A Beazley underwriter has completed a 600-mile cycle ride from Berlin to London, raising more than £165,000 for the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in memory of his father, a marine insurance veteran who died of bowel cancer.
George Southgate, 28, led a team of 27 cyclists, including many of his industry colleagues, on the six-day route through Germany and the Netherlands before crossing to the UK by ferry, covering around 100 miles a day. The ride finished outside Lloyd's of London before the group continued on to the ICR's laboratories in Chelsea.
Southgate's father, Mike Southgate, spent more than 40 years in marine insurance, working predominantly as a marine hull underwriter, including roles at the Sturge syndicate, GE & Swiss Re, and later as head of marine and energy at Montpelier, Canopius and Hiscox. He was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in April 2020 and died in January 2022, aged 59, following almost two years of treatment. This was Southgate's second major fundraising challenge for the ICR, after a London to Paris ride in 2022 raised more than £18,000.
Southgate said his father's wish to take part in a clinical trial in his final months, even knowing it was unlikely to change his own prognosis, shaped his decision to support the ICR's research.
"He knew there was little chance it would improve his own prognosis but instead could help clinicians gain greater understanding into bowel cancer and the specific mutations present during his illness," he said.
That instinct to help others facing the same disease, Southgate said, reflects a pattern that runs through his wider family.
Cancer has touched the family repeatedly. Southgate's cousin Ben, who also took part in the ride, lost his mother to breast cancer in 2023, while Southgate's grandfather died in 2018 after a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia, and his uncle died aged 47 from osteosarcoma. Southgate said reaching Arnhem on day four of the route had been a bittersweet moment, as it was where he had finished a previous charity ride with his father in 2017, and that memories of those lost to cancer had helped power the team through the six days on the road. He said he felt proud of the group's achievement and believed his father would have felt the same.
Sarah Castleman, sports and challenge events manager at the ICR, said the charity was glad to have Southgate's support again, noting the scale of what the team had taken on. "Every pound raised helps drive our research forward, and every mile brings us closer to a future where cancer can be defeated," she said. Castleman added that she had joined the group for the final 90 miles into London and considered it a privilege to cross the finish line alongside them at the ICR's laboratories.
Bowel cancer is the UK's second most common cause of cancer death, accounting for around 17,700 deaths a year, according to Cancer Research UK, a toll that has fallen by nearly half since the 1970s thanks to earlier diagnosis and improved treatment. Southgate's fundraising is a direct contribution, and the ICR's current appeal is focused on making the disease more preventable, predictable and treatable.
The ride also sits within a wider culture of charitable giving in the London market. The Lloyd's of London Foundation, the corporation's own charitable arm, contributed £2.1 million to charities and individuals in 2025, funded through Lloyd's corporate giving and the wider market's fundraising activity. Individual efforts like Southgate's sit alongside larger market-wide initiatives, such as Aventum's 2024 static cycle relay in Leadenhall Market, which set a world record for participants and raised more than £50,000 for Cancer Research, part of a broader pattern of the market rallying around cancer charities in particular.
For Southgate and his team, the significance goes beyond the fundraising total. Across two rides in three years, Southgate has now raised more than £183,000 for the ICR, and bringing colleagues from across the market together to honour a 40-year career built largely within it turned a personal loss into a shared one, and a long ride into a lasting tribute.
