Airmic Press Conference 2024

The Airmic Excellence Awards are now an established part of the UK and Ireland risk management scene. Awards will be granted for outstanding achievements in risk management, risk financing, service to the profession or to Airmic, or a contribution to the wider society in which we all live and work.

New for 2024 is that Airmic Partners, as well as Airmic Members, are invited to submit nominations.

There is no fee to submit a nomination.

Nominations may be submitted for more than one award category.

No external sponsorship of these Awards is requested or accepted by Airmic.

THE CALL FOR NOMINATIONS OPENS ON 1 JULY 2024

1. Achievement – Risk Manager of the Year (Individual)

   A professional who is a senior and influential figure. They might lead a risk team or inspire, mentor, or support young professionals starting out in their risk careers. This individual will demonstrate that they have the attention of their board, or equivalent governance body, and exhibit outstanding leadership through the practice of dynamic risk management.

2. Talent – Rising Star of the Year (Individual)

   A professional who has demonstrated exceptional initiative, given support to the development of other professionals inside and outside of their organisation, and demonstrated the potential to be a future leader in the profession. There are no age criteria attached to this award category, but it is expected that nominees will have been in the profession for less than 7 years.

3. Learning – Professional Development Programme of the Year (Team)

   This award is open to a Member team which can demonstrate a commitment to supporting the development of knowledge and skills for future risk professionals. This might involve an innovative approach to study, or a bespoke learning programme developed and offered in-house or externally. Tomorrow’s risks need new knowledge and skills today, and the ability to use this effectively.

4. Innovation – Multinational Programme of the Year (Team)

   This award recognises that the expansion of regulatory regimes against the backdrop of interconnected world and regional economies and risks requires a thorough assessment of cross-border risks as well as the options and obstacles inherent in multinational risk and insurance programmes. There is no ‘right answer’, but a programme must reflect an organisation’s multinational objectives and demonstrate sustainability as the global business climate evolves and the needs of an organisation change.

5. Captives – Sustainable Captive Strategy (Team)

   This award recognises that captives have gone mainstream and are taking centre stage as part of the risk-financing solutions for many Airmic Members. This award is looking for ways in which an organisation has leveraged a captive to meet the objectives of their organisation and can demonstrate how this has contributed to creating a competitive advantage. Nominations might refer to reducing the cost and volatility of funding risk or providing access to reinsurance markets. Innovative covers might include cyber, climate, energy transition project risks, and blended catastrophe risks, as well as their ability to build data sets for emerging risks.

6. People – Innovative People Risk Programme (Team)

   This award recognises that Airmic Members are increasingly engaged in risk management and risk financing solutions for people risk, including employee benefit programmes. Nominations might include how Airmic Members have collaborated with their peers in Human Resources or equivalent functions, and how their knowledge and skills have contributed towards the introduction of innovative solutions. Examples might include business travel, health, safety and security, employee wellness, mental health, or life, private medical or other risk financing arrangements – including the use of a captive.

Reinforces the belief that its digital infrastructure will be the catalyst for global innovation

Solution to the ‘broken’ renewal process signals transformational benefits for the $1TN global commercial insurance industry, with the potential to dramatically reduce renewal times and improve data quality.

• Big Ticket redefining the renewal experience for corporate buyers, brokers and insurers
• Early results show platform will generate game-changing efficiency, pricing and capital management benefits for risk managers and the industry
• Eliminates the industry’s ‘risk plagued’ practice of sending hyper-sensitive client data by e-mail and spreadsheet
• Provided free-of-charge to any risk manager or insurance buyer because Big Ticket will deliver annual operational savings in excess of US$25 billion to the industry
• Airmic continues support of Big Ticket as a catalyst for digital innovation and client centric change
• KPMG launches playbook for risk management associations to enable rapid worldwide adoption of Big Ticket at scale

LONDON AND NEW YORK 3 June – Early results from the rollout of Big Ticket – the world’s first neutral digital infrastructure for the global commercial insurance industry launched last year – have seen renewal times dramatically reduced and data quality significantly improved, heralding a transformation to the customer experience and highlighting a myriad of benefits to insurers and brokers including efficiencies, more accurate pricing and better capital allocation.

Big Ticket is an industry-backed renewal data platform shared between clients, brokers and insurers, provided free-of-charge to any risk manager or insurance buyer. Its technology ecosystem was developed with founding partner Mastercard and Global Advisory Board members including Airmic, Aon, Aviva, Oasis and Zurich. The platform is currently live across the US and UK with further worldwide deployments slated for 2025.

