain Patrick broking businesses.So far, so familiar, you might say – a US-led broking group with London operations is hardly a big deal. But Jonathan is a recent joiner and the pitch he makes for his new employer is compelling. As the insurance value chain becomes more technologically advanced and much more efficient at allocating the right risks to the right distribution channels and the right forms of underwriting capital, despite the headwinds of the softening market, Jonathan is very optimistic about the growth prospects for his business unit.With a good combination of, sufficient scale and resources to be in the game and an enormous amount of room to grow, Jonathan’s optimism has an authentic ring to it.In this podcast specific growth plans, the digitisation and facilitisation of the market and Jonathan’s ambitions for a Lloyd’s syndicate as well as his thoughts on AI all get a full airing.Jonathan has been on the podcast before and is a very relaxed, eloquent and energetic interviewee, so this is an episode that will fly by. LINKSWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep290 Jacqui Ferrier CEO Carbon Underwriting: Sorting Wheat from Chaff 24.02.2026 57min

  Today’s podcast is all about catching up with a business that was last on the show five years ago.And we’ve got an awful lot of catching up to do. Back then Carbon Underwriting was on the show because it was one of the first crop of Syndicates in a Box at Lloyd’s, laying out interesting ideas on how to modernise and optimise the underwriting of delegated authority business.Now it has matured into a carrier with GWP in the hundreds of millions that has built its own proprietary core systems and developed a broad and diverse capital ecosystem to support its underwriting. The last five years have also been transformative for the delegated underwriting sector, with explosive growth combining with strong results. That’s why this interview with Carbon CEO Jacqui Ferrier is so interesting. As the market turns and a potential reckoning may lie in wait for the unwary or unprepared, Jacqui is a rare domain expert with her feet firmly on the ground and her eyes fixed on detailed underwriting data.The secrets of outperformance in delegated underwriting are all discussed here in the open for anyone who cares to listen. Fast ingestion of data, swift analysis and feedback, as well as absolute transparency with all stakeholders are key featuresJacqui can afford to be so open and candid about what constitutes Carbon’s edge, in part I think because what she and her team have managed to build is the sort of thing that is easy to talk about in theory but extremely hard to execute in practice.Jacqui is great company and there is a huge amount of underwriting experience and expertise packed into the next 45 minutes. What’s more, the possible future strategic directions for Carbon as it continues to scale are a revelation. NOTES & LINKSAPI stands for Application Programming InterfaceHere is a link to the first Episode I did with Carbon, almost six years ago:https://www.thevoiceofinsurance.com/podcast/episode/3878ea54/ep-42-coverholders-in-a-box-stephen-card-of-carbon-underwritingWe thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep289 The Rt Hon. The Lady Mayor, Dame Susan Langley, DBE: Speaking Truth to Power 17.02.2026 36min

  Today’s podcast is a first for the Voice of Insurance as this is the first time I have had an interview with a sitting Lady Mayor of London. Sue Langley or, the Right Honourable, the Lady Mayor, Dame Susan Langley, DBE, to give her her full and formal title, has worked in the insurance industry for 28 years, with senior roles at Hiscox, within the Corporation of Lloyd’s and latterly as Chair of the board of Gallagher UK.I have known her for over 20 of those years and throughout that time she has always been strong, direct, completely straightforward and down to earth. So that’s why it was such a pleasure to meet her in her incredibly high-profile, but often misunderstood 800-year-old role.Many of us might go our whole careers working in the City of London but remaining almost wholly ignorant of the workings of some of its most longstanding institutions.So our talk demystifies what the Lord or Lady Mayor position means in 2026 and reveals how Sue discovered the path to becoming its 697th incumbent.Ostensibly an apolitical role, nonetheless the modern Mayoralty has tremendous soft influence in the corridors of power, and as the UK’s effective ambassador for Financial and Professional Services, Sue gets to travel the globe representing all of us. In this podcast we will learn what’s on top of Sue’s agenda for her year in post and I am sure what she says will give all the insurance practitioners listening plenty of good cheer.I am also pleased to report that holding this great office hasn’t changed Sue in the slightest, in fact it is Sue who is doing a lot to make the role more relatable and relevant to our times.Sue is also a physical representation of how the past decade has witnessed the Insurance sector stand up and be counted and start to take its rightful place in the Civic affairs of the City and country in which it trades. Sue certainly won’t be the last Lord or Lady Mayor to be sourced from within the Insurance community and we should take a lot of encouragement from this. So listen on to what is a really informal, enjoyable and enlightening discussion.NOTES & LINKS: More information on Sterling 20 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britains-biggest-pension-funds-back-regional-growth-driveAnd you can get involved in the Lord Mayor’s Appeal here: https://www.thelordmayorsappeal.org/We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep288 Gabriel Holschneider, XS Global: Reinvesting every dollar to compound growth 10.02.2026 44min

