How did you get into the insurance industry?
At school, I was academic and great with numbers and logical thinking, but I didn’t want to go to university or pursue a career in banking. I sent my CV out to various industries and was taken on by an insurance firm. After stints at Aspen, Liberty, and Hiscox, I joined IQUW three years ago.
What do you like about working in insurance?
When I started applying for jobs, I knew nothing about insurance, but as soon as I got my first job as a junior underwriter, I thought it was wonderful. I was amazed that more people didn’t know how great insurance is. Most people only know about home, travel, and car insurance. Specialist insurance is very different, but it’s hard to get someone’s attention and tell them insurance is cool. If I were advising my younger self, there is not another profession I can think of that would better suit my personality. I love the relationship side of insurance and having the opportunity to learn new things every day. No two days are ever the same in insurance.
Can you tell us about the marine & energy liability class of business?
It has been a whirlwind three years at IQUW. We have put in a lot of hard work into growing our portfolio and I’ve been delighted with the support we’ve had from the market. In Marine and Energy liability (MEL) we provide cover for legal and contractual liability to third parties including bodily injury and property damage, excess P&I and other vessel operating liabilities, MEL, GL and excess and umbrella liabilities.
Looking to the future, price adequacy is a real driver for us. We are comfortable with the size and mix of our Marine and Energy portfolio and will continue to drive our strategy to maintain market share and increase our leadership status. We have also recently taken on someone to run a new Ports and Terminals arm. It will be a modest book initially, and we will be providing coverage from January 2025.
What differentiates IQUW approach to Marine and Energy?
Service is our biggest differentiator. We are a small team, so we work hard on response times. We also lead business where we think we can offer support, in areas where we have expertise or a particular relationship with a client. Our team has a great deal of experience as leaders in the market and that gives us an edge as we have seen a wide range of claims, portfolios, and circumstances. This is a key offering that will form part of our strategy in 2025.
Being in a small team is beneficial as we can communicate quickly with each other, and being present at the Lloyd’s box makes a huge difference, especially in Marine and Energy, as a lot of our business is still traded there. Being present when others are not gives us a competitive edge, especially when it comes to new business opportunities.
What are the trends are affecting your market?
Inflation and social inflation in the US continue to be a significant underwriting consideration.
We have seen a very fluid market in recent years, with new entrants to Marine and Energy Liability, and also many underwriters moving between companies. This has led to the emergence of a broader panel of ‘lead’ markets, which is something we need to be cognisant of. At IQUW we are building models and harnessing data and insight to inform our underwriting which gives us an advantage over many of our peers. Due to historical performance in our market there is not a great deal of data on mid-range and low-level claims. We are currently working on building our data “reservoir”, trying to capture as much information as we can using submissions and also exploring external sources.
What attracted you to IQUW?
It is rare to get the opportunity to build something that is your own. As an underwriter, you are usually joining a team where you are writing someone else’s legacy portfolio but here I have helped to build our own book of business from scratch.
The calibre of people at IQUW was also a big draw. I had worked with some of them previously and knew others by reputation. To be 10 years into my career and have joined a new company is exciting and enormously rewarding. It has been a huge journey for me to go from an established syndicate as an underwriter working on a lot of renewal business, to standing on my own two feet and helping build a book.
I have enjoyed being part of the team right from the beginning and helping to build the company. I have seen IQUW go from a small startup with only around 20 people on the 1856 syndicate to what we are today.
