When Olga Collins (pictured) first took the reins as CEO of the Worldwide Broker Network (WBN), she outlined plans to grow “faster and stronger”. Catching up with Insurance Business to share an update on the group’s strategy, she highlighted some of the key challenges impacting the market today and how the role of the insurance professional is changing.
From the beginning of its now 35-year history, Collins said, the focus for WBN has been trifold – M&A, changing the conversation about talent, and client centricity. Each of these three segments is still very much in play in the early days of 2025, with the network having expanded from circa 100 members when she stepped up as CEO to now include 150 brokers from all around the world.
“Our strategy to have multiple members in major geographies has proven to be the right one,” she said. “Because M&A activity is an opportunity, but it’s also a challenge in some cases, and having multiple brokers in each major geography is its own business continuity plan. Our global footprint has expanded… and we’re a truly global team now, with a lot of client experience and a lot of broker experience, so we can continue to prioritise delivering the right benefits for our members.”
It has been great to see how the ‘culture of care’ WBN has instilled as core to its operations is resonating with clients, she said, and it’s a key element of how the group is looking to move the dial on talent attraction and retention in the insurance market. That being said, she noted that the talent conversation remains one of the most pressing challenges facing the insurance industry today.
“I think we just need to rally together around this topic,” she said. “Keeping people in the industry is one thing but it’s also about making insurance a desirable place to start a career. We’ve been getting involved at the collegiate level - but not just with people who are young professionals within the industry already. Because we see a huge opportunity in advertising insurance as the cool place to be, where you can grow your career, and it’s not just for traditional finance majors with analytical minds.
“It’s also for those with communications backgrounds, legal backgrounds, or in engineering. So many of us have found insurance, or it found us somehow. We know the talent piece continues to be a challenge but it’s one we need to embrace.”
Collins noted that there’s a lot of conversation around AI and digitalisation and what its impact will be on the insurance industry going forward. For the team at WBN, it’s clear that AI represents a real opportunity to find efficiencies in traditional insurance processes, but only if the right balance is struck between AI and emotional/cultural intelligence. “When working with a lot of complex global brands, you have to understand, to listen and to deliver creativity. At least at this point, we don’t see AI playing that role.
“So, providing that consultancy piece is not the challenge but rather the opportunity presented to us as a market in 2025 and beyond. Beyond [tech and talent], globally, the overall nat-cat situation and the impact of climate change has been a real point of focus. And in the US especially, insurance has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons.”
There are a lot of conversations happening today regarding whether insurance is playing the right role in supporting society, she said, and the industry needs to pay close attention to how that conversation plays out. Whether it’s shake-ups to the employee benefits world or P&C conversations about whether insurance is the right risk transfer solution in recent places around the US, and the world more broadly. “I feel like there’s a lot of deliverables that we, as an industry, will have to answer to,” she said.
Of course, it’s never just about the challenges, Collins said, and there are plenty of opportunities in the market today. Insurance is evolving to embrace true risk management.
A risk management-orientated approach requires more creativity and more consultation, she said, and it is inherently less transactional in nature because people are looking to add further value all the time. “I think we are an added-value function, not just a cost centre anymore. So, if we can all focus on speaking loudly and proudly about what insurance can do and what risk management truly does, we're going to be able to avoid the pitfalls of the past.”
