In an exclusive interview with Insurance Business earlier this year, CEO Matthew Hill shared his mission
to put the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) back on track – and his desire to build visibility and engagement with members of the CII and the Personal Finance Society (PFS). And he’ll have a great opportunity to affirm both at the CII’s upcoming ‘Shaping the Future of Insurance’ conference.
The event, which is due to be held on October 2 at Etc. Venues in St Pauls, London, will be opened by Hill and promises to deliver ‘a comprehensive overview of the evolving insurance landscape’. Last week, the CII unveiled the full rota of speakers and the programme for the day – the theme of which centres on ‘trends, tech, and tempting talent’.
Determining the themes of the conference was very much a group effort, according to membership director, Mark Hutchinson (pictured), with the organisation’s Policy and Public Affairs Department joining in to lend their view on what’s happening in the regulatory landscape. From there, the team is able to sketch out a programme and this year that programme is very broad in scope, reflecting the sheer variety of risks that members face. “One of the things we’ve heard over the last year, particularly, is that talent is a big issue for the sector; that’s recruitment and especially retention. So, we settled on that as a key theme to address.”
Creating the programme meant digging down into its key themes and Hill noted that there is some great research available in the market showcasing how even the more traditionalist employees have been forced to change by the COVID crisis, and are still having to rethink the way they work. “They’re no longer just looking for a big title and a big salary, their work needs to be a bit more meaningful,” he said. “I think there’s certainly some pondering to be done by the insurance profession about that.”
It's a consideration that should also be refining how insurance employers go about searching for new talent, he said. They need to develop a clear view of the next generation of insurance talent, and what their drivers are if they’re going to be able to effectively model their benefits packages to meet this new era of employees.
“A lot of these events are really about getting the sector thinking about different things, bringing new insight to the table and offering the opportunity for a bit of strategic thinking,” Hill said. “But by coupling that with CBD hours which require a little bit of the grey matter to get moving, you can take away things that are really applicable to your business or your professional development once you’ve left the event. Our aim is to give insights but it’s also to get people thinking longer-term on behalf of their businesses about what needs to change if they’re to reach their goals.”
The conference will also be a good opportunity to bring together the different communities that make up the association, Hutchinson said, as it’s by bringing them together that you can better understand even the most complex risks at hand. “In one of our sessions, we’re talking about the cost of living, rising rates and rising claims values, and that discussion’s interested in different perspectives,” he said. “For instance, a broker would need to communicate claims costs information differently to a client than an underwriter would do a broker.”
Another core component of the programme is that ‘tech’ piece, particularly around skills, Hutchinson said, because there’s currently a lot of pressure on the market to rapidly advance technologically. The reality is that this brings the need for new skills in order to be able to run a business effectively in this ever-changing environment. At the same time, there remains a variety of core skills that cross the entire ecosystem and can’t afford to be lost in the race to digital, data and AI.
“Fundamentally, we’re thinking about how the industry will have to change,” he said. “There are lots of economic, technical, technological pressures forcing it to change. But [success] is about how it’s done gradually and built into new roles, to achieve continuity.”
Other key sessions include specialists from DAC Beachcroft LLP weighing in on their predictions for the insurance sector, while Graeme Reynolds, director of competition at the FCA, will be on hand to discuss ‘regulation in a changing market: future implications’.
You can view the full programme and register your attendance at the upcoming ‘Shaping the Future of Insurance’ conference here.
