The Voice of Insurance

By The Voice of Insurance Mark GeogheganBusiness

The Voice of Insurance episodes

October 06 Ep319 Richard Brindle & Richard Coulson The Fidelis Partnership: Darwinian Division
Today’s podcast was recorded down at the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous at the beginning of September.
This extraordinary gathering of global insurance leadership is great place to secure time with senior executives from all around the world.
I am really glad and feel very lucky that Richard Brindle, Group CEO and Chairman of The Fidelis Partnership, has managed to find time for the Voice of Insurance in each of the last five consecutive years.
This year Richard was joined by another Richard, Richard Coulson, Group President of Strategic Partnerships, who was last on the show in 2024.
In Richard Brindle’s own words, since it bifurcated from its insurance balance sheet three years ago The Fidelis Partnership has been moving as if it were on rocket fuel. It was therefore great to catch up again, even if it were only a couple of months since his last appearance on the show with Clive Washbourn of Navium.
A couple of years ago the headline of this podcast was taken from a direct quote of Richard Brindle’s – “if you’re good enough, you’re old enough”. My view on podcast guests is that if they’re interesting enough, they can come on the show as often as they like!
While we were gathered to talk about reinsurance, in typical fashion the reinsurance items on the agenda were dealt with very swiftly and we were soon opening up topics that I had never broached with either guest before.
Two themes that we really delved into were TFP’s strategic decision not to write broker facilities and the firm’s high-growth markets strategy and how this really works in practice.
If you don’t write the big brokers’ facilities, how do make sure they keep showing you business? And if you do a lot of business in fast-developing jurisdictions how much more likely are you to encounter dilemmas, such as those relating to ESG?
All the answers and a typically robust and uncompromising discussion are coming right up.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
31 min
September 29 Ep318 Jack Kuhn Westfield Specialty: Taking the long-term view
Today’s guest is an insurance professional who has just completed forty years in the market.
Over that time he has built a reputation as the consummate underwriter’s underwriter.
But by some strange coincidence our paths hadn’t crossed – until now.
We can complain about Monte Carlo all we want but it never fails to throw up wonderful opportunities to meet the most senior and prestigious figures in the global insurance and reinsurance industry.
So it was that I finally met Jack Kuhn, President of Westfield Specialty at a meeting table in a conference hall in the bowels of the Fairmont Hotel.
At Monte Carlo everyone is in talking mode and so what follows is the classic fast-paced kind of conversation you have ten times a day when down at the Rendez-Vous.
But listening back in the cold light of day, it’s Jack’s underwriting leadership qualities that really stand out – even in such a frenetic environment.
He is calm and focused and has a clear idea of what he wants to achieve. Like all the best underwriters, he is never dismissive of new ideas, but weighs them carefully and leaves you in no doubt where he stands.
Westfield Specialty is in an enviable position, now writing around $2.4bn of gross premium, as part of a mutual group with a 178-year pedigree, it can evaluate and navigate the market on its merits, without pressure to grow.
And that’s where this conversation shines. It’s liberating to talk to an underwriter with such a long and successful career, being given the chance to design an underwriting shop that is applying the full benefit of all that experience.
Jack is clearly in his element and really enjoying this latest chapter in his career, and this conversation encompasses all the big themes:
The challenges of a highly competitive insurance and reinsurance market, emerging automatic digital underwriting and AI as an emerging casualty peril, all have a strong showing, among many other themes.

