The Insurance Institute of London
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President's Message

It is a great privilege to take on the presidency of our Institute.

On behalf of the Institute and our members, I would like to thank Dominick Hoare as our outgoing President. Dominick has made a huge contribution to our industry during his presidency and know he will continue his support of the Institute as a past president.

As a person who has worked in the London market for my entire career and relied on, or participated in, the IIL during the whole of that period, the chance to spend a year as President of this great institution is a particular honour.

My first involvement with the IIL was as a young broker at Lloyd’s. I attended almost every educational session at the Lloyd’s Library. For me, that opportunity to listen to people who were experts in their field, or who could talk about big trends in the market, or what the future might look like, was a defining part of growing up in this market.

It added to my understanding of the bigger picture and gave me the chance to learn about other parts of the market outside of where I worked.

As the centre of the insurance industry worldwide, in London we are often setting standards, crafting products and exploring topics that are adopted around the world, so encouraging learning and professionalism here is a particularly important responsibility.

London has been at the centre of this industry for hundreds of years, and the magnitude of our obligation goes far beyond our city and reverberates around the world.

The industry globally looks to us for leadership, and for three centuries, London has risen to meet the challenge.

But today we are living in one of the most rapid and radical periods of change and progress in human history and although it is an exciting future, it comes with daunting challenges. Our clients are relying on the industry as a whole, and London in particular, to provide strength, certainty, and guidance during this inevitably volatile and uncertain period.

Some of the challenges are age-old concerns – the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are two immediate examples of the geopolitical upheaval that continues around the world – and some of the challenges are 'new'. The newer challenges range from the potentially catastrophic impact of the rise in misinformation and disinformation, the alarming growth of cyber threats in both reach and intensity and the continuing impact of climate change on our natural systems.

But along with these threats, there is also exciting progress. The world will be changed forever as the use of generative Artificial Intelligence gathers pace; we expect transformational change in health, education, and in every corner of industry.

In our own industry, it is exciting to anticipate how it will change our clients' experience in terms of the speed and quality of service, bespoke risk identification and modelling, and the ability to manage their risks more precisely.

Given these macro considerations, there are three immediate challenges for us: to take advantage of technology to modernize our market as quickly as possible, to adequately address both the traditional and emerging risks facing our clients, and the most important of all - to have an energised and sophisticated workforce to ensure we meet the first two challenges.

This is why the work and purpose of the Insurance Institute of London has never been more important.

We need the best educated, most curious, most dedicated workforce in the world to ensure that we keep our market at the forefront of this industry.

Every one of us should be driving the importance of education throughout our organizations, not only for new entrants to the market but also for the ongoing education of those who have worked in the industry for many years.

We should not be doing the minimum just to meet annual requirements, but should genuinely be hungry to learn, to be better, and to do everything possible to ensure that this market continues to set the global standard and fulfil our obligation to the industry around the world.