Big Interview: Chris Lay, CEO of Marsh McLennan UK

When Chris Lay returned to the UK in 2018 to take on the role of CEO of Marsh UK, Insurance United Against Dementia – the industry’s campaign to fund research, support carers and raise awareness – was beginning to gather momentum.

Lay, who became CEO of Marsh McLennan UK in 2023 and chair of IUAD since June 2025, has been closely involved with the campaign from the start and his support has been both professional and deeply personal.

“I became CEO of Marsh UK in 2018, so it was about the time IUAD was kicking off,” he recalls.

“I’d just come back from an overseas assignment, and I know Chris Wallace [executive director of QBE UK Insurance and founding member of IUAD] extremely well. We’d worked together in the past, so I was aware of it [IUAD] right at the outset.

“We got involved largely with financial support as it was kicking off the campaign.

“One in three people in the UK are affected in some way by dementia – a family member, them personally and so on. We’ve all got our own stories to tell.

“At that time, my father-in-law had been diagnosed so we were living with that, and I knew others [with dementia] in the wider family.

“We have a Parents and Carers Together colleague resource group. The caring community in the UK is vast.  You begin to understand what your own team are going through, looking after members of their family.

“The cost of care, the inability to diagnose and treat properly – it impacts businesses and society in different ways. I was very supportive of Chris’s mission.”

Achievements to-date

Since the campaign was formally launched by Wallace at Insurance Post’s British Insurance Awards, IUAD has raised more than £11m.

With Lay as the charity’s chair for the next five years, it is now hoping to raise £20m by 2030.

There are two primary objectives, according to Lay. One is to raise funds while the second is to raise awareness.

“In raising awareness, you’re also providing a community, a support mechanism and an avenue for conversations that open up, which might otherwise not be there – they’re interlinked,” he says.

“Without the awareness raising, you can’t necessarily motivate people to raise funds and without the money, you can’t necessarily do the work. That enables people to be better informed about the opportunities. They go together.”

For every £3 spent on cancer, £1 is spent on dementia. We want to get this devastating disease higher up the agenda.

Chris Lay, Marsh McLennan UK

Since the launch of the campaign to raise cash for The Alzheimer’s Society, the UK’s leading dementia charity, two new Alzheimer’s drugs, lecanemab and donanemab, have been proven to slow the progression of the disease.

Both drugs were approved for use in late 2024 but Lay is aware the cost of this medication is an issue for a cash-strapped NHS.

He wants to see more drugs that can slow the progression of cognitive and functional decline in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease by targeting and clearing amyloid-beta protein in the brain.

With more than 130 treatments currently in clinical trials, Lay believes the insurance industry has a real role to play in improving the lives of individuals living with dementia and pushing care up the government’s agenda.

He points out the UK insurance sector contributes around £8bn annually to the economy, while dementia costs it £42bn each year.

Lay argues as a “growth enabler” and “crisis resilience” industry, insurers have both a responsibility and an opportunity to help address the challenge of dementia in a way that plays to the sector’s superpowers.

He points out the insurance industry assists people in times of need by helping them make better, risk-based decisions.

Lay also observes this is a sector that enables innovation. Dementia has often been seen as an older person’s issue with no cure, but that narrative is changing as a result of the breakthrough with drugs that can slow the progress of the disease.

“We’re at a pivotal time,” he says. “We often talk about our purpose being helping people take good decisions, better risk-based decisions, resiliency-based decisions. We’re trying to help on an issue that is evolving and fast moving.

“Our role as an industry and innovator, or being there in those moments of breakthrough, is important.”

Lay adds there’s now an opportunity for insurance to support early diagnosis, data collection, and even government policy.

“Our industry helps people make better decisions based upon the data that we collect,” he explains. “Data is a rich source of knowing if this is the right way forward. 

“Collection of data has been inconsistent, patchy, so there is a fragmented picture of the issue. Better data will enable us to help the research that we’re also supporting with funding.”

Next chapter

With IUAD’s initial £10m fundraising target met last year, Lay is ambitious about what the campaign can achieve in its next phase.

“They achieved £10m in eight years so I said, well, the next £10m we should achieve in five years,” he says.

His ambition for IUAD also includes extending the reach of the campaign beyond property and casualty into life, reinsurance, technology, legal and accounting.

“There’s a whole ecosystem that’s involved in our industry,” he says. “How can we use the industry really at scale?”

As well as widening the campaign’s reach, Lay shares he has three focus areas for IUAD moving forward.

Firstly, there is the drive to use data better to create a comprehensive picture of dementia’s impact.

Secondly, Lay asserts IUAD wants to support clinical trial participation and expanding access to that through dedicated research nurses.

Doctoral training centres is a third focus, and Lay shares IUAD is keen to boost investment in breakthrough research.

“Investment in dementia research lags behind other conditions,” Lay notes. “For every £3 spent on cancer, £1 is spent on dementia. We want to get this devastating disease higher up the agenda.”

Pushing things up the government’s agenda is something Lay has a track record of achieving.

Back in 2022, when he was president of the Insurance Institute of London, he pushed for the UK to become a captive domicile.

This summer the government confirmed it intends to proceed with the introduction of a new UK captive insurance framework “at pace.”

He hopes for similar success in his push to get the government to commit to improving the lives of people living with dementia and their carers.

