Blog: Reacting to turmoil

Julian Enoizi, CEO of Pool Re, gave the keynote address at the Post Claims Club Summit a few weeks ago, and his theme, ‘responding to turmoil,’ has stayed with me ever since.

Since the summit, the news media illustrates that political, social and economic turmoil has continued on an almost daily basis. The insurance industry is at the very heart of that tumult, whether pricing for political risks, responding to a technology revolution that is changing the very fabric of society, or dealing with the economic fallout from catastrophic weather events in the US and Caribbean.

When businesses are asked what they want from their governments and the authorities, the answer is often stability and/or certainty. Many people share the same yearning for stability; change can be scary.

Frankly, in the current climate, stability is near-impossible, so for claims professionals dealing with the effects of turmoil, we have to ask: how do we cope with these slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? After all, the only thing we can say with absolute certainty is that we don’t know what is round the corner. ‘Change is the new normal,’ to coin a phrase.

Protector Forsikring, the insurer of Grenfell tower, is a great exemple for how we deal with tumultuous events. Protector, a large organisation, mobilised quickly in a brand new market for their business, and had a strategic plan in place within hours of the fire.

In addition, the humanity shown by Protector in putting the victims and their families first, with early financial support in the absence of an admission of liability, was very refreshing.

Protector illustrated how an organisation’s values can come to the fore even in the worst of circumstances, but also underlined how the manner of our response to unforeseen events truly defines us as an industry.

Grenfell reminds us that, while insurance is traditionally predicated on using the past to predict the future, today’s manic world makes that way more difficult.

Instead, we must bring our skills and talents to bear on dealing with the aftermath of such events in a calm, mature and humanitarian manner. This creates trust and a certainty among those we help. In the end, they know they can rely on us to make things better.

Claims Club

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