Ep239 Chris Williams Tokio Marine International: Nurturing Global Insurance DNA

Today’s Episode is exceptional because in terms of his seniority
and the sheer size and global nature of his role, my guest is in
a very small peer group. Chris Williams is Chairman of
International Business at the Tokio Marine Group and that means
he helps oversee a business with a $75bn dollar balance sheet and
44,000 employees, operating in over 40 countries. Only a handful
of my guests on this show in the last five years have a role of
such global depth and breadth. An Australian who has worked in
London and spent most of his career in the US, Chris is very much
a model citizen of the global specialist insurance and
reinsurance world that this podcast looks to serve. In the past
twenty years Tokio Marine Group has embarked on a highly
successful internationalisation strategy that has entailed
multiple blue-chip acquisitions in countries all over the world.
This has turned it from a dominant Japanese insurer with only
around 3% of earnings coming from overseas into a global force
that already makes around 75% of its earnings outside of Japan,
with that proportion almost certain to continue growing over
time. Chris joined the group through its 2015 acquisition of HCC
so in many ways is the personal embodiment of this strategy. This
podcast is a great distillation of that Tokio global plan and
where it may be heading next, but it’s also a chance to pick the
brains of an industry veteran who can combine a fifty-year career
with a genuinely global overview. Chris’s views on the rise of
MGAs, the prospects for renewed M&A in 2025, the best
application of AI, the debates over rate and reserve adequacy in
the casualty space and the overall state of the global market are
all unequivocally and candidly expressed here. Chris is
exceptionally good company and I caught him on great form in this
podcast. He may be one of the most senior executives in our world
but at heart he still comes across as a genuine, down-to-earth
Australian who tells things the way he sees them. The fact that
he has seen so much in such a wide and varied career just makes
this Episode all the more valuable. Listen on and you’ll see what
I mean. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it and learn a huge amount.


LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com We also thank audio
advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of
the highly-successful TINtech events series. This week they are
advertising their successful TINtech London
Market event, which will be happening on 4th February 2025.