There’s still ample growth opportunities: Aon re/insurance panel

Speaking on a panel earlier today as part of global broker Aon’s Reinsurance Renewal Season coverage, Rachel Turk, Chief Underwriting Officer at the specialist Lloyd’s insurance and reinsurance marketplace, said that there’s “plenty of growth opportunities around” as the market looks to stay ahead of volatility.

Moderated by Molly Tully, Executive Managing Director at Aon, Turk was joined by HDI Global SE’s UK & Ireland Chief Executive Officer, Stephanie Ogden, on a panel around navigating market cycles.

The three explored a range of topics from talent to data centres, but the session started with a question from Tully on how Turk and Ogden are rethinking growth priorities and staying ahead of market volatility and evolving client needs in the current re/insurance market environment.

“I think it’s clear to say we’re pretty supportive, actually, of growth. I still think there’s plenty of growth opportunities around,” said Turk. “And so, whilst the market, rates are definitely coming down, and we can all see that, they are still coming from a reasonably high base.”

Turk went on to underline that there’s still quite a number of lines where there’s a “fair degree of rate adequacy.”

“So, we’re looking to see, from our perspective, when we’re right in the middle of business planning season, we’re looking to see portfolio optimisation and shift, a realisation of leaning into the areas where there’s much more margin and maybe pulling back in areas where it’s a bit more marginal.

“And then thinking through as well, what does that do to the overall volatility of portfolios? And naturally, we expect that the volatility of portfolios is going up slightly, and that’s just because when you start to seek for lines that have more margin in them, they tend to be the ones that are more volatile. And that’s okay, we just need to make sure that on the corollary, it’s adequately capitalized,” she continued.

Putting all of that together, explained Turk, from a Lloyd’s perspective, she is seeing a lot of growth and more interest in people trading on the Lloyd’s platform, which is the world’s oldest re/insurance marketplace.

In response to the same question, Ogden described it as a “really interesting time” because everyone has their own growth priorities.

“And I do think, I would agree with Rachel, the opportunities are still there, and they’re still really exciting. But clients, and from our perspective at HDI, it’s both, we do have some in terms of the insurers, but it’s also the insureds, in terms of the clients, and their evolving needs mean that we also have to change at the same time.

“So, I think we’ve got this interesting dynamic at the moment, where building what Rachel said around the volatility, you’ve got to build in, I suppose, that foundation around change and managing change, keeping up with some of the topics which no doubt we’ll touch on today around data, digitalisation and tech, whilst keeping your underwriters very firmly on producing still the business,” said Ogden.

“And I think that perhaps is a different time to what we’ve seen in previous market cycles, where you’ve got this real need and requirement to change at the same time. And that change is necessary, right, to deliver for the clients. The clients are expecting better or increased efficiencies, better data, better MI whilst at the same time managing changing volatility and a market cycle, which is quite exciting,” she added.