Diary of an Insurer: Brit’s Adelle Gruber

Monday

My Monday morning usually starts with our team meeting in the office. This lasts for an hour and sets us up for the week ahead. We go through what’s happening from an underwriting perspective, e.g. state of the market, renewals, big meetings or travel plans. 

We also have our IT cyber security consultants provide an update on emerging trends, threats, and anything else that’s been newsworthy over the past week. Colleagues also provide feedback on meetings or external events that they attended the previous week.

It’s a very collegiate atmosphere, which is fantastic. Gaining insights and learnings from each other through osmosis is great. I love being able to speak to colleagues in the office and answering questions they may have.

I then have a catch-up with the actuarial department. This is followed by meetings with various departments regarding the new modern underwriting platform that sits within Brit. It’s a system that’s being developed to enable underwriting in a more streamlined and consistent fashion, which really helps us be even more responsive for brokers.

After lunch, there’s a meeting with the wordings department where we run through new types of language that we might want to start considering, and touch base on any emerging issues. We also examine requests from brokers together, and anything that we should consider adding to our base learnings to enhance products for our clients.

At 2pm, I have a slot reserved for underwriters in my team. Anyone can come to me and discuss how they’re finding work, or go through new opportunities, challenges or risks that they’ve encountered. I’m proud to support our underwriters and guide them as best as I can. I try to keep this time as sacred as possible.

Tuesday

We kick off with peer reviews – this takes place every week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. 

Here we run through the risks that the team have written, discuss deals, which are followed by presentations by underwriters. 

This allows us to discuss any points of consideration ahead of renewals, and also presents a real learning opportunity for more junior members of the team. Around 20 people attend from across the underwriting, claims and actuarial teams. 

We also have someone from another department come and sit in, just so they can give an independent view.

I then have several meetings with brokers, and catch-up with distribution.

Wednesday

There’s a lot of meetings involving cross departmental collaboration.

We have an initiative called AOP, or “the art of the possible”, which involves working with various departments, including tech, actuarial, distribution, operations and claims.

We come together to discuss what’s working across distribution, portfolio management, operations, pricing and general strategy. 

We use this to try to find solutions for improving our service proposition from both internal and external perspectives. We also consider feedback from brokers and clients, to see if there are any gaps that we can try to plug in.

We have a lunch and learn session focused on artificial intelligence, hosted by our cyber security consultant. We do regular sessions for our team, covering a range of topics. 

We also have regular training sessions with lawyers from different jurisdictions, where they discuss the trends that they’ve seeing, and any changes from a legal perspective.

This is usually then followed by a conference or another external event with other members of the industry, with several team members attending. It’s great to be able to go out, network and hear from a wide range of people in the market.

Thursday

Thursday starts off with another peer review. This is followed by a meeting with our reinsurers who are visiting London, giving a general update on the market. We generally see them on a quarterly basis. 

I also sit down with our brokers to discuss our underwriting strategy for the coming months. This is then followed by a meeting with a potential coverholder, and team drinks.

Friday

Fridays tend to be slightly quieter, so I try to work from home if I can.

I tend to work on documents, writing presentations, or look at complex risks. I also go through my work schedule for the following week.

I have a few catch-ups with other teams. For example, I have a monthly catch up with the claims team, though of course we discuss individual claims on an ad hoc basis.

I also speak to the marketing team, updating them on new products for potential content. I’ve been working closely with them to get some new material together, based on feedback that we’ve had from brokers on what they would find helpful in order to try and promote our offering. 

Obviously we don’t just write cyber – we also write tech, which sometimes gets overlooked externally given the wide interest in cyber. It’s important to be able to touch on the tech aspect as well, and showcase our broader proposition.