The insurance trade press headlines generated in the first week of 2024 offer a snapshot of some of the key themes expected to dictate discussions this year. Many of these are holdovers from 2023, innately familiar though offering the promise of fresh opportunities and challenges in the context of the clean slate provided by a New Year.
Unsurprisingly, consolidation quickly re-asserted the pole position it occupies in the mind of the market with Malago Insurance Brokers cinching one of the first deals of 2024 with its acquisition of Mulberry Insurance Brokers. Travelers kept up the dialogue, finalising its purchase of the cyber insurance managing general underwriter Corvus Insurance while yesterday Howden continued its sprint into the Nordic region, snapping up the Norwegian insurance broker Arctic Insurance AS.
M&A activity is a staple of insurance themes, alongside questions about talent recruitment and retention, the impact of regulation and, more recently, the rapid advancement of digitisation technologies.
Each of these has already had airtime this week, including multiple senior executive level appointments with Stonybrook Capital welcoming a new group MD and international CEO in Darren Bailey and Staysure Group naming Finn Walsh as its new group CEO.
All eyes remain fixed on the regulatory landscape too, particularly in anticipation of the launch of the 2024 BIBA Manifesto in parliament next week. And it didn’t take long for the sector to set out its stall on the question of regulation. The second day of the year saw the UK insurance industry call on the government to implement lighter regulations for captive insurance companies. This is in advance of a planned government consultation on the prospective design of a new framework to encourage the growth of captive insurance companies in the UK.
Technology and data remain pressing topics on the agenda of insurance businesses in 2024 with Send CEO Andy Moss highlighting how over the last 20 years, insurance has evolved from being one of the last paper-based industries to truly embrace digitisation. Large scale change seems to be well within the risk appetite of the market if the speedy embracement of generative AI in the latter half of 2023 is anything to go by.
There can be little question that the inclination for operational efficiency is being matched by the development of new technologies able to reform and transform the internal productivity of even the most intricate business models. With these opportunities, there naturally come challenges and 2024 is likely to bring a more fulsome picture of the broader risk represented by these technologies as increased utilisation brings further questions around ethical considerations, overdependence concerns and worries about its implications for cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity concerns represent a clear and present danger to government, industry and individuals alike. But it also offers an opportunity for the insurance industry to step up and present itself as part of the solution to the cybersecurity risk puzzle that is becoming more complex with each passing day.
The industry needs not just to throw its weight behind those developing new cybersecurity products and services but become more actively invested in their development, rollout and ultimate success. In that respect, 2024 got off to a very positive start with the news that Beazley has finalised its $140 million cyber catastrophe bond.
The roadmap to insurance innovation is well read and signposted but the road itself needs to be better travelled if we’re to make good the wishes we’ve given and received for us to have a happy and successful 2024.
