James Brady, Property Divisional Director at Hiscox: How to Stand Out in a Competitive Job Market

My Duvet Flip by Jack Parsons

Jack Parsons

Business, Careers

4.2 • 5 Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode Guest:

James Brady is the Property Divisional Director at Hiscox, where he leads underwriting and strategy across the UK property market. With over 18 years at Hiscox, James has built teams, led growth, and championed insurance as one of the world’s best-kept career secrets.

Episode Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

0:41 James on demystifying insurance careers

1:12 First job and early lessons in pensions

2:33 How to stand out in a competitive job market

3:28 Knowing your differentiator in interviews

4:40 When a “good vibe” job isn’t the right fit

5:28 Why you should never leave without another role lined up

6:21 The role of recruiters and how to spot a good one

8:12 Why you must drive your own career

9:41 The non-linear path to success

10:46 What Hiscox taught James about opportunity

12:22 Why insurance is the world’s best-kept career secret

13:36 The variety of careers inside insurance

14:57 How the Lloyd’s of London market works

16:58 Local vs London underwriting explained

18:56 Why James has stayed 18 years at Hiscox

20:39 What makes a great manager

22:17 The hardest and most rewarding part of managing people

22:53 Moving from London to Manchester — a career-defining opportunity

24:20 What to consider before saying yes to a big move

26:09 Rebuilding the Manchester team and brand

27:31 The power of consistency and being as good as your word

28:28 Specialising in media and technology insurance

29:49 Insuring content creators, designers, and media giants

31:07 Why join Hiscox and the insurance industry today

32:46 James’s duvet flip – what gets him out of bed in the morning

Episode Partner

Hiscox, a leading international insurer with more than 3,000 employees worldwide. The company is known for specialist insurance solutions and a strong commitment to customer service.

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If you’re struggling with debt, trusted advice and free support can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/debt-advice

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm James Brady. I'm Property Divisional Director at His Cox and we employ 3,000 people globally. This is my duvet flip. When an opportunity like that comes to you, what are the things that you need to consider? It wasn't an instantaneous yet. It was, let me think about this, let me consider it, let me think about what are the pros, what are the columns. And you went in there, and what happened? We got a good team rebuilt and then just consistency in the delivery. You say to someone that you're going to do something, you do it. Be as good as you want. If you do that and you're consistent in that delivery, things then start to snowball. Are you ready for my final question? Yes. What's your dovet flip? What gets you out of bed in the morning to flip the do they? Look I feel...
0:38.3	Hi, I'm James Brady. I'm Property Divisional Director at Hiscox.
0:45.3	I'm feeling really good about setting them in Jack today.
0:47.3	I'm most excited to talk about the world of insurance and hopefully help demystifying it for some of your audience
0:55.0	that they can think about it as a potential career. I've not met Jack before, I've watched some of the
1:01.0	YouTube videos. So the one thing I'm going to give the audience is the world's best kept secret in terms of a career. I hope they take that away with them.
1:12.4	Bring it on.
1:13.6	So James, welcome to my duvee, Flip. How are we?
1:16.3	Fantastic, thank you. Thank you very much for having me.
1:18.3	No, thank you for joining us.
1:19.5	And I can't wait to hear about your career, your journey and everything in between.
1:23.5	I know it's a lifelong journey of lots of ups and downs potentially, lots of things that you can pass on to the next generation and people tuning in.
1:32.9	But I want to start here.
1:34.7	First job.
1:35.8	I know you talked a bit about it with Leon, but tell me a little bit about that job.
1:40.7	Like, how did you get it?
1:42.5	Why did you want to get into pensions? Like, where did it all
1:46.5	start? I got it just from looking online back in the day at job listings, post-university.
1:56.3	It probably wasn't as competitive as it is now, that industry back then.
2:01.7	But, you know, just put my name forward, went through, I think, a recruitment agency as well.
2:07.1	I had a few different things, you know, on the go, all in sort of financial services.
2:13.3	Got a fairly good vibe from it in terms of the recruitment process, but ultimately it landed
	...

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