“Those three buckets to us look really important because we’ve also aligned this to the new NHS plan and what we think will be much more helpful and impactful in us getting dementia care through the NHS,” he says.

“Data, clinical trials and research are going to give better confidence.”

Insurance Day for Dementia

This year’s Insurance Day for Dementia, taking place on 27 November, is a focal point for kicking off the next stage of IUAD.

Last year, £245,000 was raised on the day and this year Lay is determined to “smash through that”.

More than 30 firms had pledged support by the end of September and Lay was keen to get more on board.

“It’s not just about giving money,” Lay says. “We’ve developed a toolkit to help firms and individuals get involved. Awareness is the starting point for motivation. Giving £1 is easy. Giving an hour is harder, but it’s where the multiplying effect begins.”

Activities this year will include tube station takeovers, office fundraisers, and a lunch-and-learn webinar series featuring personal stories and the latest research.

Dave Carey, managing director of intermediary at Ecclesiastical, is among the sector's senior figures stepping up to raise a large sum of cash this year. 

Since the summer, he has been running 20 5Ks in 20 cities for IUAD to raise funds and awareness in the fight against the disease that took his mum in December last year.

Carey shares: “I joined IUAD after she was diagnosed in 2017. I wanted to do something. Now, I need to do something.

“I’m asking friends, brokers, insurance carriers across the UK to come run with me when I’m in your City, donate if you can and share this message — someone you know will care.“

IUAD’s toolkit means even if you can't face a 5K, you can still get involved.

“If you can give frameworks to people who don’t know how to get there, then it’s helpful,” he says. "If you’ve got a great idea [for raising funds or awareness] let us know.”

Day job

For Lay, being chair of IUAD has come at a great time. 

“For somebody like me, in this stage of my career, grown up children, and so on... [it is manageable].”

When he told his wife he had been approached to become chair of IUAD, she pushed him to take it, pointing out there was no good reason for him to turn down the position.

“She’s very supportive,” he says. “When you’re a leader of the industry, it’s important also to think about what you can give and how you can use your role in the industry to build awareness and responsibility.”

Turning to how he is balancing all this with his day job of steering Marsh McLennan through a rapidly evolving risk landscape,  Lay shares inflation, regulatory change, climate risk, artificial intelligence, supply chain resilience and geopolitical tensions are all top of his mind.

“Lots of people talk about the market and the trends, the rates declines we’re seeing, or some of the shifting trends around MGAs versus traditional insurance balance sheet, or what have you,” he says.

“I think the right lens always to have is what do our clients need? How can we help them be more successful? That’s really what my day job is about.

For us it’s about how you deploy your capital, what we can do to grow inorganically, what we can do to grow organically, what we can do to support our shareholders.

Lay shared he is often talking about how artificial intelligence in its various forms is impacting the way the world works, and considering how clients can use the technology to be a winner in their industries.

“We’ve got huge data sets. We see a lot of incidents. We see how businesses are shifting their agendas to think about the risks and the opportunities.” 

When it comes to growth plans for Marsh McLennan, he says every industry has to think about how they can do more for less and enhance value for customers.

He is clear his focus is mainly on organic growth by helping customers navigate today’s and future challenges.

Turning to inorganic growth, Gallagher, Aon, Ardonagh and Howden have all had a busy few years in terms of consolidating their positions among the UK’s top five insurance brokers, but fellow intermediary powerhouse Marsh has been comparatively quiet.

When asked could M&A be on the cards, he says: “Marsh McLennan is now 154-years-old. We’ve got a great legacy of acquisition. We have a very strong financial position and we will continue to acquire in the future.

“For us it’s about how you deploy your capital, what we can do to grow inorganically, what we can do to grow organically, what we can do to support our shareholders.”

Lay says he is focused on building a business for the next 154 years, rather than positioning the business for a short-term private equity backer’s exit like some rivals have to.

“We’re builders. How can we add to our capabilities? Can we add to the strength of a segment or particular geography or technology? We don’t need to be bigger, we need to be better,” he says.

Marsh lifer

While many of the sector’s leaders today leap from one business to the next, Lay is a CEO who has spent more than four decades with the company he now heads up.

He reveals, like most, his entrance to the insurance industry wasn’t by grand design: “I grew up in Greenwich. If I think back to my school years, most people just thought ‘Well, I’m close to the City. What jobs are there?’

“I applied to just about anything and everything that was out there and happened to end up here, in insurance.”

While it wasn’t the destination he dreamed of as a young boy, he shares he was swiftly inspired by the industry’s purpose.

“I like the fact that you’re working with all parts of society,” he says. “I see different industries, different sectors, every day. It’s a people business. I really like working with people to come up with solutions.

“We’re a global business. I’ve worked in different parts of the world as well. The great thing about Marsh McLennan is we’ve got 95,000 people, 100 different countries. You can journey through an organisation doing very different things if you want to.

“I have been fortunate to be able to do that. It’s helping industry, it’s helping the public sector, it’s helping society. It’s looking into these different industries. It is thinking about what success looks like tomorrow – future resilience.”

That same belief in purpose and resilience and bringing people together fuels Lay’s mission for IUAD: to harness the industry’s collective power to rewrite the future of dementia.

“We can make an impact in slowing the disease and improving quality of life for not just sufferers, but also their families,” he says.