Bob Kimmel the CEO of K2 insurance services came on my radar and that of most other London-based insurance folk when last year his US-based MGA group picked up the remnants of what had been the Pioneer group of MGAs to form K2 International.
K2 owns a major collection of MGAs in the US, writes over a billion dollars in premium and is highly acquisitive both of talent, new agencies and other ancillary insurance businesses
I didn’t know Bob personally and researching K2 ahead of our London meeting I suppose I came into this podcast with lots of preconceptions about what the CEO of such a fast-growing and aggressively expansive US-headquartered group would be like.
I was completely wrong.
Bob is clearly very ambitious for K2 but he is also very easygoing and charming as well as being disarming about how steep the learning curve has been for him, a former reinsurance broker, moving much closer to the end insurance customer in the decade since K2’s formation.
New MGA start-ups and acquisitions, a potential Lloyd’s syndicate in the offing and a conscious hunt for talent in specific classes – Bob’s in-tray is absolutely overflowing and in this interview he discusses all aspects of MGA management in a disarmingly open way.
I really enjoyed my time with Bob and I think you will too.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure:
https://www.advantagego.com/
We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) and Free Partners for their support today:
https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
https://freepartners.com/
Ep 31 Andrew Horton: Beazley, the hard market and the new Lloyd's
Ep 30 Steve McGill: Rip up your original business plan...
Ep 29 John Ludlow of Airmic: Insurance falling short of high standards and founding principles
Ep 28 Meet the Lloyd's Gatekeeper - Julian Tighe of Asta
Ep 27 How captives insure the uninsurable, with Oliver Schofield of RISCS
Ep 26 Talent and the class of 2020/21 with Dennis Mahoney
Ep 25 Build me a reinsurance broker: Tim Gardner of Lockton Re
Ep 24 Running towards risk: Stephen Postlewhite of QBE Re
Ep 23 Julian Enoizi of Pool Re: Time to become peril-agnostic on non-damage BI?
Ep 22 Casualty, Capital and Covid with Jason Howard CEO of Beach
Ep 21 Covid-19's reinsurance impact with Andrew Newman and Printhan Sothinathan of Willis Re
Special Episode: Biba, the LMG and Liiba respond to Covid-19
Ep 19 Bermuda briefing with Chris Bonard and John Turner of Ed Broking
Special Episode: Covid-19 update with Brendan McManus, Peter Blanc and Warren Downey in association with Specialist Risk Group
Ep 17 P&I primer with Dorothea Ioannou of The American Club
Ep 16 Inside the first syndicate in a box with Stuart Newcombe, active underwriter
Ep 15, Solo 1: Unfair Punishment and Pandemic Re
Ep 14 Early coronavirus thoughts from David Flandro of Hyperion X
Ep 13 The secrets of Jonathan Parry of QBE Re’s success
Ep.12 Navigating the post Aon-Willis, MMC-JLT world with Toby Esser of AFL
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