Big Boats

Rebecca’s journey into specialty insurance was driven by her desire to work whilst studying and has been guided by her attraction to all things nautical. Being a Sea Scout growing up has now led to her being someone many shipowners turn to in a time of crisis.

“Working in the London insurance market was something of a fluke” said Rebecca. Having studied arts subjects at A Level, she did not know what she wanted to do at after, so decided to look at apprenticeships as an alternative. “I searched on the national apprenticeship website for opportunities in financial services that paid enough to pay for my car insurance. A lot of applications went nowhere but you only need one – and I got an interview with an insurance company”. After a phone interview in the Homebase carpark during her lunch break, she was invited back and landed a role in claims operations at Chaucer – one of the insurers in the London Market.

“As insurers, we do our best to pay when things go wrong , so handling the claim well is the foundation of our very business. I have specialised in ships and their cargo – which is where insurance started nearly 400 years ago, so it’s great to feel so connected to the foundations of the industry. Maybe it was living in Dartford where I could see the ships on the Thames or being a Sea Scout – but this is specialism I really love”.

Rebecca supports clients in steering clear of pitfalls and dealing with the aftermath of accidents . “I always try to put myself in the shoes of the person who may experience the accident” said Rebecca. “What could go wrong? What precautions should they take. For many of our clients, they will only experience these incidents very occasionally, but because we sit in the middle, we get a lot of exposure from other clients that we can share”.

Rebecca has worked for three different insurance businesses, working her way up the career ladder, and is now a Senior Claims Hander within the Marine, Energy and Aviation team at IQUW.  “Insurance has a lot of smaller, specialist businesses, so you get to enjoy working in a culture that is much more friendly and social while still being part of a world leading market, I bump into people I’ve previously worked with every day. We get to see extraordinary things – when I first started there was a jewellery theft by the Pink Panthers at the Cannes Festival worth over $100 million, I thought it was only a cartoon! You see the unexpected and the intriguing and that is the joy of being in claims”.

Shipping is a huge part of the global economy and vessels of all types would not leave port without insurance because sadly accidents do happen – ships collide, oil gets spilt and sailors get injured. Claims experts like Efi are there to help put things right when they go wrong.

Efi is a claims manger working for MS Amlin, an insurance company. Every day she helps clients solve different types of problems and the sheer range of things that come across her desk is one of the things she loves most about her job. “My first degree was in Law and like a lot of people I had never thought of insurance. But a shipping insurer came to talk to us and, because I come from Greece where marine industries are a big part of the economy, it made me really think about that as a career”.

While she studied for a Masters’ degree in Marine Law and Insurance, she started work with an insurer called Allied World as a claims assistant, part of the team that works out how much it will cost to repair or rebuild, help with services to do that and make the payments to put things right again. Seven years later she is a claims manager, polishing her technical skills and learning about people management and leadership.

“Being in claims is really about helping make things better” says Efi, and it is the sheer variety of things that she looks at that is part of the appeal – it might be an accident in a port, pollution on a beach or vessels colliding with each other. Each requires research and investigation and most importantly working with other people. “I love that the London Market is so collaborative, people really help each other.”

Efi loves the energy that she finds in the City and across the market, but there is also the opportunity to travel and meet other marine experts at conferences as far afield as the US and Asia. “This job is absolutely not about being stuck behind a desk reading emails. There are conversations, negotiations and then helping make things better – every day is different.”

Gregor describes his route into specialty insurance as “a bit random”. In his second year of studying Applied Maths at St Andrew’s, an ad for an internship as a “catastrophe risk modeller” caught his eye and, while not really understanding it, he thought it sounded “very cool”.

He got the internship at Willis Re, an insurance broker, and enjoyed both the work and the industry – although it was all done remotely because of the pandemic. “Essentially you are trying to work out what it is going to cost in terms of damage if there is some terrible natural disaster like a windstorm, flood, earthquake. We analyse the data on what happened in the past, add what we know now and then apply different scenarios. It all goes towards either deciding how homes and businesses can be protected”.

Much as he enjoyed what he did, he decided that he wanted to be more client facing so he moved to be a claims advocate at Gallagher Re, another broker. “When a client has a claim, that is the moment that insurance becomes important to them” explains Gregor. “I help across a whole range of cases and clients. What I love is that any big event, something you would read about in the news, I am more than likely to be involved; earthquake in Japan, ships being attacked in the Red Sea, we are helping people recover financially from what they have lost”.

