Transcript:
Brandon (00:00)
Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Guernsey Finance podcast, the show where we bring you interviews with top thinkers from across the global financial services industry. For those who are not familiar with the island and the podcast, we dive into emerging trends and themes from sectors, including investment funds, captive insurance, and everything in between. My name is Brandon Ashplant. I'm technical manager, funds and private wealth at Guernsey Finance.
Brandon (00:27)
The islands promotional agency for the financial services sector. Today, I'm delighted to be talking to James Stewart, Client Services Director at Artex Risk Solutions and Jody Bisson, Director at WTW Management Guernsey. James has recently taken up the role of the chair of the Guernsey International Insurance Association after serving as the organisation's deputy chair.
Brandon (00:54)
Today we will be discussing how Guernsey's insurance industry is evolving to meet the needs of a changing world and what makes it so uniquely placed to do so. So without further ado, thanks for joining us today both.
Jody Bisson (01:08)
Thank you.
James Stewart (01:08)
Thank you.
Brandon (01:09)
If I could just start, if you could just sort of tell us a bit about yourselves and your experience in the industry to date, just for those who perhaps don't know too much about you both. If I could just start with you, Jody?
Jody Bisson (01:21)
Yeah, sure. Thank you very much. So I'm Jody Bisson. As mentioned, I'm a director at WTW management in Guernsey. And I've just taken on the role of deputy chair supporting James in GIIA. So my background is I'm a qualified accountant with 30 years working in financial services in Guernsey. Predominantly, I've worked in the insurance management sector where I am currently today.
But previously I've held roles as an underwriter, fund accountant, a financial advisor and also had a brief spell in banking. So a fairly diversified background, but predominantly as I say, working in the captive management space.
Brandon (02:00)
And James?
James Stewart (02:02)
Yes, I'm a chartered insurer. I've been involved in insurance management in Guernsey for almost 18 years now. I've been with Artex for three years and prior to that I was with Willis Towers Watson. All in insurance management and in similar roles having responsibility for servicing our clients and managing the relationships with them.
Brandon (02:31)
Excellent. So James, as mentioned, you are, or have recently been appointed as chair of the Guernsey International Insurance Association. For those who maybe are less familiar, that's the representative body for the islands insurance industry. Could you just tell me a bit about, you know, how GIIA that's the sort of shorthand, acronymized form.
works with Guernsey Finance including you know our insurance representative here at sort of GF, William Lewis and just talk about that relationship
James Stewart (03:02)
Yes, we work very closely with Guernsey Finance. A big part of what GIIA does is promoting our industry, promoting Guernsey, promoting the services we offer. A lot of our work with Guernsey Finance is channeled through our market development committee, which is the sort of engine room within GIIA for that
promotional and business development section of what we try and do. And yeah, it's been great having Willie Lewis on board. He's got tremendous industry knowledge, tremendous industry contacts, and has been really helpful in helping us along with the Guernsey Finance events team arrange events that we put on both here in Guernsey and also
in the UK, including road shows where we go out and meet with other people in the insurance industry in London and talk about what their clients are looking for, what services Guernsey offers and where we can provide solutions.
Brandon (04:21)
And under your leadership, what is GIIAs focus for the next year or two? What's the big vision? What's the plan?
James Stewart (04:28)
There is a lot going on just now. We have the UK government having commenced a consultation on setting up a captive insurance regime in the UK. Captive insurance is a big proportion of what we do here, what GIIA members do in Guernsey.
Guernsey is a long established domicile. So we need to work alongside that and make sure Guernsey is properly positioned and takes advantage of potential opportunities that are coming out of this more mainstream focus on captive insurance. The other big thing we've got this year is we're doing our second Airmic
conference in Guernsey along with the UK Insurance Management Professional representative body. We did our first one last year. It was a tremendous success. So we are looking to build on that this September.
Brandon (05:33)
And what you mentioned there, the Guernsey Airmic event, which is probably the flagship piece, I suppose, for Guernsey Insurance so far as events go. Jody, for those who maybe don't know so much about that, could you just sort of talk us through, what's the purpose of the event and who is it aimed at and that sort of thing?
James Stewart (05:42)
Thanks.
Jody Bisson (05:53)
Yeah, very much so. the event is really sort of raise the profile of Guernsey. think James has turned around and said we're very well established, very recognised as a leading captive centre. And for us, it's effectively sharing some of the knowledge that we have here in Guernsey, sharing some of the ideas and innovation that we're looking to come forward to. The actual title of the seminar is
'Leading the way in international risk finance' because we see that Guernsey's been very much at the forefront of innovation and development in the captive insurance space for many, many years now. And it is really aimed at people that have their captives already established in Guernsey coming over and understanding what Guernsey's doing to support them, but also very much those that are thinking and considering about establishing captives, the risk managers and risk directors of those
entities that can come over to Guernsey, they can meet with various professionals that are over here, but they can also understand the direction that Guernsey is travelling with regards to captive insurance management and it'd be a really really good time for them to attend and have that many people present in one time in Guernsey.
Brandon (07:06)
It sounds like an interesting event and sort of great opportunity to sort of really scope out and understand that sort of Guernsey offering. James Guernsey's insurance industry has many strengths. It's an innovator. It's home to an extensive ecosystem of service providers and remains Europe's largest captive domicile, something you touched on earlier there. Jody, is, what value does this hold for prospective clients in the UK and Europe? You know, that status and these sorts of strengths.
