Amid the rise and rise of new digital media, it was a natural evolution for Chubb UK to expand its technology industry practice to include media, according to technology and media practice leader Alex Smith (pictured). Speaking at the BIBA Conference, Smith highlighted how the bespoke media offering sits alongside Chubb UK’s growing book of technology business, spanning media liability, cyber, property, terrorism, casualty, and legal expenses.
Smith noted that Chubb’s industry practices are industry-led rather than business line-led propositions, which resonates strongly with its broker partners. It’s through having a big-picture view of wider industry trends that the evolution of the insurer’s technology practice came about, he said, as it became clear that the business had the underwriting expertise to serve the market and that there was appetite among brokers for further support.
“In our market research, we estimate that there is about £800 million of gross written premium within the media sector in the UK,” he said. “And our aim is the same as we have within our technology and our life sciences propositions – to grow to a sizeable market share of that premium.”
Assessing some of the headwinds and tailwinds impacting the media landscape today, Smith touched on the very rapid shift from analogue to digital media that has occurred over the last decade. It’s continuing to ramp up, he said, as the way people consume their media becomes vastly more digital. In response, the media sector needs to keep pace with the rapidly changing demands around how their customers want and expect to consume media.
“They have to move to digital as well,” he said. “That means their assets, their intellectual property and their data are now much more online. For us, we see much a larger potential for disruption in this sector through digital means, the more that cyber becomes a dominant exposure.
“Of course, you also have your traditional exposures – from copyright, to libel, to slander, the questions over whether you own what you publish. These are the basics of a media liability and intellectual property policy and these are some of the core covers that we’re providing for the industry.”
What Chubb is seeing within the media sector is that it tends to be home to very risk-aware clients, he said, which is translating into their enthusiasm for the value-added services of Chubb’s media insurance offering including its free legal advice helpline.
The team work with a wide range of clients, from content creators, to production companies, to advertising agencies, to PR companies, to broadcasters, to publishers. Digitisation has the potential to disrupt each of these clients, he said, and they are well aware of that, which is why they’re keen to embrace all the third-party and risk management services made available to them.
“That’s especially relevant where you consider the cost of some of these third-party services,” he said. “If you were to go and have a review of a contract done by your legal counsel, you’d have to pay circa £400 to have somebody look over it. Now you have that service as part of your policy because we have our own risk engineering team who can do that for our customers. These services are not just beneficial to the customer, they’re beneficial to us as the insurer because they make our clients a healthier risk. So, it works for everyone.”
Generally speaking, players in the media sector do tend to be aware of the exposures they face, he said, and of the role insurance and effective risk management plays in helping them navigate the constantly evolving media landscape. So, the task for Smith and his team is to differentiate itself from what’s already available in the market.
“About 18 months ago when we really started looking into building this proposition, we did extensive market research which found that there was no one market that could provide a multinational solution to companies within this industry,” he said. “Chubb is a global company with a very solid network and a history of being able to provide global programmes.
“As a package for multinational property-casualty, PI and cyber, we heard from our brokers that there was a very big gap to be filled. And we’re filling that gap and we’re making very big moves into this market for our brokers. The reaction from the broker market has been great. The uptake of the product has been fantastic and we’re quickly carving out a space for ourselves in that mid-market segment of between £50 million to £500 million in revenue. And we’re still only in the early stages of this journey but we’re looking to grow.”
