Health

Across a whole range of sports, from football to motorsports and from basketball to hockey, professionals rely on Kayla and her colleagues to protect their incomes if they are injured or unable to work. “These professionals rely on their physical fitness to earn their living, so if they can’t earn for a time, that is something they really need protection against.”

Kayla graduated from Oxford Brookes University having studied marketing and business. After considering a career in shipbroking, Kayla was introduced to specialty insurance. In 2021, Kayla began an operations internship at AXIS, a leading provider of specialty insurance and reinsurance. “Understanding what you can and can’t do in the business and really understanding how it works gives you a strong foundation for whatever comes next.”

Kayla was lucky enough to move straight onto the graduate scheme and then into the team that offers protection to sports professionals. “I knew very quickly that this was an industry in which I wanted to work” says Kayla. “As soon as I got started, I knew I loved the people and the work.”

As providing insurance for professional athletes is a global business, there is a lot of travel involved. “We are a global team, so we travel to collaborate with colleagues in other offices and clients and other stakeholders around the world.”

The big surprise for Kayla was how social the market is. “We spend a lot of time connecting with colleagues, competitors and other market players. It’s fun and helpful, and a fantastic career.”

After only five years in the specialty insurance market, Rosie Duller has helped launch an exciting new initiative to protect female sports professionals in case they get hurt. “The best thing about working to protect people against different risks is the sheer variety of what I do – no day is the same” she says.

Rosie joined Special Contingency Risk, part of WTW, on their apprenticeship programme after leaving school. “I was being pushed towards university, but a friend pointed me at this opportunity. What really appealed is that you get to start a career, learn about an industry, gain a qualification and get paid at the same time!” In her first year, she was part of the team that helps protect people travelling to risky countries against kidnapping. At the same time, she had one day a week to study for her diploma with the Chartered Institute of Insurance.

Her next move was to the team that offers protection against death and injury when people are travelling on business. “People have to travel for work to some really risky places” explains Rosie. “Film crews that are reporting on war zones, aid workers helping out after catastrophes all put themselves in harm’s way doing their job. We make sure that if something happens, they can be brought home and looked after.”

Most recently Rosie helped to research and launch a protection specifically aimed at female sports professionals. “Women’s bodies work differently to men, and quite often their training facilities and programmes are not really geared up for that. So, I am really proud and excited to have done something that addresses a problem. Recent media attention on the higher number of ACL injuries amongst female footballers, and the Lionesses’ success in World Cup, have made this a super relevant.”

Rosie talks with great enthusiasm about what she loves about working in the London insurance market. “There is a great buzz here, you get to meet so many other professionals, learn from them and work with them and spent time with them socially as well as professionally. You can combine in person with some remote working to get the best of both. You get to travel internationally, I have a week in Miami coming up, and there is never a dull day.”