The Voice of Insurance

By The Voice of Insurance Mark Geoghegan

Insurance is a maze. Don’t get lost.
Mark Geoghegan asks directions from all the top people in the Global Insurance and Reinsurance Industry... more

· Business

5

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FAQs about The Voice of Insurance:

How many episodes does The Voice of Insurance have?

The podcast currently has 376 episodes available.

The Voice of Insurance episodes:

September 03, 2026 Ep315 Clemens Jungsthöfel, CEO Hannover Re: It still feels like a speedboat
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 a very delicate problem and he would neither be shocked nor would judge you too harshly, but just calmly help in any way he could and point you in the right direction.
Clemens personifies a very clear continuum from the reinsurance leaders who came before him and a listen to a discussion with him goes a long way to understand the enduring success of the reinsurer he and his predecessors have managed to build.
And what they have constructed is an all-permeating reinsurance culture that works for the real world.
As we head down to Monte Carlo this podcast covers everything you would expect it to.
We examine the state of market, and Hannover Re’s positioning within it, in great depth and we debate some of the hottest topics of the day, most pressingly the emergence of AI into the global risk environment.
But what I think will endure after time erodes the relevance of what we are discussing is a timeless sense of who my interviewee is and the institution he represents.
Approachable and friendly, calm, strong, knowledgeable, consistent, measured, flexible, responsive and pragmatic are all words that come to mind.
And I think we can all agree these are absolutely the qualities we are all looking for when we are buying reinsurance.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
49min
August 25, 2026 Ep314 George Beattie Head of Innovation & Chris Mullan Head of Data & AI CFC: Choose your adventure
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 Chris Mullan (pictured, Right) Head of Data and AI at CFC starts off as an examination of the innovative MGA’s application of agentic AI into its underwriting process.
That in itself is interesting enough. For example the 70-80 times speed gains for delivering bindable quotes are eye-opening, but it’s what follows that makes this podcast special.
George and Chris have done a lot of thinking about what the application of AI can really mean for the sector. They’ve done the intellectual homework and some of their conclusions will surprise you.
For example they don’t feel that AI exclusions are going to be workable and are only likely to lead to an embarrassing future climbdown for the industry.
But it’s their views on how the age of AI gives us a chance to completely re-design the insurance product from the ground up that are perhaps more insightful and offer a cautionary tale for incumbents.
Those who simply think AI will make the existing business process quicker and more efficient will almost certainly be right in the short-term, but they might be outmanoeuvred in the longer term as whole new business models emerge and leave them in their wake.

When smart and articulate experienced insurance people really grapple with tech, it helps the rest of us understand much better. George and Chris are great communicators who can translate tech jargon into practical insurance ideas. What’s even better is that they are both very grounded and are really good at deflating the tech hubris that puts so many of us insurance folk off.

In short, this one is a must-listen and alongside the recent fascinating Episode with Clyde Bernstein of Aon, ranks as one of the most insightful discussions I have had on the intersection of insurance technology and innovation for a very long time.

LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
59min
August 04, 2026 Ep313 Mikir Shah CEO Africa Specialty Risks: Creating new Markets
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 not at all easy in practice to enable and harness that growth. Many have tried, got it wrong and ultimately withdrawn.
So when I meet someone who has brought the best of Lloyd’s and other specialty markets to bring sophisticated insurance products to these and other developing markets I really want to find out how they have gone about it.
Mikir Shah is the charismatic CEO of Africa Specialty Risks (ASR), a fast-growing business that is now writing around $500mn GWP and which has just secured support from growth investor Vitruvian Partners.
Mikir is a Kenyan who combines actuarial training with long experience in investment banking and so comes to the insurance industry with a unique perspective.
In this relaxed interview we run through ASR’s strategy to bring corporate specialty insurance to developing markets through the combination of localised underwriting with advanced technology.
Mikir is irrepressibly positive, very smart and very friendly and shares his insights and hard-won knowledge extremely freely. By the end of the next half hour, I guarantee you will be feeling as positive about the prospects for African and other emerging markets as he is.
NOTES:
More information on the Vitruvian Partners investment in ASR can be found here:
https://www.asr-re.com/press-releases/africa-specialty-risks-announces-agreement-for-strategic-investment-by-vitruvian-partners/
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
35min
July 28, 2026 Ep312 Clyde Bernstein, Placement Tech Leader Aon: Get the plumbing right
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 to automate the placing of following lines.
Once that essential building block of the conversation is out of the way, the interview really begins to take off.
What Aon is in the middle of doing is removing friction and cost from the placing process, while fully connecting all its brokers with the whole global market and all the insights the vast amount of risk and market data it has at its disposal can afford.
Exploring the logical medium- and long-term consequences for the market is the really interesting part of our discussion.
The transformation is profound. A market with far greater liquidity, access to deeper pools of capital and an ability to trade risk much faster and more efficiently is what emerges. Productivity, customer service and product innovation should also surge.
The role of the broker could also change fundamentally.
But the best thing about this conversation is not the clarity of the blue-sky thinking on display, but rather the fact that the person shaping the vision is resolutely a broker and not a technologist.
In his long career Clyde has brokered claims, reinsurance and specialty risks. He is one of us – a lifelong broker who has learnt to engage with cutting edge technology and not the other way around.
This means that our discussion is always grounded from the perspective of the real life of a broker solving client problems and not the utopian vision of a technologist who has never placed a risk or paid a claim.
It’s mind-expanding stuff and one of the best discussions on the future of broking I have ever recorded. I highly recommend a listen.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
52min
July 21, 2026 Ep311 Richard Brindle Group CEO TFP & Clive Washbourn CEO Navium: Being Brave
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 special and very different from the everyday.
Richard Brindle and Clive Washbourn are two of the most celebrated underwriters of their generation and have each been on the podcast more than once in their own right.
For the last five years Richard and Clive have been underwriting under the same group organisational roof in The Fidelis Partnership and Navium respectively. Richard even cited Clive’s new-found joie de vivre at Navium as the inspiration for the bifurcation of Fidelis into the Fidelis Partnership and Pelagos.
This podcast is only briefly about the grand issues of the day. My interviewees very quickly deal with these and then we start examining much more timeless and valuable questions.
The core of this meeting is really a long discussion about what makes a good underwriter and then what makes a good underwriter a great one.
We examine all of this in the context of the AI revolution and how to apply it to the business of outperforming in insurance underwriting.
This is a masterclass that will teach you an awful lot. Along the way you’ll also spend quality time with two of the market’s strongest and most charismatic personalities.
The result is an instant classic that provides a valuable listen for any insurance professional at any stage in their career.

NOTES:
At time of recording Fidelis Insurance Group had only just rebranded to Pelagos Insurance Capital, so if there is the odd slip of the tongue, be clear that we should have referred to Pelagos, and will definitely be doing so from now onwards.

Richard mentions the Sharpe Ratio, which is an investment metric used to measure the relative volatility of the returns of a company.
Events in Iran, the Gulf States and the Straits of Hormuz are incredibly volatile and have already changed fundamentally, even in the short time between recording this interview and its release date. Please keep yourself best informed by using up-to-the-minute news and intelligence sources.
Finally Richard mentions that there are two charities. The Fidelis Foundation is The Fidelis Partnership’s charity, and Richard’s personal charity is called The Muriel Jones Foundation.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
38min
July 17, 2026 SpEp Will Ross, CEO Federato: Respecting the Problem of Insurance
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 with a key dilemma – should they try to run AI as a new tech layer on top of their current core IT systems or should they take the plunge and use the opportunity to install a whole new system that has been designed and built with AI at its heart?
Will Ross is the co-Founder and CEO of Federato and he is betting that enough companies will choose the latter path.
Will is an AI native with post-graduate degrees from Stanford University and has been building Federato over the past six years.
He is also a very special type of entrepreneur. He discovered insurance when working on wildfire models, but he saw an even bigger business opportunity across the core of insurance and co-founded Federato while still working on his Stanford studies.
Federato has built substantial scale and has raised $180mn to date, with the latest round of $100mn lead by Goldman Sachs.
This is clearly a firm that means business and is intent on taking a permanent seat at the Insurance IT table.
Will is charismatic and fun to talk to and is probably the best-placed guest I have had on the show to date to really examine what the successful embedding of AI into insurance underwriting will mean for the sector as a whole.
Some of what we discussed was highly reassuring, but some of his insights were surprising and challenging to conventional wisdom.
Much of the industry is at a crossroads over the AI revolution and the next steps are going to be key. Senior decision-makers looking for guidance on their next move would be well advised to listen to Will set out his clear vision in this enlightening interview.
LINKS:
For more information visit www.federato.ai
...more
51min
July 14, 2026 Ep310 Dan Burrows Group CEO Pelagos: Very few people get to see the whole market
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.
There are lots of investors in the global insurance market, allocating capital to insurance companies, but they are many steps removed from the risk and are only likely to review their allocations annually.
What’s unique about Pelagos is that it is much closer to the underwriting process, reviewing risk and capital decisions in almost real time. To paraphrase economic terms, whereas most investors in insurance are macro, Pelagos is very much micro.
It takes some unique qualities to pull this kind of thing off and that’s what makes this podcast so fascinating. Dan is a unique character in a unique job with a unique perspective on the market and I’m sure that some of what you’re about to hear will surprise you.
In this podcast we examine the re-brand to Pelagos, the maturing of the long-term relationship with the Fidelis Partnership and diversification into other underwriting channels, the prospects for profitable trading as the market becomes more competitive, thoughts around carrier M&A, as well as the big questions such as the best applications of AI in insurance and the seemingly relentless advance of portfolio solutions underwriting.
Dan is calm, softly-spoken and thoughtful, but is also razor-sharp and able to provide instant feedback or pushback. In short he strikes me as the ideal foil for smart, entrepreneurial underwriting teams.
This is an engrossing and revealing encounter which I can I highly recommend to anyone.

