.JPG)
Imagine being a young broker in the early 80s, picking up the phone to a potential client who wants to insure a motorbike, and it’s Andrew Ridgeley – George Michael’s singing partner in Wham!
This was exactly what happened to Nic Miles (pictured), who was only in his early 20s at the time, but already had a wealth of experience in the industry and a family legacy in insurance to boot, with his father owning an independent brokerage.
“My first beginnings [in insurance] were in the school summer holidays when I was 15 years old,” Miles explained. “My father started this company, and they were an independent Lloyd’s broker.
“I went into the office in the summer holidays just to get some very basic junior experience on what went on with insurance brokers really. That was my very early experience and from there on, from the ages of about 16 to 20, I ended up working in the city of London in various insurance and reinsurance brokers.”
After taking the call from Ridgeley, Miles, who was a musician himself and played bass guitar in a band, decided to focus more on musicians.
“I went on from insuring Andrew Ridgeley’s motorbike, and he had quite a few issues because he was smashing cars and motorbikes up,” he explained. “So, I found an angle and started to get some good rates and support for placing difficult risks, particularly with musicians and their cars. That was always historically an undesirable risk for an insurance company.”
From there, the connections to the music industry kept coming and Miles decided to branch out into more entertainment-focused risks, specifically cancellation non-appearance insurance, legal liability insurance for bands, equipment and liability insurance.
“This was in the early 80s, there were very few other brokers doing it at the time, so very little competition - so we got very successful, very quickly,” Miles explained. “Being younger brokers ourselves didn’t do us any harm because we weren’t the traditional looking bowler hat brokers.”
Miles went on to work with some of the biggest names in the 80s music industry, including The Cure, Duran Duran, Dire Straits and Pink Floyd.
He also took any opportunity to make new connections and get potential new clients, something that proved very successful.
“I went on tour with George Michael when he did FAITH - I went halfway around the world with that,” Miles said. “If I’m insuring George Michael it’s a great opportunity for me to go to another part of the world and meet the promoters and the managers of other bands, that’s the greatest calling card you can have.”
Miles went on to work in the music industry directly, something he believes set him apart when he returned to insurance.
“I was also an artist manager. I went on heaps of tours as an artist manager,” he said. “If I’m insuring your business I need to understand your business, otherwise I can’t tell you how to insure against any consequential losses.”
After working somewhat independently for the last 15 years, Miles recently joined Shepherd Compello, to head up its new entertainment team alongside David Bishop, coming full circle back to an independent family broker.
“From a personal point of view, I wanted to be involved with a Lloyd’s broker,” Miles explained. “It was very important to me to be involved with a Lloyd’s broker and a family oriented one. This seems to me to be very individual - everybody is getting on with their own thing.”
