UK Private Client Insurance Landscape and the Value of International Networking with Giles Greenfield, CEO of Markham Private Client Artwork

Private Client Risk & Resilience

Join Kurt Thoennessen, CAPI to learn about the risks that successful individuals and families face today. He will discuss risk management strategies to prevent losses and ideas to help you be more resilient to losses when they occur. He will explore everything from the risks to property, such as homes, art and yachts, to how to become more resilient in the face of loss by having the right insurance coverage in place. Episodes will feature expert knowledge from subject matter experts and/or insights from Kurt's personal experience as a risk manager for successful individuals and families.

All Episodes

Private Client Risk & Resilience

UK Private Client Insurance Landscape and the Value of International Networking with Giles Greenfield, CEO of Markham Private Client

December 03, 2023 • Kurt Thoennessen, CAPI • Season 1 • Episode 28

In the latest episode of "Private Client Risk & Resilience," Kurt Thoennessen, CAPI, a Personal Risk Advisor at Ericson Insurance Advisors and CEO of RiskRevu, sat down with Giles Greenfield, CEO of Markham Private Client, for an in-depth exploration of the private client insurance market across the UK and the US.

Thoennessen kicked off the episode by introducing himself and expressing his enthusiasm about having Giles Greenfield as a guest, someone he met at the Private Risk Management Association Summit.

The conversation quickly delved into the nitty-gritty of the UK's private client insurance landscape. Greenfield provided valuable insights, drawing parallels and disparities between the UK and US markets. They discussed how international relationships among UK and US brokers significantly streamline communication, trust levels, and improve insurance program design for high net worth and ultra high net worth clients with properties interests in both countries.

A major focus of the discussion was the comparison in coverage and underwriting approaches between the two countries. The absence of umbrella liability policies in the UK, as noted by Giles, underscored the UK's less litigious nature compared to its US counterpart.

Both Thoennessen and Greenfield addressed pressing concerns brokers face in their respective regions, particularly the challenges surrounding escape of water incidents. These incidents, especially concerning historical or listed properties, were highlighted as significant hurdles for clients and insurers.

Overall, this podcast episode offers a comprehensive analysis of the private client insurance market. It not only emphasized the nuances between the UK and US markets but also underscored the pivotal role of international relationships. Furthermore, it shed light on the intricate challenges brokers encounter while addressing distinctive coverage issues in their respective regions.

Resources:
Markham Private Client - https://markhambrokers.com/
What is a listed building article - https://www.mansionglobal.com/library/listed-building
Wondeur AI - https://wondeur.ai/
Private Risk Management Association - https://www.privateriskmanagement.org/

Kurt Thoennessen: 0:02

There are more wealthy people today than ever before in the history of the world. The risks they are exposed to through the assets they acquire and their unique lifestyles are significant. The bigger the asset, the bigger the potential loss. The bigger the potential loss, the more complicated the mechanisms for protecting those assets becomes. This show seeks to uncover the risks that successful people face. So we can provide some guidance towards minimizing, mitigating and transferring them. From Coverage contracts and carriers to client experience, technology and claims, we will cover it all. Whether you're an agent looking to hone your skills or someone with significant wealth to protect, I hope this show becomes a valuable resource you can come to rely on to help you protect yourself, your family, and your clients. Welcome to the private client risk and resilience podcast. My name is Kurt Thoennessen. And I am your host of this amazing show. And in addition, in addition to being the host of this show, I am also a personal risk advisor at Erickson insurance advisors, and I'm the CEO of risk review, which is a software platform that where we build smart forms to help agents gather information from clients and prospects to help make their job easier, smoother and more efficient. So welcome to the show, everybody. I'm really excited to have you here. I'm really excited that if you're here for the first time, welcome, if you're coming back, and you've heard the show before, thank you for coming back. And I'm really excited about today's show because we have a new guest, and his name is Giles Greenfield. And we met recently at as many of you know, one of my favorite things, which is the private Risk Management Association Summit. This is an annual event for an association that we both belong to. And this was the first time we met. Right, Charles?

Giles Greenfield: 1:58

That's right, in some corridor, I think between between breaks, and it was fortuitous to meet you. And we met up in person since and found a way to try to work together which is exciting. I

Kurt Thoennessen: 2:10

completely agree. And I remember the facilitator or partial facilitator, Rick Ebert from wonder AI,

Giles Greenfield: 2:18

we wouldn't blame him. We can complain, I blame him completely. But you think I hired, I got a call with him. I got a call with him later. So we're trying to help him on that side on his side of the business as well. But yeah, it was a pleasure to meet you in the PRA. prma event was was great in Chicago, and I was very interested to be there from a UK perspective and get a get a sense of what's going on in the US and the private cloud market.

