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Entrepreneur
“You’re fired!”
As fans of The Apprentice will know, launching and running your own business is not for faint-hearted.
The London insurance market is however home to a wealth of entrepreneurs; creating broking and underwriting business or founding support services. David Howden, Stephen Catlin and Steve McGill, to name but a few, have all created and run businesses that are now worth millions of pounds.
An appetite to take risk is clearly a fundamental part of the DNA of this market as is the desire to carve your own path. So, if you see your future as the next Lord Sugar, beginning your career in specialty insurance is not a bad place to start.
Peter Clarke
Founder Insurercore
As founder and managing director of Insurercore, Peter’s seen his initial idea for a site that would help insurance professionals network, grow into a fully-fledged digital platform used by firms and professionals across the insurance market. But it’s not always been a smooth ride...
Read Peter's profile
“It’s a real roller coaster,” says Peter as he describes his role as an entrepreneur heading the digital networking platform Insurercore. “It’s exciting but there’s more stress than I’d wish on my enemy.”
As founder and managing director of Insurercore, Peter’s seen his initial idea for a site that would help insurance professionals network and do business more effectively grow from lines of computer code to a fully-fledged digital platform used by firms and professionals across the insurance market. But it’s not always been a smooth ride.
“When I left my job to work on Insurercore full time, my partner had to leave the country a week later. The platform was half-built and, it turned out, had some very unusual coding. I then went with a company in India, who delivered a skeleton of the platform but reviewers said they’d never seen code like it. We decided we couldn’t use it and had to build it again, this time using a UK company. It wasn’t until we joined the Lloyd’s Lab – an incubator for tech start-ups – that we were able to fund-raise and bring in a team.”
Peter initially went into the insurance sector as an assistant underwriter but ultimately decided it wasn’t for him. He was more interested in the way in which insurance companies conducted their business and how their ability as networkers influenced how much business they won.
Today, he starts his morning by reviewing sales and checking on activity on the Insurercore platform. Next, he takes some time to work on the team’s latest outreach campaign to attract users. The team then hold a marketing meeting and then it’s time to work through a batch of emails that have come in. Next, Peter holds meetings, runs some demonstrations and may also speak to journalists. By mid-afternoon, he’s working on the development pipeline and reflects on the issues his team members are facing. Finally, it’s a 6pm wrap-up meeting and a plan for tomorrow.
“I attend a lot of conferences,” Peter says. “Lots of small talk and networking. Those are my favourite days. But equally you’ve got to deal with the bad news and put out the fires.”
Alex Hearn
CEO/ Founder Slipcase
I was working with a smart, interesting and skilled team of colleagues but as I looked at the future, I knew that staying in the corporate world was not for me...
Read Alex's profile
Despite an exciting start to his career in insurance, working for broking business WTW, Alex knew that he wanted to do his own thing early on. “After university I looked at both ship and insurance broking, but I liked the people in insurance more” Alex explains. “I was working with a smart, interesting and skilled team of colleagues and was given real responsibility right from the start. But as I looked at the future, I knew that staying in the corporate world was not for me”.
Ten years ago, he used his bonus to start his own tech business – originally a social media platform to enhance the human relationships that are such a core part of the London insurance market. “The terrifying bit is the beginning when you are trying to prove the concept, but the wins make it all worthwhile. The first customer, the first cheque and the first great testimonial – these are the things you hang onto when you are worrying at 3am in the morning”. But after two years, Alex realised that he needed to change the model. “Of course, you think your idea is the right one, but you have to be open-minded to what the customer wants if you are going to succeed” he continues. “It was the content that was getting traction, so we pivoted to focussing on that”. He got outside investment to build a bespoke platform that made a wide variety of industry content available to different audiences. The platform has doubled in size every year since, with a host of big names now paying to share their content and it has expanded into the U.S.A. Alex focuses on three key areas; regular improvements to the site and to the channels they use to get the content read as widely as possible, promoting the business and negotiating with new subscribers or those renewing their contracts. “We have invested a lot of time in the States, visiting as regularly as possible to keep promoting the platform and we go to all the big conferences. Digital publishing has tremendous international reach, but speciality insurance is still very much a people business so building those relationships is key to future success”.
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