Last month I attended the Leadership, Innovation and Diversity Conference, an Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) event aimed at cultivating a culture of inclusion to drive future business results.
Held at the New Armouries in the Tower of London (complete with a fascinating and entertaining history lesson from a Beefeater), the event boasted some excellent speakers from a wide range of insurers, brokers, and industry consultants.
Of these, I would like to single out two speakers: Bronek Masojada, CEO of Hiscox, and Ivy Kusinga, Chief Culture Officer at Chubb:
Bronek focused primarily on incremental innovation, citing Perrier as an inspiration: “Just add a twist of lime” is to sparkling water what repackaging risks is to (re)insurance. He, more seriously, noted several examples of how breaking down cross-business line barriers was key to enabling this innovation to happen. Getting buy-in from people is key to creating an environment which fosters innovation.
Ivy, who is a wonderfully engaging speaker, spoke at length about the challenges of changing the culture in insurance; at best, it is steeped in history, at worst old-fashioned and out-of-date. She, too, described small tweaks made in key areas, as being key to moving culture forwards, with the demonstrative backing of senior leadership in order to, as Bronek said, bring all your people along on the journey.
While there were promises of technology and solutions designed to wrench the insurance industry into 2019, perhaps the big changes are already being driven by the little things, focused in the right places, and with a firm view on people.
All in all, much food for thought, and all for a worthy cause:
The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) is a unique nonprofit that helps communities and enriches lives by uniting the Insurance Industry through grants, volunteer service and leadership. Since 1994, IICF has contributed over £20 million in community grants and more than 270,000 volunteer hours to nonprofits in the UK and United States. IICF UK provides grants in areas of education and social mobility and is a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 1163896). Learn more at www.iicf.org.uk or follow us on Twitter @IICF_UK.
Penelope Mantzaris
Director