NOTES:
Dan was too polite to correct my initial mispronunciation of Pelagos. The stress is on the first syllable, not the second.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
32min
July 07, 2026 Ep309 Tim Gardner CEO & Bob Bisset CEO NA, Lockton Re: Feeding the Furnace for Growth
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 at Lockton Re have seen the business hit profitability, witnessed revenue push through $300mn and headcount exceed 600.
What’s more, in that time reinsurance market dynamics have been transformed and emerging technologies like AI and market phenomena such as facilitisation and portfolio solutions have broken through and re-written business growth strategies.
So we clearly had a lot to catch up about.
Tim and Bob are brokers’ brokers and that makes conversations exceeding easy to start and even easier to maintain and develop. With these two you always end up with a little more than what you thought you were going to get when you started out.
This is a high-energy and fun conversation. So if you want to understand in depth the state of and prospects for global insurance and reinsurance markets and where Lockton Re is positioning itself to serve them, listen on.
I had a blast and I know you will too.
NOTES:
Bob mentions a Keith. He is referring to Keith Harrison, CEO of Lockton Re International
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
36min
June 30, 2026 Ep308 Stephanie Ogden, Munich Re Syndicate: Balancing Realism and Ambition
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 Lloyd’s.
Steph is a breath of fresh air – actually I’d say more like a blast. Listening back to this conversation, I have rarely spoken to someone who carries themselves as naturally as she does.
I spoke to the same person before, during and after our recording.
What you hear is what you get and what you get is a very clear sense of how one of the Lloyd’s market’s most consistently successful businesses sees the market today, where it sees it heading and how it intends to engage.
This is a very well-rounded conversation. As one might expect, it’s technical and financial but it’s also technological, commercial, professional, passionate, personal and laced with humour.
Steph is highly engaging and is well across the core challenges facing the London and global specialty markets, from the opportunities arising from the internationalisation of the market to the impact of technological transformation and AI.
Talking to Steph made me feel a little old – but in a good way. Growing old isn’t easy, but when people really don’t enjoy getting old it’s because they think that things are getting worse than they used to be, not better.
Forty-five minutes with Steph and the only conclusion is that many things are definitely getting better and the market’s best days are ahead of, and not behind it.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
...more
50min
June 26, 2026 SpEp Helen Sanson CEO The Insurance Charity: Insurance for Insurance people
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, BIBA, Airmic and other bodies are obvious examples.
But the connectivity goes way beyond our trade bodies.
In places like the London Market there is an incredibly diverse and vibrant array of sporting and cultural activities available to all. From Sailing to Bridge to Art, if you can imagine it, there is probably an Insurance-related Club or Society devoted to it.
There is even a London Orchestra with a direct connection to the sector that I only discovered by relative chance after at least 15 years of complete ignorance.
But did you know there is another group that all insurance practitioners in the UK and Ireland also belong to?
We are all potential beneficiaries of the Insurance Charity.
This is a Charity that is 124 years old and was set up to look after any current or former insurance practitioners, and their families, in their hour of need.
This week is the Annual Awareness week for the charity and so today’s guest is its CEO Helen Sanson.
In this short discussion Helen guides me around the Insurance Charity, everything it does currently and everything she plans to do with it in the future.
It’s a fascinating chat. You may also be relieved to hear that although donations are welcome, the charity is actually well funded. What it really needs from you is your attention, awareness and advocacy.
Helen is a charming, warm and passionate guest.
Who knew? Another benefit of working in insurance – we have our own charity and we have exceptional people like Helen and her team to administer it for us.

NOTES:
PIP is an acronym for Personal Independence Payment, a UK State benefit
LINKS:
https://theinsurancecharity.org.uk/
...more
23min

FAQs about The Voice of Insurance:

How many episodes does The Voice of Insurance have?

The podcast currently has 376 episodes available.

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