It was a job advertisement in the pages of The Independent in the late 1980s that first appraised Robert Read (pictured) that there was a middle ground to be found between the “uninspiring” work of being a management consultant and the bleak reality of being a starving artist.
Read noted that he had carried aspirations of becoming an artist all the way through university, where he studied philosophy, and into the world of work. Now head of art and private clients at Hiscox, his first role was at a management consultancy and saw him rubbing shoulders with Cambridge Dons who were at the forefront of using quantitative data to help businesses make decisions. This was right at the dawn of computers being used to crunch those numbers, he said, but while what they were doing was innovative, it was most assuredly not for him.
“I had a studio in London at the time and my artistic aspirations were one of the reasons why I ended up realising I didn’t want to be a management consultant for the rest of my life, and I wanted to do something creative,” he said. “I saw an ad in The Independent - back in the days that was still a print journal – for a fine art insurance broker at Lloyd’s.
“I didn’t know what that was, I didn’t know anything about Lloyd’s and I didn’t know anything about insurance. But I liked the idea that it had fine arts in it. So, off I trundled and got the job, and I was a broker for a couple of years before I came to Hiscox. And I’m still just as interested in the art market as I was then - the only thing I can say that has really changed since is that I am now a failed artist as well as an insurer.”
Read found a natural home in Hiscox where he spent over three decades supporting the insurer’s aim not just to underwrite art but also collect, sponsor and promote it. Art and creativity represent a significant element of Hiscox’s profile in the insurance market, he said, and he enjoys the opportunity he has to really bring the coverage to life not least through the group’s own impressive art gallery – which is open to all its employees.
“While my main job every day is looking at risk and deciding what risks we’ll underwrite, I love being involved in our art collection, and being the buyer of the collection. That’s a real pleasure,” he said. “Then we’re also involved in multiple charities and art projects. For example, we’re one of the founding partners of Sculpture in the City – an annual free open-air art exhibition.
“This has been a great example of business and the City of London Corporation collaborating. Now other people are looking to replicate that in other cities which has been wonderful to see as well. We also support Art UK, a charity looking to digitise and democratise the nation’s art. Lots of small galleries and museums don’t have the budget to show their art, so Art UK has photographed all the work in our public spaces and created a free Wikipedia-like website for art where anybody can go to see all these images.”
Getting to be part of supporting increased education, exposure and endorsement of art and creativity across the UK has been a deeply rewarding experience but Read highlighted that the benefits of Hiscox’s approach extend to its own team as well. All around the walls of its offices, the insurer’s collection – carefully curated by Read and Hiscox’s curator Whitney Hintz – is available for people to immerse themselves in.
When you consider what the alternative is, he said, whether that’s blank walls or nondescript motivational posters, you realise what a difference artwork can make. The collection officially started in 1973, he said, so essentially it has been part and parcel of the entirety of modern-day Hiscox. And he has seen for himself the engagement and the positivity it invites in people, whether they work for Hiscox or are just visiting the building.
“It has the power to really stimulate the workplace, and there is just something about it,” he said. “And people question what we hang and why, and what the story is behind it. So, we curate regular tours for employees which has been such a positive experience.
It was one of the core tenets of Hiscox founder Robert Hiscox that his underwriters should have a deep understanding of what they were insuring, and it’s an approach that Read and his team continue to take to heart. Looking at it simply from a business perspective, he said, having a deep-rooted knowledge of your sector – whether it’s art, aviation, motor or anything else – leaves you better placed to be able to assess the risk at hand.
“That’s especially true when you’re talking about a line of business like this which doesn’t have a huge actuarial base on which to make your underwriting decisions,” he said. “We are really looking at who we are insuring rather than what we’re insuring because that’s the bit that we think allows us to work out whether it’s a good risk or a bad risk. Doing that means you really need to know a lot about this market. And it’s not such a big market that you can’t get to know a lot of players and a lot about what’s going on.”
