BFL Canada president and COO Lisa Giannone has called for “outside the box” thinking in 2024 and predicted talent gains for savvy brokerages.
In an interview with Insurance Business, Giannone said she believes that P&C coverage will continue to face challenges in the year ahead.
“There will be a continued shortage of capacity, more specifically with respect to high-risk industries,” she said.
This includes engineered property such as forestry, mining, as well as transportation.
Canada experienced $3.1 billion in insured severe weather losses throughout 2023, making it the fourth costliest year on record, the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) has said.
“Brokers need to be thinking outside of the box around loss control and loss mitigation, making sure clients have business recovery plans in place to protect their operation from a safety perspective and operationally,” Giannone said.
“We will also need to develop new products and it takes analytics to do that. Technology is going to play a big role and [so will] having that data available to insurers and reinsurers to feel comfortable about putting out a better product.”
The president and COO listed the agriculture space as an industry that is experiencing concerted innovation efforts from carriers, brokers and MGAs.
Elsewhere, while there is enough capacity in the market for cyber, attacks continue to be very targeted and costly.
“It's not so much about the transaction transferring the risk, it's more about consulting and being able to deliver value added services that that then would help with transferring the risk to the insurance market,” she said.
On the other hand, areas that are seeing a softening include executive lines and personal liability, which Giannone does not expect to change much throughout 2024.
Into the future, Giannone is hoping to see more data sharing between insurers and brokers in order to optimize the products and services each provide.
“Data is obviously very powerful and allows us as brokers to talk to our reinsurers or insurers about bringing solutions to clients,” she said. “However, there is no connection now between insurance and reinsurance providers in the domestic markets like there is with Lloyd’s.”
More thoughtful development and implementation of technology can help capture data that is useful for clients to understand from a benchmarking perspective.
“However, there’s still a lot of inefficiencies that need to be worked out so we can get data between various contacts more simply,” Giannone said. “When we do that through the industry at large, it will be a substantial benefit for us professionals and the clients we serve.”
Consolidation is likely to offer opportunities for other brokerages to snap up talent lost or shed through deals, according to Giannone.
“There’s definitely a pocket of people that will be lost in the shuffle during consolidation,” Giannone said. “I see that as an opportunity for companies with strong business models and strong cultures to acquire talent.”
Nevertheless, the BFL Canada president and COO said she expected the industry-wide talent shortage to persist as an existential concern for brokerages across the country.
“Continuing to attract talent, whether it be from the insurance industry or other industries at large, will still pose problems in the coming months,” Giannone said. “Now is definitely a great opportunity to attract people from other industries, which is enabled by developments in generative AI.
“Professionals with different skill sets, such as engineers and programmers, can really help with technology transformation that is happening – that's a tremendous opportunity that we have today, as technology plays more of a role in building a relationship with a client.”
Furthermore, in the aftermath of the widespread work from home mandates of companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, Giannone noted how it is hard to get employees motivated to return to the office.
“If a firm is able to build a maintain a very strong work culture that favours in-person collaboration and problem solving, it can establish a very unique value proposition that sets it apart from competitors,” she said.
