Promoting an understanding of insurance as a force for social good has been a central theme of Richard Dudley’s insurance career to date – and it’s a message that’s more timely than ever amid ongoing market conversations about the affordability and availability of coverage.
In conversation with Insurance Business, Dudley, who is group chief broking officer for BMS Group highlighted the need to move away from the idea of insurance as a “necessary evil”. There are a variety of ways in which the industry can do this, including by being on the front foot of promoting dialogue around closing the climate protection gap, and by being actively involved in supporting individuals and communities.
As an early member of the Insurance United Against Dementia (IUAD) campaign, which celebrated hitting its initial £10 million fundraising target earlier this year, Dudley has first-hand experience of what can happen when the insurance industry comes together. He noted that he first became involved when he was approached by one of the initiative’s founders Chris Wallace while running Aon’s London Market business.
Having done his due diligence on the campaign, it wasn’t a personal connection to the disease that convinced him but rather some of the statistics around dementia. “Sadly, so many families are affected by dementia in one form or another,” he said. “What stood out to me, was that it’s probably the number one killer in the Western world, certainly in the UK where almost a million people are living with dementia right now.
“That’s a number I think most people don’t really register but it’s having a massive knock-on effect on them, their carers, their families, the social care system and the NHS. And the amount of time and resources that are being devoted to trying to find solutions for this disease is just a fraction of what you see devoted to other causes. It felt very unfair to me that this cause wasn’t receiving the same degree of attention as other worthy causes – and fairness is one of my core values as an individual. I decided I wanted to help, to try and do something about it. So, I did.”
Having hit its initial £10 million fundraising target, originally set at its launch in 2017, the campaign is poised to go from strength to strength, he said. “We’ve set the same target again, and we want to get another £10 million. It’s a very simple target for phase two of the campaign. And we’ve taken the time out to work out how to get a good start on hitting that target and there’ll be more news on that front in the coming months.”
The IUAD campaign shows insurance at its best – which underscores Dudley’s firm belief that insurance is a critical mechanism in the successful functioning of any society. “There isn’t anything that happens in the economy without it being insured in one form or another,” he said. “Companies don't exist without directors being protected under D&O policies. You can’t build an offshore wind farm without insurance, as the investors won't commit their funds until they know there's an insurance policy in place for construction.
“There are 1000s of examples that are like that and two things stand out for me. One is that I think we, as an industry, haven’t got the message across properly about just how critical we are to economic development.”
Insurance is sometimes seen as a necessary evil and people do tend to complain about having to pay their premiums, particularly in segments such as motor insurance, he said. But the industry has to do more to drive the message home that, at its core, it’s about enabling people's personal lives and economic activity.
The second message he’s keen to deliver is that, amid so much change in the external environment – whether it’s technological changes, geopolitical uncertainty, or climate change – businesses are out there innovating, and insurance needs to be equipped to support that.
“Businesses out there are reimagining their business models,” he said. “Businesses out there are creating new technologies to address some of our existing challenges and new ones that we haven't even thought about before. And all of that requires our industry to really innovate to address this innovation properly.” The traditional stance of the market, which lends itself to excluding certain things in the event of a loss is not necessarily going to work going forward, and the industry needs to be more innovative in terms of how it addresses this complex and fast-changing risk environment.
“I'd like to see us, as an industry, being more innovative,” he said. “And we do innovate. There are lots of good examples of that, but are we really doing it at scale, and in a way that's genuinely meeting the pace that the economy is changing at? Are we trying to innovate to address all these new challenges? I'm not sure if we are.
“So, my challenge to the reinsurance and insurance industry is to do more of that; to commit itself to entrepreneurialism and innovation, and to invest in different areas to try and address some of these challenges.”