Unlike being a broker or an underwriter who often specialise quite early, claims tends to be broader and give you a much wider overview of the whole market. Being a great claims advocate takes both technical skills and the ability to work with people. “Insurance is a contract and you need to know what it means, so there is a level of understanding involved so you can help the clients” says Gregor. “But as well as that, you have to build relationships: with the buyers, with the insurers who are taking the risk and with other experts in the market”. It’s the face to face interaction that Gregor thinks sets the London insurance market apart. “Right from the very beginning I have met buyers, networked with my peers in other firms and been to events. Not only is it quicker and more efficient to discuss things in person than ping emails back and forward, but it’s a lot more fun”.

On a recent holiday to Asia, Francesca looked out of the window as her flight took off from Hong Kong and saw hundreds of huge container ships in the harbour. She realised that many of them were protected by the insurance company she works for. “It suddenly makes it very real, that what we do all day is help people get goods around the world.”

Fran has been working in the London insurance market for nearly two years. After studying for a degree in International Tourism Management, a career path that was seriously affected by the pandemic, she was looking to get her work life started. Her first encounter with specialty insurance was on TikTok where she found Sam Ridgewell at Empower Development talking about roles in the industry and offering CV advice. “I did not know much about insurance and was thinking about whether I wanted an entry level role or a graduate programme. I connected with Sam on LinkedIn and she offered great knowledge and advice.”

As a result, Fran is now an underwriting processing assistant working in marine insurance for an insurer called Brittania who specialises in protecting the crews of vessels as well as society from the consequences of accidents like collisions and oil spills. “Until you work in insurance, it is hard to see beyond cars and holidays. But 90% of the things we all buy come by ship and there are lots of risks involved. It really came to life for everyone when a ship blocked the Suez Canal, and suddenly there was no garden furniture!”

Working in a specialist area means learning from both practical experience as well as more academic training. Fran is currently studying for her professional qualifications with the P&IQ as well as doing vessel familiarisation courses in ports like Hull. “Working in the London insurance market combines really interesting clients and issues and a great social life. We work very closely together to protect society against the worst happening – but the hours beat banking hands down!”

As well as still training three times a week as a competitive swimmer (butterfly no less), Fran is determined to pay it forward by using social media to tell others about careers in insurance. “I think this is a great industry and through ‘day in the life’ TikToks etc I want to bring it to life for others”.

90 percent of global trade is carried by sea; from huge space rockets to the latest Christmas toy trend it has probably been put on a ship and travelled across the world. This means it is at risk of damage on the journey or even in extreme cases destruction, meaning a loss of income for the seller of the goods.

Abbie is a broker at WTW working with shipping companies to make sure that should the worst happen, there is financial compensation for any losses. Whether it is transporting satellites in one piece, keeping vaccines at the right temperature or avoiding soybeans catching fire, the sheer variety of what she deals with is what makes her job exciting. A biomedical graduate from Warwick University, she had considered a career as a scientist but felt lab work would not be fast paced enough. Through the Debut app, she saw an internship for WTW and decided to apply. “I had no business background or knowledge of finance, but I liked what I read about the people, the business and its ethics, so decided to apply”.

Fast forward three years and Abbie has just completed her graduate programme and is working in the Cargo team full time. “The insurance industry does a tremendous amount of social good. As part of my graduate programme, I was looking a climate change and trying to model the effects of changes in weather patterns. Then with the pandemic the shipment of vaccines was very vital in helping to protect populations. Yes, this is financial services, but it’s really about things that really touch peoples’ lives”.

The sheer variety of cargoes that Abbie is involved with provides a great opportunity to learn new things and means that every day is different. “It was really daunting when I started because of the sheer range of things I get asked about. Who knew the soybeans can catch fire? But it is also very exciting because even as you get experience in one area, because the world is always changing something new comes along. So, the war in Ukraine has meant a huge rise in grain prices – that means the value of what is in a ship goes up and insurance gets more expensive. So suddenly you are thinking about politics and its impact”.

Abbie loves the buzz of the City and the fact that in the London insurance market so much is about relationships with other market participants. “You don’t find the community in other financial services, I love the fact that everyone works in the same postcode and you bump into people you know all the time.”