<p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>I'm joined now by Paul Richards, co CEO at Considerable Thanks for joining us. You join. Considered fairly recently in the middle of your 1st 100 days. So what did you find when you joined the business? Any conclusions on what the next steps are going to pay?</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>Yeah. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, it's been It's been a whirlwind nearly 100 days. I must say.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>I think the biggest thing that struck me is the culture of Concilio. Right from the day I walked in, you can feel this very strong and powerful culture, and actually, we recently surveyed staff and it's part of being a great place to work. And overwhelmingly, the culture came across a one of family and funds. So that was that was the biggest thing I felt where a private business so we're not owned by private equity were funding ourselves for growth. So</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>it's a very different proposition to a lot of certain insurance brokers in the London market that has been funded by private recently. But what it means is, we're in control of our destiny in our future. We can we can plan for our medium and long term strategy without the disruption of, you know, a future sale or trying to merge another business in two hours, which is important to keep that culture. We think</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>on DIT gives us a real opportunity t o build around our our existing client place. We want to. We want to attract new talent and keep growing Concilio as a specialty niche broker. We're not going to be all things to all people, but we want to be deep in certain industries and certain products to satisfy a client demand</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>we saw from your website. You describe saying our mission is to be the most inspiring specialty broker in the world?</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>For whom? What does that mean?</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>Well for for mainly for for clients, for customers. But of course, where employees and the markets we trade with. So I mean, it's easy to say you want to be the best, but I think being the best is a bit try. It's now, of course, we want to be the best, but it's hard to define. But if you think about inspiring, it's about filling someone with the ability or the urge to do something on. That's what we want to do. We want to</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>inspire our employees with the ability to trade better with with our clients. Technology is a big part of that for us. We want to trade MAWR effectively and efficiently with our markets. So enable data to come from our clients on DTH through to ensure is much more quickly than our competitors on course for the clients themselves we want we want to give them the ability to have a much better client service a much deeper richer</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>on DHF Astor client service. So we felt inspiring was was right for us on Bright for the people we want to inspire.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>You mentioned a little earlier that you haven't got a big outside investor in their pros and cons to that. But if it's so important to have technology is part of the service solution, you confident that there's enough money behind you that you can achieve what you want</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>at the speed you'd like to do it? Yeah,</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>I've got that confidence probably best to ask David Berman, our CEO and founder who built Concilio over the last 25 plus years. But yes, we're you know, we're reinvesting l dividends and profits. We haven't got an external debt so azi interest rates have risen. We're not servicing that. There's a real commitment from David John on the rest of the management team to invest in technology. And I think with a</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>firm the size of Concilio, where agile and nimble enough to do that we haven't got lots of infrastructure and copper copper wiring that we've got to untangle to instal you, a bedrock technology platform over which will build other technology solutions from May lead you to service our client profile, as I said before. So we want to do things differently, and I think we've got the funds to do that on Garside, eyes and scope to be able to do that effectively.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>But a lot of people in the insurance industry would say we want better client service Technology is part of that. Have you got some examples of way your implementing technology or are going to implement technology that helps provide a better service? Two</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>cards? Yeah, we've got an example that we're working on now actually going to implement technology where you're in quite a complex sector of the specialty insurance market, where building a quote, click bind products so that the</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>end customer combined their product through what they would normally experience, say, with buying their motor insurance. And we think that's very progressive. The client gets a quote almost instantaneously with very little information, which was a process before that would have taken them quite a lot of time filling in forms on DSS, sending information across to us for us to then</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>access the market. So we've condensed what would have been quite a painful process for the client in to very short process where they can get an instantaneous quote. So that's a really good example. I think where in specialty insurance, we can make a difference with technology</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>out of interest, how you scale. That was a bet, because if it's very quick to do less, information has come come in for you to say, yes, we're going to do this business at this price. If you get that wrong,</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>you know, it could be it could be too good a deal for the client and too bad a deal for years. So how do you make sure as you run that and test that that you know, if you do need to tweak your model somewhat, you're able to do that and you'll still be around to Dio.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>Yeah, again. I think what we're trying to do is not replace advice. I don't know if you know, but Concilio, um, stands for advice and being advocates, which is what we want to do in the broking roll. That's that's where we're there to service the clients. So</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>the technology isn't to replace that role but make the process more efficient. So I think what we've done in that example is condensed our advice until into the product into the policy wording on already put that into the behind the technology. So we've been out to embed the advice. But that sector of the market is mawr the end of the commoditized end of the market. So we can do that there and then spend our time where the clients really feel there's there's added value.