Speaking earlier today in London during Marsh McLennan’s Rising Professionals’ Global Forum 2024 event, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, Chairman, Lloyd’s, distilling down on the scope of risk, said that “the greatest challenges of our time are climate change, evolving cyber and technology risks, geopolitics and political violence and financial risk.”
According to Carnegie-Brown, the re/insurance sector has to be “ambitious” in its response to an increasingly volatile and rapidly expanding risk environment if it is to successfully transform potential chaos into “concrete opportunity.”
He said: “Developing good judgment is about creating a disciplined framework against which to evaluate an opportunity or a challenge, remembering that, successfully navigated, your biggest challenges will become your biggest opportunities.”
Furthermore, he explained that the first quarter of the 21st century has been characterised by a number of extraordinary events. These range from the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., a global financial crisis, the COVID-19 global pandemic, and the first land war in Europe in nearly 80 years.
“But are these events really extraordinary?” he asked. “I think you’d be fool hardy to think that risks of a similar magnitude and impact will not recur in the second quarter of this century. If that fills you with dread as a broker or underwriter, you might be in the wrong business.”
“In London, we have the talent, capital and capability to provide solutions to these problems,” he said, adding that Lloyd’s currently devotes 25% of its capital to underwriting natural catastrophe risks, has a 25% share of the global cyber insurance market, and also underwrites some USD4 billion of political risk across various classes.
“We’re right in the middle of these global challenges, and because we live in an increasingly connected world, the correlation and aggregation of these risks could be truly vast,” he said.
Elsewhere, Carnegie-Brown also defined the role of the re/insurance sector in managing such risk potential.
“The scale of these risks requires an ambitious response as brokers and insurers, we need to collaborate to innovate and share risk. We need to develop partnerships, not just with our traditional clients in the private sector, but with governments and supranational bodies so we can advocate for the behavioural change our world needs to build resilience against these risks and ensure we have the capital we need to respond,” he said.
During his speech, Carnegie-Brown was also joined on stage by Dominic Troulan GC QGM, retired British Army Major and ex-Royal Marine Commando, who added a distinctive take on the challenges of leadership.
“As leaders and rising professionals, know your team. Meet with them, engage with them so that you can ‘see the whites of their eyes’. Remember that every war that I have been involved in ended in a negotiation,” he said.
“Be personable and approachable. Don’t forget that some of the best ideas might come from the most junior members of your team. And also, be humble and willing to take advice and to take these ideas onboard. Be decisive, anticipate and react,” he concluded.
