CII President’s Breakfast: Bruce Carnegie-Brown says cost, confidence and relevance are main challenges to insurance sector

Bruce opened by expressing concern for the cost of delivering products in the wholesale and reinsurance markets, which he said was currently ‘much too high’, leaving penetration rates in developing markets lower than they should be, in his view. He also said that there is a confidence gap at the point of exchange of insurance contracts, which the profession has an obligation to address together. Bruce suggested that greater use of parametrics, which automatically initiate insurance payments if certain risks crystalise, could be part of the answer.

Turning to relevance, Bruce said that with ‘more risk around than there has ever been’ customers are reaching out to brokers in lots of different ways. Specifically on climate change, Bruce reflected that the industry has a duty to provide ‘incredibly strong risk propositions’ that could directly increase the sector’s relevance. More generally, he warned that the insurance profession needed to ‘up its game for our customers’.

Bruce also took the opportunity to discuss the need to ‘move the dial’ on gender and diversity across the profession. While noting recent improvements in both gender representation and of minority ethnic groups in senior positions across the insurance industry in the UK, he said going further remained a ‘key challenge’ for the sector, and to do so in a reasonable time frame.

The final President’s breakfast during Russell Higginbotham’s tenure will be held on 6 December.