Ep223 Rachel Turk CUO at Lloyd's: No legitimacy without profitability

I would have to spend some time checking the numbers, but today’s
guest is the Chief Underwriting Officer who oversees arguably the
largest amount of Gross written premium in the world.


That’s because Rachel Turk is really a Chief, Chief Underwriting
Officer who oversees forty to fifty of her peers in the $70
billion dollar Lloyd’s market.


Whatever the final numbers, her job gives her one of the best
vantage points anywhere in global insurance, so learning what she
thinks is incredibly useful.


Also given the authority she wields, it’s incredibly important to
know, why she’s thinking what she’s thinking and how those
thoughts might be turned into actions in the Lloyd’s market.


Given the pivotal importance of the job and the huge diversity
within the Lloyd’s market, being a strong communicator and being
relatively easy to read must be highly desirable qualities in a
candidate for a role such as this.


Happily Rachel is a brilliantly clear communicator – what you see
is what you get.


Sometimes interviewing people in very senior, very sensitive jobs
like this I have to grapple with cryptic answers or
political-style evasion techniques where the difficult questions
seem to be there to be avoided.


There’s absolutely none of that in the interview that follows.
Rachel is a blast of new energy with a refreshingly down-to-earth
and approachable personality.


In this podcast we rattle through a tour of where Rachel sees the
Lloyd’s portfolio and global insurance and reinsurance markets
today and more importantly in what directions she is looking to
nudge and steer the market in the future.


A listen will give you a really clear idea on where Rachel stands
on overall performance, casualty rate adequacy, reinsurance at
Lloyd’s, captives, innovation, the opportunities for profitable
growth and even AI.


You’ll also come away with a pretty clear idea of what she would
be like to deal with.


It became clear to me that she’s an underwriter’s underwriter.
Having sat on the other side of the table she really understands
the commercial pressures that underwriters face in the real
world.


But because she has sat in those shoes she can recognise all the
ways that even the smartest underwriters might start to repeat
the mistakes of the past.


I really enjoyed this. I think this is one of the best Episodes
of the year so far and can highly recommend a listen. LINKS: We
thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:


https://www.advantagego.com