Diary of an Insurer: Markel’s Nick Line

Monday

My alarm goes off on Monday morning and I start my day with a cup of tea. I’m a little sore from the weekend’s tennis match, so I choose to skip the exercise bike and head straight into the London office. 

Once I’m there, I catch up on some administration before heading to Markel Insurance CEO Simon Wilson’s office for our weekly ExCo meeting at 9am. 

It’s a great way to start the week, bringing together eight minds from different areas of the business to discuss strategies, projects and topics that help to influence the business on an international scale.

I’ve always enjoyed these meetings as we each bring our own expertise and diverse perspectives to the table. It’s a great group of people and we all get on well – some relationships around the table go back more than 20 years – so it always sets my Mondays off on a great footing.

After my second cup of tea (one is never enough), the series of weekly catch-ups with my team commences. 

We have medium and long-term tactical planning meetings throughout the year, but today’s catch-ups are focused on shorter term updates so that we can address immediate challenges and solve problems for our clients. 

My direct team covers profitability, risk and oversight, and so my brain switches between topics such as pricing models, portfolio segmentation, emerging and political risks, supporting new initiatives and regulatory developments. With such a diverse range of products lines and geographies, from Canada, through Europe to APAC, there is always plenty to keep up with.

Once I get back home, I wind down with my weekly group tennis lesson. I’ve worked up quite the appetite, so I’m especially looking forward to dinner with my family before we watch a few episodes of a box set before bed.

Tuesday

I’ve got quite a varied day today, wearing a few different hats – both in my CUO role and as Chair of Inclusion@Lloyd’s – so I head in nice and early to get through some of Monday’s actions before the workday hits its stride.

First up, I’m meeting with a team from one of our brokers to review the last six months, discuss how we’ve been progressing and to identify opportunities for the next six months. These are always valuable sessions to consider our service and the experience of our brokers, as well as broader market trends that will help to inform our strategies and plans.

Before I know it, it’s time to head over to Lloyd’s – I’m meeting with the Inclusion@Lloyd’s team for another planning session for this year’s Dive In Festival on the theme: Belonging builds tomorrow. Since its inception in 2015, I’ve seen this event grow and expand to the point where it not only takes over the City, but there’s events happening across the globe. Now in its tenth year, I’m excited to see what we can achieve. 

We have determined the five key pillars that this year’s festival will focus around – Culture, Leadership, Business Performance, Innovation and Collaboration – and I’m keen to highlight our industry’s societal impact as well as actionable insights across these areas. To me, Dive In is hard to miss, it’s everywhere! But I still meet people who haven’t heard of it, and perhaps assume I’m particularly enthusiastic about aquatic sports, and so I’m reminded that we still have lots of work to do in order to reach even more people.

Back in the office and with my CUO hat on, I spend the end of the day in a meeting on war and terrorism aggregations, and the current geopolitical landscape. We explore the evolving risks and each eventuality related to potential regulatory changes, and strategize to ensure that we’re able to continue underwriting and providing solutions for our customers.

This evening, Simon Wilson and I have been invited to an industry dinner. This dinner primarily brings together female leaders in the London market in CEO, CFO and CUO roles, as well as allies. We come away with lots of actions on the topic of women in underwriting and how we’re looking to target the pipeline for better attraction, retention and development.

Wednesday

I’m up bright and early, and I’ve put my coffee order through the Markel app on my phone so it’s ready to collect from our office café when I arrive. As I go to pick it up, I have a quick chat with a few cheerful – if only a little coffee deprived – colleagues who are getting their breakfasts, which is always a nice start to the day.

First up, I’ve got a growing to-do list, so I power through some priority items before a non-executive board meeting. Our non-execs are a fantastic group, they bring a lot of value to the business with experience across different industries and careers, so I always look forward to these meetings.

This afternoon is Markel’s Group D&I steerco run by my colleague, Jo Browning, senior managing director of people experience at Markel. 

They give an update on a number of projects we’re running, and share insight into a new Women in Underwriting data project. 

It’s been well-documented that there’s an industry wide issue with the career pipeline for women in underwriting, so we’re looking to gain a better understanding of the structural and personal challenges being faced by women so that we can develop an action plan to target this at Markel.

I then share insight into some of the plans and objectives I’ve been developing as Chair of Inclusion@Lloyd’s – I hugely value Jo and Julie’s expertise in diversity and inclusion as well as their understanding of the London market, so it was great to discuss these with trusted colleagues and to get their thoughts and feedback. 

We then hear from our US colleagues about developments in their world.

Back at home, it’s an hour on the rowing machine, before settling in for a quiet night.

Thursday

It’s my last office day of the week this week, so that means a busy diary connecting with colleagues in person. Thursdays are often the busiest office day at Markel, so there’s a real buzz when I arrive.

First up, it’s the cyber committee meeting with the cyber team and some key stakeholders from across the business to talk about market trends and risk landscape.

After a few bits of admin, approvals and lunch, I meet with my colleague, Gary Milton-White, international underwriting officer, to talk about some of the bigger risks that have come in this week that need referral. 

We empower our underwriters to make as many decisions as they can independently, so these referrals are for the most unusual risks only. Many of these cases aren’t compulsory referrals, but more of a second pair of eyes, which the underwriters appreciate being able to access.

The last meeting of the day is our responsible business committee meeting, which brings people from across the business round one table to consider our responsibility to deliver sustainable and lasting outcomes for our customers, our people and the communities we serve. 

We work through objectives across several focus areas, share recent steps that have been taken, and consider focus areas for the future.

I head home for dinner after which I catch up on some work-related reading; news articles from the week and also some D&I related pieces.  I also try to keep up with my subscriptions to Scientific American and Wired, where my main interest areas are developments in cosmology and tech.

Friday

I start the day with an hour on the exercise bike. I’m working from home today, and I generally try to keep my Fridays relatively light of meetings so I can get through actions that have accumulated throughout the week.

I’ve set aside some time to review items that are with me for sign-off – we’ve been in the final stages of implementing a completely new underwriting onboarding and training programme, so I work through some of the final documentation and share my thoughts with the team – I’m really looking forward to seeing this rolled out. 

Empowering underwriters is part of our culture, so we must make sure that they are well-trained and equipped to meet our high level of underwriting standards.

As the week comes to a close, we jump on a briefing call ahead of a leadership event in the next few weeks – it’s a nice opportunity to pause and reflect on the enormous progress we’ve made as a business in recent years on our journey of growth, putting Markel on the map.

After wrapping up the working week, my son and I head into central London – we’re off to the theatre to watch a play he’s studying at university. I’m looking forward to recharging over the weekend with lots of family time and sport, whether that’s playing, watching live or tuning in from home and I prioritise them in that order.