Kurt Thoennessen: 2:45

Excellent. Yep, I completely agree. And, and incidentally, I also for those of you who are listening who don't know this, I also am involved in the national chapter initiative for the prma. And the New York Metro chapter, which I run, it just had their annual event last night at pure insurances headquarters, which was a very successful event, we had 87 people that showed up to the event, we had 60 people on a webinar, and an amazing panel of experts talking about soft skills in a hard market. So it was, it was, it was a fun time, great to see everybody, especially during this time of year. And, and so just going to the whole point of events that are bringing people like us together, Giles, it just, it just makes for a fun, fun, career Fun, fun industry. makes it interesting.

Giles Greenfield: 3:35

I agree. I mean, I think, you know, speaking from the UK perspective, I'm based in London. And really, it's a very small industry in the UK, as far as the personality is concerned. You know, everyone knows everyone. And it seems that you despite in the state seems as the same as well being in that conference room with 600 Old people. But yeah, it's a very friendly and welcoming industry side of the industry. And I think what I liked about the prma, and I never going to come on to talk about this is sharing ideas. And whilst a lot of brokers are competitors, and insurers are competitors, everyone actually individually gets on pretty well. And I think to have an event where everyone kind of can discuss the issues. And I think particularly in the current market, as well. And I think I know that the the prma event in Chicago was a massive turnout. And I'm sure that's down to the comments worked in over the last 10 years. But I think the industry cycle at the moment is really people are needing that resource and and kind of a guiding hand from other colleagues and you know, and people in the industry. I

Kurt Thoennessen: 4:46

completely agree one of the one of the things that was a repeating theme at the event last night was that this is very much like therapy, you know, having everybody get together and talk about these issues.

Giles Greenfield: 4:58

Or not too bad. But it was, maybe

Kurt Thoennessen: 5:01

maybe afterwards not during during there was there was a lot of laughter and a lot of good. So but I didn't see everything. So. But and then before we get started, I just I also wanted to mention that you have been in talks with the progress Management Association about starting a chapter in the UK, correct? Yeah,

Giles Greenfield: 5:23

we'd love to do that. And there's, there's a few who are having conversations around setting that up. And I know, obviously, it started in the US, and you've got a Canadian chapter as well. But I think there's a lot of as per the purpose of this call really isn't that there's, there's a lot of information that can be learned from the UK, from Canada from the US and I think becoming more of an international network, everyone will benefit from so yeah, we'd be delighted to be involved in getting that going in the new year.

Kurt Thoennessen: 5:54

Yeah, and that is going to be one of our first questions on this is, what are those benefits of the international relationships, because there are many. But before we jump there, I was wondering if you could give our audience a brief overview of your, your your career, your background, because as I know it, it's very impressive.

Giles Greenfield: 6:12

Let's call you say it's like that, but so I been in the industry now for 25 years, I set up my first business in the private client sector in the late 90s. And sold that in in 2010, just doing private client insurance in the UK, that my link to the US came after that. So I spent a couple of years working for a fine art advisory company in New York for two years. And in 2011 and 2012. The back end of the the financial crisis, that was an interesting time to be there, although the art world that still as always remained reasonably robust for the top end. But anyway, I got to know the US insurance market pretty well out there. The insurers, a lot of brokers. And then in 2012, I came back to the to the UK and set up another private client insurance business, which has morphed a bit our core businesses, private clients looking after the assets, as most do so you know, contents homes, fine art, jewelry, all the tangible assets, but our other side of our business is also kidnap and Ransom insurance that we we do. And we've got quite a large book of business. And that's growing. So that was a word I didn't know much about, but it's kind of actually forms as a business, half our revenue now. So that's, it's an area that we're getting more expert in. So yeah, so it's it was a treat to come back to the States earlier last year to just see what's going on in in the market out there. And I guess, unsurprisingly, there's similarities.

Kurt Thoennessen: 7:41

Absolutely. And we'll touch on some of those. And I do want to point out, and because it is interesting that there is a significant portion of your business that is in the KNR. But I wanted to ask you, where is that business? Is it in the UK? Mostly? Or is it outside of the country?

Giles Greenfield: 7:57

It's it's out of the country. So it's, it tends to be in Latin America. It's private families in Latin America that we we insure. So. Yeah. And, and that's half of the other half of our business or, you know, is purely UK private client business? Well, I think we're going to touch on Brexit and the implications of that as well. So we just did purely deal with the UK.

