Decades spent serving the global re/insurance market have given Neville Ching (pictured) a clear view of how to build a thriving business and how to enjoy a successful career. But whether you’re producing, managing and placing large reinsurance transactions, or crafting a great claims experience, he believes that the key to a rewarding career lies in recognizing that doing business is often best treated as deeply personal. History proves that trades built on balanced relationships outlast comodotised transactions.
In conversation with Re-Insurance Business, Ching, who is CEO of the Bermuda-based reinsurance brokerage ReFlex Solutions, reflected on the relative stability of today’s reinsurance marketplace, as key players acknowledge the need to take a measured and sustainable approach to growth. “We all get those periods in our lives when you realize how good things are, and, all too often, we then race on to the next thing,” he said. “I’ve certainly come to recognize that there’s a time and a place for us to stop, take stock and be thankful for where we are, and I think that’s reflective of where the market is now.
“Of course, that’s not true for everyone and you do speak to some stakeholders and investors who want to push on and develop their portfolios and achieve their planned goals as early as possible. They want to take full advantage of where we are in the cycle and of the resources we’ve got available. They want to be three times as big as they are in five years’ time.”
Where you have these extremely ambitious growth targets, you tend to find it’s driven by stakeholder demand, Ching said, because when somebody gives you assets to deploy, they often have quite a loud voice at the table. That can make it hard to know exactly who the decision-maker really is in a business, because executives are finding themselves beholden to a range of stakeholders including their investors, the board of directors, the regulator and not forgetting the end consumers themselves.
“In the same way in our personal lives that you can have somebody with multiple roles to play as a husband / wife, father / mother, son / daughter, brother / sister, employer, employee and citizen, CEOs have a lot of responsibility to a lot of people,” he said. “And, particularly when you’re in the risk business, things can go wrong very quickly if you’re not careful and you’re not very vigilant about keeping track of where your key responsibilities lie.”
Ching noted that while there is volatility in every sector of the re/insurance business, it’s the role of a reinsurance broker to make sure that they’re helping to manage that volatility so it doesn’t end up impacting the stakeholders and customers. That was the ethos behind the creation and launch of ReFlex, he said, which wasn’t set up to compete with the reinsurance broking giants but rather to carve itself out a niche where it saw it could provide quality expertise and insight to the market.
“We believe that experience gives you greater knowledge, which in turn becomes insights that are of great relevance to our clients,” he said. “And sometimes that insight is about what not to do, which might not always be what clients want to hear! But sometimes doing nothing can be relevant. Taking the time to take stock and realize where you are, and plan your next move accordingly is as important in our professional lives as it is in our personal lives.”
ReFlex’s client suite is small but select, he said, as it’s by being selective that the team is able to partner with like-minded clients and form a strong partnership with them. That partnership-first approach is resonating strongly with the market, not least in the midst of such significant geopolitical uncertainty.
“There’s nothing new under the sun, and there has been global instability since time began,” he said. “However, we need to learn from our experiences and the experiences of others from history if we’re going to find new ways to tackle issues and risks that are new or emerging… Because some of the extremities that we’re seeing are likely to extrude into our partners’ businesses in the forms of social and political instability, or war and terror risk to present two prime examples. As an industry we need to get ahead of understanding the next peril that we might have to deal with.”
Dealing with risk, particularly systemic risk – whether they’re new, emerging or long-standing – is one of the main reasons why the re/insurance industry exists, Ching said. It’s too easy for the market to turn away from difficult risks, and find ways to minimize its own exposure to them, rather than finding ways to support its partners and clients. When they do that, it’s the consumer that suffers, the same consumer that ultimately pays the bills and the market is there to protect.
“I’m seeing that on a personal level with my in-laws and how difficult it is for older people to get coverage for travelling,” he said. “Another example, is how difficult it is for young drivers to get insured. The answer for the market is to start finding out more about individual risk and not just moving to a place where they only accept below or above certain ages for travel or motor cover.
“I believe that by using more insight, driven by data and technology, you can address those risks. That’s in its most basic form but it can be translated to industrial risks, political risks and commercial risks that have been treated the same way – where the market has just left.”
Creating a healthier market does mean making some tough decisions, Ching said, but sometimes that tough decision is to say ‘yes’. Often, it’s assumed that a tough decision means saying ‘no’, but really it’s about saying ‘yes’ to making the right investments in data, technology and people, and saying ‘yes’ to taking a risk if it’s in the service of supporting consumers and the wider reputation of the re/insurance industry. “So, let’s say ‘yes’ to making the right investments in our industry, not just financial investments but also of our time, to understand sectors which might have disappointed in the past but which have the potential to become something positive in the modern age.”
