Ep180 Craig Kingaby CEO Meridian & Mark Heath CEO Acies: Playing our own game

The older we get the more we lament the passing of the great
personalities in the marketplace. Over an after-work drink we
tend to reminisce about the entrepreneurial characters of old and
how we wish there were more of their kind today. I know I do.
Well, today’s guests are proving that this is a myth caused by
old age because they are some of the most singular insurance
people I have had on the programme to date. Craig Kingaby CEO of
Meridian (Left) and Mark Heath CEO of Acies MGU (Right) both have
vast London market and international insurance and reinsurance
experience but what the Meridian business are trying to achieve
is something different and a little special. For instance, they
are trying to build a London-based diversified specialist
insurance group, but one that is almost sitting outside the
market. They have big growth plans and are moving fast but are
doing so because the opportunity is in front of them, not because
they have to satisfy the ambitions of impatient investors and hit
target numbers. They don’t have an eye on an exit, but instead on
building a generational business which will stop growing if it
ever hits conflicts that might affect its clients. They are
largely self-funded and wholly management controlled and they
have even decided to spend a lot of time building their own
technology platform. I told you that they’re a bit different.
They’re also ideal interviewees because they can sign off on
their own quotes. So what follows is one of the most frank
exchanges about how to build a differentiated broking and MGA
business I have ever had. This is a duo that has spent decades
learning how things should and shouldn’t be done and becoming
experts in the insurance game – the thing is that now they have
decided to play their own game. Craig and Mark are great
communicators and I think they are onto something interesting, so
listen on for a very refreshing and challenging chat about what
this new game is all about. Mark speaks first. NOTES: Craig
mentions a Marcus at insurance placement platform, Whitespace.
That’s Marcus Broome, its chief platform officer.


LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/