Editors comment – Points of view
Of course, there are those that are happy to be quoted, or given a relatively free hand when it comes to public pronouncements, and the risk management and insurance industry media would not be able to operate without them.
On the risk management side, it is always important to get the view of the risk manager, rather than getting it second-hand from the broker or the insurer, and Commercial Risk Europe has been at the forefront of getting the risk and insurance manager’s views into the wider public arena.
International Programme News also puts the insured’s view, notably thanks to those risk managers in our Risk Manager Profile. We have also been lucky this month to have an extended interview (part two next month) with ex-President of FERMA Peter Den Dekker, a man never afraid to speak his mind and expose inconvenient truths about the insurance industry. We are especially fortunate because he is talking about the challenges of setting up a global programme for his new employer, Vimpelcom.
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We are always keen to hear from risk and insurance managers, and indeed brokers, insurers and other service providers, about global insurance programmes. Even if it is ‘non-attributable’ comment, as this still has value, and can often be more honest and challenging. A good example is the recent London Market survey by Novae Group about what the future of the insurance industry holds. It went for the anonymous quote approach, which meant refreshingly honest comments such as: “Increased regulation is the biggest factor – it is more and more intrusive and completely bloody relentless.”
“God knows what the global insurance industry will look like in five years’ time, let alone ten…!”
“Lloyd’s regulation, the FSA and Solvency II are the holy trinity of trouble.”
“In my view, a good underwriter with a pencil is better than a bad underwriter with a model.”
“Lloyd’s Japan didn’t work and Lloyd’s China won’t. Lloyd’s will set up in Latin America and probably fail, because they don’t quite get it.”
“There’s a ridiculous arrogance about Lloyd’s; they sit there talking around topics pointlessly.”
“We’ve had a nice time over the years, and frankly, you would have had to be exceptionally lazy not to make money.”
“Lloyd’s need to ‘man up’ – they are being dictated to by the big brokers.” Of course, in the interests of balance, there were also an awful lot of positive comments about Lloyd’s and the London Market.
But the message from IPN (and CRE) is always: please feel free to send us your comments, attributable or non-attributable, positive, negative or somewhere in-between, to [email protected].