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>I mean, another example, Mark is, we think, is the traditional proposal form. I mean, we think it's slightly crazy now that the insurance world in 2023 still ask the customer to fill in a largely paper based proposal form, and they asked them to do that every year, so</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>We think that we can collect that data in a smarter way on there. There are other stakeholders collect that data, whether that be the regulator or their other service providers. So if we can help them by capturing that information in an electronic form and say then the pain really of filling in a proposal form every year we think that's a that's a smarter way of doing it. That doesn't replace our advice in the in the process, but it makes their life less painful, which is what we're aiming at.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>So the key thing for you is about implementing a decision more quickly rather than speeding up the decision making process. So people make bad decisions.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>Yes, definitely. We want to give them the advice on making the good decision, but it's really putting our advice in where the client really appreciates it. You know, they they don't want us to help them with the proposal, for we want to make their life pain free as possible on bake. The process smoother for them, I guess, is the ultimate goal.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>The port you've</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>worked around Well, I mean, you certainly spent a bit of your career in Australia. So as you look around the industry globally, what are some of the lessons that you've learned that things that they do in other parts of the world? You think we should be doing this here in the UK or a version of it?</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>Yeah, I get it. I get back to the example. Perhaps I gave. I gave earlier. So what I learned in Australia is I was a broker in Australia and looking to access the London market wholesale on the market. And, of course, Australia's a long way away in time zone. So is particularly pertinent when you are on the other side of the world trying to service your clients as a broker in Australia, on relying on the London market broker and lawyers to give you an altar. And if you kidding to work on the</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>on the Friday morning and you haven't got that answer, do you know that's going to be another weekend? And you've got your client asking you for for the for the decision. So it really is about not being a black hole. It's about giving a response, even if that's a holding response. I think services</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>about responsibility also about knowledge and advice if the counterparty if you're other broker, has that information and they can impart that to you quickly, you don't have to wait for the insurers. Answer. So there's an element to that as well. But I think I think London is very good a subscription market business and we've placed complex risk for many years.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>But again, do we need to do that on the same documentation Aziz we've done since it would Lloyd set up Lloyd's in the late 18 hundreds?</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>What I have learned from working in Australia and dealing particularly with us brokers, is their speed of documentation is much quicker. And I think that's something we need to look at</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>within Lloyd's of how we can improve that.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>Just sticking with the Australian agent for a minute. I mean as that part of the world that the GDP growth that's coming from there is extraordinary. I mean for you as an international business international brokerage, Do you think over time you will have you stress the importance of the people in the prices, But over time you have to bring on people who've got broader language skills, deeper knowledge of cunt</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>such as Indonesia, for example, a zey maturing developing need insurance otherwise is a danger. This business, it's not just it won't just get to London, but it won't go to you either. Yeah,</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>definitely. We're already doing that, Mark. We're expanding, not Indonesia. Resort is your example, but we're bringing on people that have experience of trading, particularly in Canada, in Australia and the U. S. They're the three markets that we're really focused on building our expertise in.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>We've got soon to be six divisions within Concilio Amore with their own expertise on DME, mainly at the moment in certain regions. So we have a UK team focused, focused on UK brokers, but very strong in the casualty sector. For example, we've recently bought on a new experienced colleague that has got casualty experience in Canada. So we're broadening our geographic footprint of our existing products into those markets.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>Finally, been talking about Concilio, but just broadening out a little bit. I mean, what happens more broadly with, say, the Lloyd's market when you've got clients who get moved between broker's gonna score them all fun clients for for one of a better word is there a bit of a challenge for the for Lloyd's market. Yeah,</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>we think so, Mark. We've been fortunate to win. New clients recently were growing business on D.</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>I think there's something that Lloyd's and we use the market need to look at in that process. I mean, if you were transferring your bank or perhaps your mobile phone contract, it's very easy now on bits been made, made so so that people can switch. The process of switching broker itself is relatively easy. Sign a letter and you passed the past that between brokers. But then behind the scenes to transfer the documents, you have to sign an agreement that is relying on the outgoing broker to sign that. So</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>if there's claims information that needs to be transferred across, for example, you're waiting on the outgoing broker to sign that. And that just doesn't seem right. The client is then impacted by that delay, and they shouldn't be punished or penalised for changing broker. So I think it's an area we need to particularly look at. Thea, other is is with runoff entities. If we place business with Lloyd's, intercut</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>on that, Lloyd's syndicates ceases writing that that business again, particularly with claims. The runoff reinsurance too close is is driven by very different metrics. You know, the original underwriter isn't around to advise what he intended by that contract on the run, Reinsurance to closes is driven by profitability, not necessarily about paying claims out quickly. So</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>that seems to be a pain point for clients as well, where claims get delayed when they've gone through that process, which is an area, I think, the game we need to look at as an industry. We</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 0</strong>: <span>have to do that. Paul Richards. Thank you for joining</span></p> <p><strong>Speaker 1</strong>: <span>us. Pleasure. Thank you.</span></p>