Diary of an Insurer: Liberty Specialty’s Henry Nelson

Monday

Monday starts early at 6am. It is my favourite part of the day, spending time with my 12-week-old son, having a chat and giving him his bottle. It’s all very peaceful, yet the daily commute beckons and the serenity of home soon gives way to dicing with London traffic on my Brompton bicycle.

As a six foot five, heavy-framed individual, I probably look completely out of proportion on such a tiny bike. It’s about 18km to the office, allowing time to mull the top three things I need to achieve that week, except during tube strikes when less experienced riders descend and compound the chaos.

Arriving around 7.30am, I walk the 21st and 22nd floor of 20 Fenchurch Street and say good morning to the team. These are our trading floors, with staff in our integrated business units – underwriting, actuarial, claims and risk engineers, etc. – all sitting together.

Meetings start around 8.30am, usually internal team catch-ups with direct reports, divisional heads and my London boss Luis Prato. These quick check-ins help map out the week; it’s about staying ahead and being pre-emptive.

They typically focus on large deals, people matters and strategic priorities. External engagement comes in the afternoon, meeting with key brokers to discuss priorities, opportunities and challenges.

Tuesday

I travel, on average, every six weeks, often meeting colleagues in Dubai, but typically on Tuesdays I have breakfast with a key client, broker or top talent.

The meetings that follow tend to involve the UK & MENA executive or a subset of it, plus the underwriting leadership team. Tuesday afternoons I check in with my other boss in the US and discuss the state of the global market; a current theme being changing distribution dynamics, particularly market facilitation.

With the rise of global facilities, and as a business that has a truly global footprint, these meetings help ensure our efforts are coordinated, aligned and avoid any overlap.

Two evenings a week are reserved for corporate entertainment and last week I took some brokers and clients to see President Barack Obama speaking live at the O2.

He was considering the extraordinary levels of global interconnectedness and the great threats and opportunities this creates, which resonated as insurers effectively underwrite the global economy.

Wednesday

This is when I spend time with the underwriting teams, our top talent and have one-to-ones with direct reports. Meeting the distribution teams is also a Wednesday staple, ensuring our business units are aligned on pipelines, renewals and priorities.

The evening cycle home is great for decompressing, putting matters vying for my attention to one side and listening to music.

I’ve recently been revisiting genres I listened to when I was younger, currently having a real phase of guitar bands such as The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys and The Streets.

This I do a little earlier than usual, as Wednesday is one of two evenings a week I prioritise getting home for bath time with my baby son at 6.30pm. Bottle and bedtime duties follow, after which I log back on and catch up with emails.

Thursday

While heavily structured days are the norm, some demand flexibility. Thursdays are often reactive as anything that has started to go off track tends to come to my attention then, be that internal within our teams or external involving brokers.

With most staff in the office on Thursdays, it’s easier to gather several people in a room, get to the bottom of things quickly and formulate a solution. Typically this involves new business requests or material claims requiring the right people to urgently engage.

I also chair our Veterans Committee, which recruits military veterans and helps them build careers in the insurance industry.

It’s a relatively new initiative that’s now making good progress and we recently launched our dedicated intake program rather than the more common rotation programs – it is the first of its kind in the London market and something we are very proud of.

Friday

I tend to work from home. The dawn routine with baby is followed by dropping my eldest son at nursery, this time using our cargo bike with both son and dog stowed safely in the front.

I then walk the dog and conduct one-to-one calls usually with our chief actuary, head of claims and head of portfolio management.

Friday afternoons are for wash-ups: checking progress against objectives, reviewing any remaining issues and ensuring everything’s moving in the right direction.

Around 6pm, my wife and I collect our son and go for ice cream, our customary Friday treat. Decompression with friends follows in the evening before a weekend dominated by sports, for which we all have a shared passion, including coaching and ferrying my eldest to tennis, football and rugby.