Kurt Thoennessen: 8:24

So then talking about the benefits of relationships and and I've had several opportunities to work with UK brokers, on global clients, let's let's call them where they have properties in the UK properties in the US. And just I'm working on the few that I've seen, there are differences in terminology. And the benefits that I can point out, in my experience were the family office that we were working with greatly appreciated, that they could have one call with two brokers, and handled both continents, both not continents, both countries Sure. And, and it just streamlined the entire process for them. And I remember building a proposal that included both UK and US properties and assets. And it just made the whole thing much simpler for everybody. So just just the communication made everything smoother. You've had some experience to what What benefits did you see from the cross?

Giles Greenfield: 9:26

I think you're right, you could think of the client or the family office and you know, if if you are a US broker and a UK broker working together, we can speak the industry language, which the end the end client or the family office can so we know on the whole what's being discussed. Now there's a few different terminologies as you rightly say, you know, a deductible and access various these auto motor, whatever it may be, they're minor, and there are certain tweaks in the different types of insurance. But I think it's the main benefit I would say is having a broker on the ground on either end as well. You know, If you've if you have a client and wherever it may be in the States, and you've got a relationship with a broker there, he even trusts and you build that relationship with you, you know that they could go and see the clients and represent kind of the offering that's been made by the insurance on a joint venture basis. So I think that's key. And the same in the UK as well. You know, if there's a US client, relocating to the to the UK, you would have someone on the ground, that you can trust them to go and see them and, you know, set up appraisals or whatever it may be or surveys and liaise with the insurers. I think the other key thing is the relationship between the broker in the US will have the US insurers and the broker in the UK will have the the UK insurance, because often the business is placed locally. And without those key relationships is difficult. So you're leveraging that I guess, on both sides,

Kurt Thoennessen: 10:51

absolutely, you know, much better to send them to a person that you trust, rather than just saying, go look up a website, or absolutely just, you know, go to go anywhere, just go try and find something that you don't have that relationship, and you might end up with a non admitted market, that wasn't the best place for them, or some other type of situation. So

Giles Greenfield: 11:13

it's also I think, you know, the, the other ancillary products, so you know, the client moves to a certain country, they might need their fine art valuing, they might need their building appraised, they might be looking to buy a car to have someone on the ground that can say, you know, don't go there, that's not going to work, but speak to them. That's very useful as well.

Kurt Thoennessen: 11:33

Excellent. So let's, let's switch gears a little bit. And let's get a better understanding of the UK market as a whole. I and we talked briefly before the call, and you gave me a great overview of the carriers, the broker seen all kinds of stuff. So I'd love for you to share that with with everybody.

Giles Greenfield: 11:50

Sure, well, I think there's a starting point is the size of the population between the UK and the US, really, I mean, we were the 20% of the size our populations, whatever it is 65 to 70 million, us being 330. So there are there abouts. And what struck me was certainly a long time ago was there were so many different insurers, and mgas, in the private land space in the UK. And when I was in the States, kind of 10 years ago or so, there really weren't that many carriers, which was quite interesting. You know, at the time we had AIG had sharp, I think Asus was there, and pure, but on a population of 330 million. And whilst there's only a certain percentage of that, that's deemed high net worth, it wasn't that many insurers and I looked at the UK market. And I thought, you know, we've got 20 doing this, and much smaller books of business. What's happened now, as I kind of realized, as the UK has shrunk on the amount of insurers that are in this business and mga I think purely because it's been candidly they haven't made money. And the US has restructured as well, but you have had more carriers, Cincinnati, Volvo, etc. Coming into the coming into the market. So there's, there's been a bit of a kind of a change in whose writing business the, the, the premiums tend to be, I mean, globally, obviously, they're very high at the top end, but I think they in the UK, they probably historically been a bit lower would be my gut feeling. I think we're having a bit of correction. Now, you know, you had your hard market event yesterday, we've got exactly the same thing going on. And you know, I've been doing this for 25 years, I've never seen a market like this, you know, we look at our, our book. And there are obviously as a broker, there are great benefits to it. Of course, it provides you right to provide the right advice to your clients. But the insurers have to make money. And I know, there are many reasons why they haven't been. And that's the first time I think, coming through into into our market in the UK. And you're seeing a lot of mgas, particularly some insurance pulling out of this sector. Great opportunity, of course, but it's it's a challenging place to be as a broker.

Kurt Thoennessen: 13:57

Yep. Well, I think it's really impactful for you to say that you have never seen this type of market before. Because that was a common theme at the event last night as well. Right. And for all of us, as brokers, clients, advisors, carriers to recognize that this is not just a US issue, this is this is all over the place. And none of us have dealt with it before just that I think it's really helpful.

