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InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

James Slaughter; Chief Underwriting Officer; Global Risk Solutions at Liberty Mutual Insurance (47)

InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

InsTech

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.951 Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2019

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Liberty Mutual is the world's fifth-largest property & casualty insurer. James Slaughter is responsible for setting the overall underwriting strategy -  which includes pricing, risk appetite, distribution and innovation - for the global commercial & specialty lines business of Liberty Mutual. Matthew talks to James about what drew him to insurance and the challenges of bringing change and new technology to the underwriting of large and complex risks. Topics include lessons to be learnt from personal lines, creating an internal culture of innovation and how the market will evolve in the next few years.  More information on James and the head of innovation partnerships, Premal Gohil  To find out what we are up to at InsTech London, our past and future events go to www.instech.london For your free copy of Insurance Insider go to  http://campaigns.insuranceinsider.com/instechlondon/

Transcript

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0:00.0

Technology is not doing something for the underwriter that they couldn't do, but it's doing it in a way that allows us to be much more effective and more efficient in our underwriting application.

0:17.0

Hello, this is Matthew Grant and welcome back for this week's Insteck London podcast or if this is your first time, thank you for joining us.

0:25.8

If you'd like this, there is a great back catalogue now of interviews and chat from our events to dig into.

0:33.3

Now, underwriters are very much at the heart of insurance and chief underwriting offices in particular

0:39.1

have a tricky role of ensuring their teams are writing profitable business but also sourcing new

0:45.5

opportunities.

0:46.8

So if you're building a company selling analytics, data or even new solutions or products

0:52.0

for insurance companies, then at some point you're going to

0:54.8

need to convince the underwriters to use your product. James Slaughter is CEO of Global Risk Solutions

1:02.3

at Liberty Mutual. They're the third largest property and casualty insurer in the US, and they've

1:08.3

got a major presence in London. Now like many of the most successful

1:12.4

underwriters, James has a strong analytical background but he combines it with creativity and an eye

1:19.6

for opportunity. We're bringing this to you with the support of insurance insider whom we find

1:25.6

to be one of the most insightful sources of information in the

1:29.2

wholesale insurance specialty and reinsurance market. Take a look at the episode notes for a link

1:35.5

to download your free issue of Insurance Insider. James, great for you to join us on the Interstate London podcast.

1:46.0

One of the things that was really interesting to hear from people is how they got into insurance.

1:52.0

Now, you did a degree in engineering, which is great, and then you went straight into insurance after that, I believe.

1:58.0

So what was it, it took you from engineering into insurance?

2:02.0

I was at university, reading engineering,

2:04.2

not have any great ambition to be an engineer as it was,

2:07.0

although I was pursuing at the time a career in the military

...

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