Innovation is something we all talk about but something that is notoriously hard to do in insurance.
That’s hardly surprising because in our industry we prize and incentivise all the things that are the effective opposite of innovative.
We reward stable and predictable when, at least at the beginning, most innovative ventures are likely to be highly volatile and unpredictable.
And then we wonder why it’s so hard to bring new ideas to fruition in our sector!
To be fair to ourselves, in the past few years insurance has started to invest in people who have the word innovation in their job title and whose performance is measured more on whether they can bring the products of the future to market rather than on their initial loss ratios.
Tom Hoad, of is one of this select but growing band.
He moved to Howden to set up Howden Ventures, which he describes as a vehicle for professionalising innovation.
Here Tom is combining seed and venture funding with distribution and the ability to underwrite through the Howden Group’s DUAL underwriting platform.
In this almost breathless podcast Tom is hugely energised at the prospect of having all the tools at his disposal to remove the main roadblocks in start-up insurance business’s paths.
This is a lively chat with a real expert in innovation and a master of herding the cats of the market behind a common vision.
It’s also an episode that I hope will give you a lot of inspiration and make you feel that the London-based insurance ecosystem is in rude good health and highly likely to be the crucible in which many of the insurance products of the future are going to be forged.
NOTES:
I mentioned I would link to Tom’s first podcast with The Voice of Insurance.
Episode 124 is here: https://thevoiceofinsurance.podbean.com/e/ep-124-tom-hoad-innovation-is-really-about-doing-stuff/
I also mentioned an episode earlier in the year with DUAL:
https://thevoiceofinsurance.podbean.com/e/ep163-richard-clapham-luis-munoz-rojas-of-dual-group-get-the-ham-not-just-the-bone/
Tom mentions a Julia at Airmic. Airmic is the UK’s Risk Management trade body and Julia is Julia Graham, its CEO.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
Ep208 Gilbert Harrap CEO InsurX: Building a new Insurance Utility
Special Ep David Butler of VIPR: Don't install tech - solve real-world problems
Ep207 Scott Egan SiriusPoint: Chasing the 1%
Ep206 Duncan Dale CEO Dale Underwriting Partners: Excited by the Opportunities
Ep205 Serene Davis & James Orchard of QBE: Stars aligning for Innovation
Ep204 What do Teenagers Think about Insurance?
Ep203 Greg Hendrick Vantage Risk: Best Talent, Best Insights, Best Decisions
Ep202 Kate Markham Hiscox: Do More, Do it Better, Do it Cheaper
Special Ep Guillaume Bonnissent of Quotech: Solving pain points you didn't know you had
Ep201 Natalia Dorfman & James Kench of Kita: Gross Written Carbon
Ep200 Renaud Guidée CEO AXA XL Re: Much more than just a transaction
Ep199 Kera McDonald Swiss Re Corporate Solutions: Trendspotting and Avoiding Passivity
Special Ep Mike Steel Moody's RMS: Answering a whole new set of questions
Ep198 Tom Clementi Pool Re: Taking risk off the State
Ep197 Robert Wiest CEO MS Re: A good plan and the capital to execute it
Special Ep: Ian Summers AdvantageGo and Jeff Cohen Zywave: Let the client choose what they want
Ep196 Melissa Collett CEO Insurtech UK: A sector in its own right
Ep195 Adrian Cox: Beating Inertia
Ep194 1.1.2024 Renewals: It Feels Like The Time is Now
Special Ep: Navigating the DDM switch-off with Paul Templar CEO of VIPR
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
Aligned Money Show
Gorse Culture PODcast : The H.R. Detective Agency!
HCI Leadership Revolution
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money