What initially attracted you to QBE and the insurance industry as a whole?
Like many young business graduates, I stumbled into the world of insurance without much foresight. Now, I love the industry. We get to work in what’s known as ‘temporal balance’. A state of time harmony. We appreciate and use the past, tackle today’s problems, all while looking forward and solving challenges of the future. Why QBE? Well, what’s the one thing you want when navigating a rapidly changing and uncertain future? Great people.
Can you share a pivotal moment in your career journey that significantly influenced your development?
There wasn’t a single development moment, but rather many small 1% improvements/course corrections, which I can only attribute to the people around me. A personal moment I do remember is when I passed one of my harder earlier exams. Up until that point, I still had all the doubts around if I’ll be able to pass the Actuarial exams, or if I’ll be good enough to work in a high performing team.
Passing that exam, changed the voice in the back of my head from cautious doubt, to actually, everything seems scary when you’re far away from it, but with a bit of exposure and effort, you may just surprise yourself!
What emerging trends or innovations in the insurance industry excite you the most, and how do you envision them shaping the future?
There’s obviously so many, and that is part of the joy of insurance! But two key things that jump out at me are:
The threat – climate change. We fundamentally need to understand the changing climate and its impact on risk. Understanding the threat of climate change can allow us to protect capital appetite for insurance risk as well as protect the availability of insurance.
The opportunity – automation and AI, and digital transformation will shape the future. Companies can leverage this technology quicker, will have more people, spending more of their time, solving real-world insurance problems.
How do you approach continuous learning and skill development to stay ahead in this dynamic industry?
I’ve been fortunate to have a formal exam pathway that has had me studying for insurance exams bi-annually. It’s one of those things you loath when the time to study rolls around, but once the exam is done, the feeling is unreal. Not only do you get a dopamine kick from pushing through something that’s tough, but you also get to add another arrow to your quiver of career skills.
Outside of formal exams, it’s always good to read about what’s happening in the industry, and there are also a few interesting general insurance podcasts I like to listen to, which touch on various emerging challenges, new innovations, and interview people working in interesting areas of insurance.
How do you maintain a balance between embracing traditional insurance practices and exploring new, disruptive ideas?
This is where diversity is awesome. Fresh people in a team who don’t know traditional insurance practices, combine beautifully with a group of experienced people who have dialled in their approach over the years. If you put this in an open environment, with good communication and ways of working, you will be surprised by how much the situation self-balances. So, on a personal level, I trust and rely on the feedback from people around me to help balance exploring some wacky new idea with the tried and tested. I believe innovation should not just be top down, but more bottom up. Exploring new ideas should ideally happen on the ground – by the people who are closest to the problem.
As someone with a keen eye for innovation, what advice would you give to other professionals looking to make an impact in the insurance sector?
Try to get a breadth of experience throughout your career. Understand how all teams interconnect within the company. Aim to understand what moves the insurance needle, from both the shareholder and customer ends. What are things that materially affect customers outcomes, and their satisfaction with the product and service? What are things that materially affect insurance risk and return and hence shareholder outcomes? Any part or innovation you play in the company, can then be balanced against this backdrop – you can see/anticipate how what you are doing will impact both ends of the spectrum, and to what extent.
Lastly, what personal goals or milestones do you aspire to achieve in your career, and how do you plan to work towards them?
Whenever I mention that I work in insurance, I notice people lose interest. But imagine this: a stint in Bermuda. Which other industry can boast about teleporting capital across the globe from a tiny island, all in a mission to shield people from the world’s toughest challenges? Then, there’s the allure of working at Lloyd’s – it’s like stepping into the prequel, the origin story. Picture the early days, where capital, customer, and real-world risk converge, perhaps over a simple cup of coffee (almost like a Teams meeting, but let’s save that’s a story for another time).