Jody Bisson (07:33)
Yeah, to be honest, one thing it turns around and shows that Guernsey is a safe, secure, reliable place to come and do business. We have been in existence now providing captive insurance management for over 100 years. With that comes a vast degree of service providers that are knowledgeable and experienced to support you, whether that be the insurance managers, the auditors understand the regulatory environment that we operate in and the lawyers to facilitate any form of business.
It just gives people that, as I say, safe, secure, reliable place to come and do insurance business.
Brandon (08:12)
You know, we've heard a lot recently about a softening market. What does this mean for Guernsey and how does that sort of influence the offering, James?
James Stewart (08:25)
I think historically captives in the captive industry have done better in a hard insurance market when premium rates have been high, capacity has been reduced and there's been perhaps a greater obvious financial driver to set up or place business into your captive.
I think what we are finding now is as our industry has matured, so have many of our clients. They're more experienced at running their captives. They see the captive as a more core part of their overall risk financing strategy, their risk financing toolkit. And they're seeing benefits of deploying their captive
in a soft market as well as a hard market, taking control of their overall insurance spend and smoothing that cost of risk. You see many clients taking a captive first position. So rather than looking at their insurance program and thinking where you might slot in your captive,
looking at your insurance program, looking at the captive as your primary risk retention vehicle, and then looking from that what risks should then be seeded into the commercial insurance market.
Jody Bisson (09:56)
I would agree with what James has said there. When you look at hardening and soft markets, as James has said, the hardening market, people set up captives very reactively. It's a reaction to what's happening in the market. What I would turn around and say we're seeing now is that captive first is very much more proactive. And actually being proactive in a softening market, you've got reduced premiums coming in. So there is the potential that there is
extra funds available to set up that captive and it means that you can be prepared and more ready when the hard market comes and what we're seeing with technology that's coming through at the moment is the movement between soft and hard markets is a lot quicker. So actually having that captive set up in that soft market so that you're ready to react far quicker when the market changes is something that a lot of clients we're seeing now want to have that tool in their armory.
Brandon (10:53)
Hmm. Interesting. And last year's Guernsey Airmic event, which was the, as I understand it, the first of, I think to take place in 25 years, speakers discussed, you know, a range of, you know, issues, but, but one of the sort of, I guess, front running talking points was this sense that sort of Guernsey is and has become, this sort of go-to destination or jurisdiction for sort of humanitarian focused insurance structures and
and means of sort of humanitarian outlets. know, Jody, could you tell us a bit about some of the recent examples here? I mean, listeners may be familiar with some of them, but maybe for those who don't know, just a flavor of what's been done here in Guernsey.
Jody Bisson (11:37)
Yeah, sure. So, in Guernsey, we've set up structures for the International Federation of Red Cross with a catastrophe bond, which was to protect against losses related to, for example, wildfires. Most recently, working with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to develop a guarantee scheme to cover war-related risks in Ukraine. So this is there to help support the revision of reinsurance capacity and address ongoing challenges posed by the war in that country.
So hopefully this should then help businesses confidence that their assets are protected and allow regeneration in this area. So as you see, Guernsey is very much the humanitarian side at the forefront of innovation there.
Brandon (12:24)
And just a final question, James, what makes Guernsey so well placed to facilitate these deals? obviously Jody, that extends to you if you wish to add as well.
James Stewart (12:36)
Yes, think Jody's touched on the level of experience that we've built up in the industry. have a large base of insurance and accounting professionals who are well versed in managing captive insurance vehicles. We have a fantastic pool of Non-Executive Directors here in Guernsey.
The accounting, legal, investment, management industry here is also equally well-versed in delivering the services that captives require. And in particular, over the decades, we've built up a regulatory regime that understands the risk profile that captive insurance has. And the regulation and the regulatory approach
reflects this. We have a regulator that understands that a captive insurer that only insures the risk of its parent has a very different risk profile to a retail insurer that's providing insurance to the layperson on the street who is relying on that professional advice as much as the actual cover provided.
Jody Bisson (13:58)
No, I don't agree with that wholeheartedly. as I say, these structures that come about, they're innovative solutions, they require a team of knowledgeable advisors. And that's really what Guernsey provides. We have that knowledge and depth and breadth of advisors that are able to support and bring these together, supported by a regulatory regime that people understand and a regulator that understands the business.
Brandon (14:25)
Excellent. Well, thank you very much for joining us on the podcast today, both. Thank you.
Jody Bisson (14:29)
Thank very much.
James Stewart (14:30)
Thank you, good to speak to you.
Brandon (14:32)
If you would like to find out more about what Guernsey has to offer, you can visit our website at guernsiefinance.com. If you want to learn more about Guernsey's success in sustainable finance, tune into our sister podcast, the Sustainable Finance Guernsey podcast. Thanks also to you for listening. If you enjoyed this discussion, we have a backlog of interviews on the Guernsey Finance podcast channel. You can check them out by searching for Guernsey Finance on your preferred podcast platform. We look forward to welcoming you back to the podcast soon, but until then, it's goodbye from Guernsey.
