Inspiring the next generation of risk professionals – Aviva Group CEO Amanda Blanc keynote

Aviva Group CEO Amanda Blanc was welcomed to the stage by Chris Lay, UK CEO of Marsh McLennan, where she outlined the various risks and challenges facing UK businesses and the insurance sector.

But, first, Blanc revealed that she never consciously wanted to work in insurance. “But I don’t regret for a moment, having chosen it as a career,” she said. “I had two options. One was to work for the council, and the second was to work for Commercial Union. One would have meant staying at home, and the other would have meant going to Luton and all the other glorious places in the world. And that’s the one I went for.”

One of the issues that Blanc is passionate about is around women and financial advice.

She said: “We’ve seen a lot of research about what will happen to women and their financial education. The fact is that many will retire with a lot less money than they should. So we do have to have a lot of these conversations, which is around making sure that that doesn’t happen to them. How are they going to think about that?”

Her passion for educating people about finance extends not only to women, but back towards the young as well. She referenced making visits to where she was brought up in order to speak to schools.

She said: “I speak to the kids at these schools about insurance as a career, and it’s a tough crowd. A really, really tough audience. But I always say to the kids that these are the things that they should think about. And I say that they should take every opportunity that’s given to them because kids will often decide not to do something because it’s not cool.”

Economic headwinds

Talk moved to the serious issues facing the UK economy. These included the performance of the UK economy following the country’s departure from the European Union, the cost-of-living crisis, and the economic recovery post-Covid that current lags other major and developed nations.

Blanc said: “After that, you’ve got AI, and the emerging risks and opportunities from that. What will that mean for our colleagues and the way that we work? What about the decisions that we take and the way the business is going to look as we go forwards? Cyber is also a clear and present danger. And there’s also risk around whether the workforce is going to be ready for the future.”

She added: “Some are clearer than others, but it’s obvious that we have to keep all these things constantly on the agenda and we’re constantly reviewing them.”

Lay added his remarks on the current environment, pointing to the velocity and interconnected nature of risk in 2023.

He said: “Which ones are increasing in pace, and which are becoming more and more interconnected? When there’s a problem, we tend to look at risk in silos, but it’s not siloed. And cyber is massive—too many are not ready or are not thinking about how they can be ready.”

He also pointed to issues around health and wellbeing, saying: “You can see, post-Covid, with people coming back to the health system for diagnoses, and the journey they are on is different from a health perspective, and possibly driven by the technological issues we face around social media.”

Brexit was a subject picked up upon by attendees at the conference, who asked what the balance was between the UK’s current administration cutting EU-based regulation but pushing at the same time for the nation’s pension funds to invest in riskier areas.

Blanc said: “One of the things that’s attractive about the UK is the regulatory environment. It’s always been seen a sensible place to do business with good rule of law. We shouldn’t ever lose that. But the other thing to bear in mind is all the risks that I’ve talked about. The regulators have to have an eye on that today and in the future. I’ve sympathy with them in many ways in that they’re trying to regulate in an environment that’s constantly changing.

She pointed to recent turmoil within the financial system, including the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and the fallout from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget last year. With that in mind, she said that she did not support the government telling insurers or pension funds which areas they should invest in.

“I don’t think that’s right. I think individuals should be allowed to make those decisions in conjunction with their advisors. But there can be more encouragement given to pension funds to invest in growth in the UK, which is clearly the intent,” Blanc added.