It’s always great to finally meet someone you have heard a lot about, but it can sometimes be a little anticlimactic. I am pleased to report that this meeting exceeded all expectations and my only regret is not having met Jack twenty years earlier.
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
46 min
September 25 SpEp The State of (Re)insurance 2026
Welcome to the fifth Episode of its kind, documenting the 2026 Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous on your behalf.
The first in 2022 foretold a historic, chaotic and dramatic hard-market renewal. At the next, stability and a return to orderliness was craved, and was granted. The year after that, animal spirits started to be talked of in hushed tones. Last year, the industry had its mojo well and truly back.
Twelve months ago I heard reinsurers tell me, almost to a person, that they were happy to give up a little rate in exchange for growth. Well, the renewal at 1.1.26 delivered two years of softening compressed into one – so were they still happy?
Today capital is even more abundant. Profits are still real, but are hurdles still being met and are red lines about to be crossed as the market continues to soften?
Join me as I wander the streets, dodge the supercars, cross the squares and elbow my way through the crowded bars and lobbies of Monte Carlo, to meet a representative cross-section of the Reinsurance buying and selling public, and find out what's really happening in the State of (Re)insurance as we look towards 1.1.27.

LINKS:
Here are the Reinsurance Broker Reports I promised:
Aon –Snapshot Guide to the Reinsurance Renewal
https://assets.aon.com/-/media/files/aon/reports/2026/09022026-snapshot-guide.pdf
Gallagher Re – Reinsurance Market Report – Half-Year 2026
https://www.ajg.com/gallagherre/-/media/files/gallagher/gallagherre/news-and-insights/2026/september/reinsurance-market-report-half-year-2026.pdf
Howden Re – Breaking the Glass
https://www.howdenre.com/sites/howdenre.howdenprod.com/files/2026-09/Howden_Re_Breakingtheglass_Pre_renewals_report_September7_2026.pdf
Marsh Re – 2027 Renewal Outlook
https://www.guycarp.com/content/dam/guycarp-rebrand/pdf/2027_Renewal_Outlook_Driving_Impact_through_Insight.pdf
THANKS
We thank our Podcast Sponsor Stephens Rickard
https://www.stephensrickard.com
1 hr 14 min
September 22 Ep317 Jason Keen CEO Wholesale & Specialty Everest Insurance: No time to be stuck in the middle
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 given his broad viewpoint of the market this discussion gives a very accurate picture of where we find ourselves at this interesting point in the pricing cycle.
What emerges is a market where the most skilful underwriters are going to be able to differentiate themselves and one where caution and a focus on margin is the order of the day in some segments, but in others there are still clear opportunities for growth.
But it’s after the day-to-day market questions have been dealt with that this discussion comes into its own.
Jason is an advocate of the digital revolution that is transforming the globally syndicated insurance market in which his business operates and our discussion around facilitisation, fast follow and other digitally-enhanced forms of underwriting is insightful and enlightening.

It is becoming clear that all business leaders now need a comprehensive strategy on how to engage with profound structural changes in the way business is being placed and Jason is eloquent and unambiguous on this theme.
Our broad and frank discussion also covers other emerging big themes such as nascent AI exposures - and plenty more besides.
Jason is an underwriter through and through and this makes for a fast-moving and lively exchange.
I can highly recommend a listen
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com

40 min
September 14 Ep316 Waleed Jabsheh CEO IGI: Don't tie your hands
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 business that is a repudiation of most of the canons contained in the book of received insurance wisdom.
He leads a business that has grown to write around $700mn in gross premiums across a broad base, diversified by line and geography in both insurance and reinsurance, while maintaining very healthy profitability throughout the cycle.
Waleed Jabsheh is the CEO of IGI and this podcast highlights the very singular path that IGI has trodden on its way to success.
What emerges in this detailed discussion is in many ways a picture of a bold and ambitious company with representation in all the major global insurance jurisdictions.
But it is also a company that is at its core relatively conservative, looking to play in areas it knows and understands well and leaving the unknown territories of the bleeding edge for others to explore and map out before it takes a view.
IGI is still very much a family firm, but it is also one that is publicly-traded and listed in the US.
Any apparent contradiction in the above is explained by Waleed in this broad and deep interview, in which we are treated to a very strong common sense analysis of the opportunities and threats facing the global insurance and reinsurance market of today.
Waleed is very calm, clear and unambiguous in his style and makes for an excellent interviewee
LINKS:
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens:
https://www.advantagego.com
48 min
September 03 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
49 min
August 25 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
59 min
August 04 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
35 min
July 28 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
52 min
July 21 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
38 min