Ep126 Jonathan Zaffino President, Ascot Group: We don’t believe in big bets

Jonathan Zaffino, President of Ascot Group is one of the
industry’s great thinkers Ascot is one of the Lloyd’s Market’s
most successful underwriting outfits of the last 20 years and
Jonathan is leading that group’s expansion into the key US
market. But his style of expansion is not an aggressive kind that
pursues growth by taking big bets. It is a far more nuanced and
subtle approach and one that recognises some of the big secular
changes that have taken place in the insurance market over the
last two decades. Behind the detail in our discussion lots of big
themes are lurking. I enjoy how our conversation can start with
specifics on trends in areas such as delegated authority but
quickly change gear and end up encompassing much loftier themes
such as the disaggregation of the insurance value chain as a
whole and the advent of new far more mercurial forms of capital
provision. Ascot is a business with a strong identity and market
presence and we talk about how the firm is looking to distil and
preserve that culture as it grows, evolves and seeks new
ownership in a fast-changing market. Listening back the most
common word Jonathan uses in this podcast is Candidly. And that
is apparent all the way through our discussion. This is what he
really thinks about the challenges and opportunities in the
market today. Learning what the market’s finest minds really
think about the world is what this podcast is all about, so I can
highly recommend this episode to anyone seeking inspiration and
enlightenment. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank this Episode’s
advertising supporter Oxbow Partners https://oxbowpartners.com/