Ep202 Kate Markham Hiscox: Do More, Do it Better, Do it Cheaper

Today’s guest has one of the biggest jobs in the London Market.
Kate Markham is CEO of Hiscox London Market and the last time we
spoke she had just brought her business unit through a
remediation strategy that was beginning to bear fruit. Eighteen
months later, and the results have been stellar. Today the best
are looking to invest and grow and get out on the front foot and
lean into the opportunities that a still very strong market has
to offer. And this podcast is all about that. This is a business
very much looking to the future. Our conversation came about
because Hiscox has been one of the first to experiment with
artificial intelligence to help speed up and enhance the lead
underwriting process and so I wanted to dig right into the detail
of what Kate and her teams had done and what the results had been
like. So we spend much of this discussion going deep into this
and examining where the next steps are going to lead. It’s a very
heartening and positive message. Underwriters aren’t going to be
out of a job because they will be freed up to add real value in
the assessment of risk and to enhance the service that they give
brokers and innovate to improve the relevance and quality of the
cover that can give their ultimate customers. The emergence of a
fully connected digital value chains is also going to make it
much easier for a much larger share of world business to access
the London Market. After all if underwriters make it really
simple to send something to London, and turnarounds are almost
instant, why wouldn’t many more brokers seek quotes? Kate is full
of energy and enthusiasm and our conversation is fun and rattles
along at a fast pace. Kate is also one of those leaders who has
the gift of instilling confidence in the people they come in
contact with and this podcast put a spring in my step about the
quality of the London Market’s future if it can grasp the unique
opportunities it is currently presented with I got a lot out of
this chat and I think you will too. NOTES: I let the abbreviation
D&F get through. It stands for Direct and Facultative and is
big-ticket property business.


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