Ep185 Paul Bantick, Global Head of Cyber Risk, Beazley: Providing for Cyber growth

Cyber is rightly never far from the news. It’s a class of
business that’s only 15 years old, but is already producing
annual income in the billions of dollars for many insurers and
reinsurers. Today’s guest is Paul Bantick, Global Head of Cyber
Risks at Beazley Beazley’s gross cyber income was already well
over a billion dollars in 2022 and is still growing strongly into
this year on the back of seemingly insatiable demand, despite a
near trebling of rate over the last three years. And this is
demand that is picking up globally well outside the core market
of the US. A lot of the cyber buck therefore stops with Beazley,
and so what Paul has to say is really important for the future
direction of the market. And we’ve got a huge amount to talk
about. Cyber is at a crossroads. Rate has come off recently as
underwriters have benefited from the pricing re-set of 2020 to
2022 and posted some very healthy combined ratios. The question
now is whether we are going to descend into a
difficult-to-comprehend downwards spiral like has happened in
D&O or whether core discipline will hold. At the same time
Beazley and others have pushed to impose much greater clarity
around cyber war coverage, something that has sent waves through
the market. In the meantime the work to get reinsurers and
capital markets more comfortable with its view of systemic risk
and supporting a cyber catastrophe market has continued in
earnest with Beazley sponsoring a cyber cat bond - Cairney - at
the beginning of 2023, a cover that it has since topped up twice
with subsequent issuances. We talk about all this and an awful
lot more besides. Happily Paul is really easy to talk to - and
easy to follow. So if you want a comprehensive update on the
insurance world’s most exciting class of business from one of its
best-known lead underwriters, listen on. LINKS: We thank our
naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/


We also thank our audio advertiser, Aventum Group Please contact
them on: voi@aventumgroup.com