Robert Bartlett, Co-Founder and CEO, Big Ticket, said: “Big Ticket was designed to address the broken renewal process and the early results show it is doing just that. Risk managers, brokers and insurers are seeing the efficiencies it delivers in terms of processing renewals in a fraction of the time – hours and minutes, rather than months – and delivering upgraded model-ready data that can be seamlessly integrated into to 100+ downstream systems for every risk. These efficiencies will generate significant benefits – potentially far in excess of the estimated $25b industry-wide that we initially estimated – and will give risk managers back the time they need to better measure and mitigate their risks.”

Ken Fraser, Co-Founder and President, Big Ticket, said: “We are also seeing a step change in overall data quality when clients renew using Big Ticket. Currently, insurers receive from spreadsheets roughly only around a third of the data they need to drive pricing and CAT models – the rest they have to estimate which means premiums are loaded for uncertainty. Our results show that Big Ticket users are seeing impressive improvements in overall data quality, something that is happening spontaneously as the result of increasingly informed conversations between broker and client on data gaps and the ease of filling them on the platform. The combination of drastically reduced renewal times and significant improvement in data quality and security means that at scale Big Ticker opens up the opportunity to recalibrate underwriting, offer differentiated pricing models and optimise insurers’ capital efficiency.”

Risk managers – the catalyst for change

While Big Ticket is tackling pain points like the broken renewal experience head on, that is just the first step. Its neutral digital infrastructure can be the catalyst for industry-wide digital innovation in areas including AI – putting risk managers in control of how their proprietary, confidential data is used.

Julia Graham, CEO of Airmic and Chair of the Big Ticket Advisory Board, said: “Airmic has backed Big Ticket from the outset – we have always recognised its potential to change the industry on a global scale. But the results from its first year of operations are impressive – the benefits and opportunities it presents are even more significant than we hoped. Risk management associations and their members have a key role in driving the digital agenda and Big Ticket is a game-changer for the insurance industry and for risk managers alike. The next step is for us to support our members to adopt Big Ticket at scale. To that end we are delighted to be working with KPMG on the development of a playbook to support the rollout of Big Ticket worldwide.”

Scaling up at speed

Risk management associations and their members have a key role to play and KPMG is launching a playbook to them and the global insurance industry to adopt Big Ticket swiftly, smoothly and easily, and realise the benefits it brings.

Positive industry response

Joe Peiser, Global CEO Commercial Risk Solutions, of Aon, said: “We are very encouraged by the experience of clients and colleagues who have already completed their renewals using the Big Ticket platform. It is clear that a standard, digitised approach to structured exposure data will help reduce uncertainty and will drive better decisions for our clients and benefit all our industry partners. We are delighted to be involved in defining the industry’s digital future with Airmic and other risk management associations.”

Paolo Mantero, Chief Strategy Officer, Zurich Insurance said: “Zurich is committed to contribute to the development of Big Ticket, a market solution that enables secure and efficient data sharing among customers, brokers, and insurers. For this reason, we are actively involved in a test with our US customers, in collaboration with Aon, and we look forward to continuing our engagement with Big Ticket.”

Dickie Whitaker, Chief Executive, Oasis, said: “Big Ticket is the most exciting development I have seen in over 30 years of working in insurance. It is going to have the most profound effect on how the industry selects, prices and processes risk, bringing transformational benefits to risk managers brokers and insurance companies.”

Tom Clementi, Chief Executive Officer, Pool Re, said: “Pool Re is delighted to contribute to Big Ticket’s development in partnership with Airmic. We believe that secure data sharing among customers, brokers, insurers and reinsurers is key to building confidence and a more resilient, future looking (re)insurance market. We look forward to deepening our engagement with Big Ticket.”

About Big Ticket

Big Ticket is an industry supported infrastructure that allows digital exchange, innovation, and collaboration to take place in a secure environment. Our industry neutral solution revitalises the client experience with no cost to the risk managers or insurance buyers around the world. Founded in 2020, the company is headquartered in Atlanta, US and has operations in London, UK. For more information on Big Ticket, follow us on LinkedIn or visit https://www.bigticketplatform.com.

Contact

Will Mutton, Omnia Partners, william.mutton@weareomniapartners.com, 07766 442391