Diary of an Insurer: Hiscox’s Shali Vasudeva

Monday

Monday is usually a commuter day for me, so that means an early start getting the train from Derbyshire to London.  I use this time to plan for the week ahead and catch up on pre-reading materials for upcoming meetings.  

When I get to the office, I’m straight into meetings, discussing and debating our 2026 business planning.  

We have ambitious expansion plans and an exciting change agenda, some of which we shared at a Capital Markets Day earlier in the year, a brilliantly diverse business, and a huge opportunity ahead, particularly across our retail businesses, so these are always really energising conversations. 

Tuesday

Today I’m spending the day with a number of leaders from across the business who are helping accelerate our change agenda. 

We share progress on our current initiatives, coordinate all of the various strands of activity, and work through all of the new ideas that have come up since we last met. 

I love these sessions because we’re laser focused on building the Hiscox of the future, one that delivers the best possible service to our brokers, customers and partners, and the best, most exciting career opportunities for our people. It’s an incredible programme to be part of, and I’m excited about what lies ahead.

Wednesday

Today I have a series of workshops with colleagues from our retail and London Market business areas to talk about how we can continue improving the Hiscox claims process and experience. We look at this through three lenses. 

The first is about simplifying the process of making a claim by introducing a standardised digital intake.  This means that, regardless of how the customer first contacts us – over the phone, via their broker, or online – they get a smooth, consistent experience.  

It also allows us to triage and route claims more efficiently and over time we expect to increase the number of complex claims paid within five days to double what it is today.   

The second is about equipping our claims handlers across the group with a single digital workspace, so they have the data and tools they need to work smarter and faster in one place – no more jumping between systems or manual chasing for updates. 

This should automate 10% to 15% of our claims workload so will make a real difference to our market-leading claims teams. We’re well under way with implementation and already seeing the benefit for all our people.

The third is about bringing together our fraud detection and recovery functions into a Centre of Excellence.  

Here we are combining the best of human judgment and machine intelligence to make our claims professionals more effective, which in turn will significantly improve both detection rates and recovery amounts. 

We’ve already successfully set up a number of Centres of Excellence, for example for AI, data, cyber and reinsurance, and this is one of the other areas where we see a big opportunity for cross-Hiscox collaboration.

Thursday

This is a people-focused day, starting with my weekly one-to-ones with our leaders across technology and procurement. 

In technology, we’ve just rolled out the use of Microsoft Copilot across the entire group, which has already had a lot of positive feedback from across the business as we use it to automate and speed up low value and administrative tasks.  

We continue to innovate using AI to free up underwriters time so that they can spend less time on admin tasks and more on growing the business.

In procurement, we’re continuing to streamline our supplier base. We’ve already reduced our supplier numbers by two thirds, which is great progress, but there are still some opportunities to take a thoughtful and strategic approach to some areas where we can do more.

Later in the day, I take part in our global all-staff town hall event. We call these our ‘Connected’ sessions and they’re a great way for us to share news with our colleagues around the world. It’s also a chance for us to hear what’s on their mind. 

Our people are never shy about coming forward – anything can come up in the questions, and to me that speaks well of our culture. 

I’m almost nine months into my role now and these events give me a real sense of what’s on our colleagues’ minds and how our people are feeling.

Friday

I set aside regular time to talk to experts and peers from outside Hiscox to make sure I’m staying close to what’s changing in the wider market. 

Great ideas can come from anywhere, and these conversations are always rewarding. At the moment I’m particularly focused on how technology can support our drive for efficiency across the business. 

We already auto-underwrite close to 70% of our retail business and see opportunities to do more. We’ve also introduced AI triaging solutions into our UK high-net-worth and US broker business, which automatically decline submissions that sit outside our appetite, freeing up our underwriters to prioritise the business that we want to write. 

Plus, in London Market, we have our market-leading AI-lead underwriting tool, which started with sabotage and terrorism but will roll out across other lines, starting with major property. Technology doesn’t stand still, and neither do we.