  Today’s episode is unique because my guest is pretty unique. Gabriel Holschneider was working as a lawyer 20 years ago when he uncovered a passion for, and an obsession with, captive insurance and started a consultancy and a very small reinsurer with his own money. Then ten years ago he founded an MGA group called XS Global. In 2026 that group is the biggest MGA in Latin America, is fully globalising and is set to write over a billion dollars in gross premiums, often from hard-to reach locations or via niche classes that others find difficult to underwrite. Gabe is a remarkable personality and is building something that is clearly out of the ordinary. I have interviewed lots of people behind fast-growing MGA groups but none of them quite like this, and that is partly because this is a business that wasn’t born out of the traditional Anglo-US axis, where so many of its peers are to be found.It’s refreshing and different.So listen on as Gabe explains the rationale behind the group, the main differentiation points in its modus operandi and where he expects the venture to be heading in the coming years. It’s a breath of fresh air and I can highly recommend a listen.LINKS:XS Global https://xsglobal.com/Eureka Re https://eurekare.com/We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Sp Ep Beazley Predictions: Exploring the risks shaping 2026 and beyond 06.02.2026 48min

  When the well-known banker J.P. Morgan was asked by a reporter to predict the future of the stock market, he gave this now-famous three-word reply: “It will fluctuate”. Here was someone wise enough to know that making predictions is a hazardous occupation at the best of times, and doubly so if those predictions relate to often fragile and volatile financial markets.But what the evasive and inscrutable Mr Morgan perhaps failed to realise is that the thought process required to produce a prediction is a very valuable exercise in and of itself. After all, you can only make a prediction if you have a very clear understanding of where you are, what is surrounding you and the nature and strength of the forces and influences that are being exerted upon the objects of your observation.The ultimate value of a prediction doesn’t lie in its accuracy, but the clarity of vision and quality of analysis and understanding that has gone into making it. What a successful prediction ultimately requires is a large slice of luck, whereas an insightful piece of analysis always carries substantial inherent value, and paints a useful picture of underlying truths, no matter the eventual outcome. With this in mind, I have interviewed six experts with a highly eclectic set of skills and specialist knowledge, ranging from Geopolitics at the highest macro level, all the way down to highly specific perils that affect individual companies and the directors and employees who work for them. These perils might be state-sponsored, man-made, environmental, political, legal, cyber-related or indeed from beyond the earth’s orbit entirely. They will all combine to paint a valuable picture of the state of the world today and the forces and trends likely to shape it, and the global insurance sector that serves it, in 2026 and beyond.My six bold predictors are: Beazley’s Strategic adviser in Cyber and AI, Alex Creswell, CEO of Beazley Furlonge Ltd and Beazley’s Group Head of Specialty Risks Bethany Greenwood, Head of Space Denis Bensoussan, Environmental Liability Focus Group Leader Jenny Han, Mandeep Gosal, Vice President of Global Professional Services at Beazley Security and, completing our line-up, Beazley’s Global Cyber and Tech Claims Leader, Marcello Antonucci.That’s a formidable group and a huge collective resource of expertise. So, listen on as we distil that collective wisdom and turn it into a useful and insightful podcast.NOTES & ABBREVIATIONS: IRGC is Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard CorpsLINKS:More 2026 predictions from Beazley’s experts can be found here: Predictions 2026 | Beazley
• Ep287 Nick Abraham, Amwins Global Risks: A focus on Specialism 03.02.2026 40min

  As the global insurance market becomes more competitive, the first place to notice the change is usually the wholesale segment, because it’s always at the margins where all the most dynamic pricing action occurs. But whilst falling rates can prove a headwind to growth, as long as submission flows hold up and deals keep being done a more competitive market can be a more attractive one for new business because it is more welcoming to innovative ideas.Today’s guest is perfectly placed to see what is happening because he runs a business with around $4 billion dollars of wholesale premiums running through it. So that’s why I’m delighted to welcome Nick Abraham CEO of Amwins Global Risks (AGR) to the show. As the International subsidiary of one the dominant trio of major US wholesale brokers, after entering the London Market via strategic M&A, over the past decade AGR has grown its position rapidly to become a major force in the London and global wholesale markets The discussion is very rich and deep in places but it is also broad-ranging, moving from detail on AGR’s overall strategy to the specific opportunities and challenges of current market conditions and the possibility of shifting alliances relating to retail broker consolidation, all the way through to the likely long-term impact of technological change on the way wholesale business will be transacted in the futureNick is a charming and eloquent guest who is easy-going, fun and engaging. He is full of passion for the job and this shines though in our interview.All this makes for a really enjoyable and informative Episode. LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com
• Ep286 Terry McLean SageSure: Go to where there is margin 27.01.2026 49min

  I interview all sorts of people on this podcast but today’s guest is a candidate for one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs to have come on the programme to date.Most people have the talent, a lot of people have the instincts and the drive, but few can combine that with the breadth of knowledge and ability to connect up the insurance value chain all the way from a homeowner right up to the most sophisticated capital markets. Today’s guest Terry McLean combines all three attributes and the results speak for themselves. His MGA group SageSure is likely to be writing US$3.6 to 3.7 billion in gross premiums in 2026, almost all of which is sourced from the cat-exposed segment of the US homeowners market. Terry embodies the pioneering spirit in that when others are walking away from a risk, his first thought is to walk towards it because that’s where margin in likely to be found. And in a class like US Homeowners that seems doomed to produce negative aggregate returns year-in year-out, margin is a very precious commodity indeed.So I would add a fourth quality to the list: bravery. Terry’s got it in abundance.So listen on for a remarkable story with an exceptional insurance entrepreneur. I guarantee that even if you are feeling your most jaded, you will finish this podcast with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.LINKS:We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:https://www.advantagego.com