Giles Greenfield: 14:25

I think the same issues as me it's reinsurance has gone up, you know, environmental disasters are going up and obviously they're, you know, more extreme in certain states, Florida, California, but in the UK, we're seeing you know, we never used to have named storms before that's now happened kind of in the last 10 years. And we have more on storms coming through. You know, the UK tends to drizzle more than anywhere else. Occasionally that does into heavy rain and we get the flooding and flash floods. So that is now seeping into the environmental changes seeping into rates increases and supply chain costs, post pandemic etc.

Kurt Thoennessen: 15:00

But it's very interesting. You know, there are a lot of similarities. And as we're talking about this, I'm curious, what are the similarities in coverage and underwriting that you see between the UK and the US?

Giles Greenfield: 15:15

Quite a lot. I think that there is the one of the I mean, we may come on to it the probably now's a good time to talk about is the liability side, you know, if you think about your high net worth client in the US will have home contents, fine art, jewelry, auto, etcetera. And it's exactly the same in the UK with a few differences. And everything we covered worldwide all risk everything you expect a high net worth policy to be because a lot of insurance in the US and the same UK, the one aspect that is quite different, I think is liability, legal liability. You know, what, what the UK doesn't have is which, which, when I first heard about it, and kind of makes complete sense in the US, but umbrella liability policies that doesn't exist here in the UK. We're not as litigious I guess, it may go more that way. And I and those costs, I'm sure have gone into part of the reason why, you know, claims have gone up in the US and why insurers are having a tough time. We haven't seen that side quite as much in the UK, that may come in time, but we, you know, we have most high net worth points at a cap of 10 million. And, you know, Touchwood, it's quite rare. You see one of those that cover being tapped into. I'm sure, you know, it's different in the US.

Kurt Thoennessen: 16:34

Very different in the US. And, you know, when you talk about highly litigious areas, we have places called judicial hellholes, which are the most litigious areas of the country, the official official name. There, isn't it? I guess there's official name, yes. And so very litigious. We have nuclear verdicts, you know, that they're calling any verdict that is over 5 million or over 10 million. It's just, it's just an astronomical verdict for a liability situation. So that is very interesting. That liability isn't an issue in the UK. I wish it was that way here.

Giles Greenfield: 17:14

Yeah, I mean, we may be following suit over time. And you know, the world was going more generic in many ways. And the UK, you know, when Chubb came into the to the UK and really pushed the high net worth market here, we had an insurer called Hiscox, who had been doing it for a while, but Chuck came in and made a big splash and AIG as well, you know, so the American powerhouses are in the UK, but I'm sure when they look at the on different sides of the pond, they look at their claims, it will be less because of liability claims and more flood or subsidence or you know, those types of claims that we have.

Kurt Thoennessen: 17:49

Right. Yeah. And that kind of leads us right into my next question, which is, what are some of the most concerning coverage issues or issues that brokers face in the in the UK? And are they similar in the US?

Giles Greenfield: 18:05

We don't have hurricanes, or very rarely, we don't have tornadoes. We don't have earthquakes. There was one in Lincolnshire, which is a county north of London, about 15 years ago, you know, so we don't have that extreme, those extreme weather events. But I think the biggest one in common would be escape of water. That seems to be a big issue. And if you look at insurance books, where they are losing money, it's down to escape warm water. And that's, that's a common theme. And one of the other issues is, I know, there are preventative ways of dealing with that. But it always seems to clients understandably, don't think it's going to happen to them, they've got insurance. It's always post event when these things are put in place. And that's a problem. We have, we have a few other kind of weird and wonderful things that's going on in the UK, you know, kind of car fare for

Kurt Thoennessen: 18:59

it before you jump to that child. So you say escape of water. So that's basically non weather related. Yeah. So first type,

Giles Greenfield: 19:09

second home, not being looked at. Freeze comes here, this happened to here in the UK in the last week, it suddenly got very cold in the house on set pipe bursts, it isn't seen for a week and you got water pouring all the way through the house. And that is, you know, that's going to be an expensive claim. And that can be prevented as we talked about, but it's it's it's tends to be trying to educate clients to do that with any other cost that's unlikely to happen is difficult. Common.

Kurt Thoennessen: 19:40

What's it like dealing with that type of claim? Maybe you've seen this on? I mean, we call them like historical homes, like their homes that are on the historical register. But they're, you know, meaningful homes. They're important. They're large, they're antique. What's that like in the UK? If you have an escaping water yeah. It's

Giles Greenfield: 20:00

very similar. So we have a listing system in the UK is national national general masters English heritage. And a grade one star property would be Buckingham Palace, I guess it's an example. And then you have grade two star and grade two star or go to and then grade two star. And if a property is listed, depending on that grade English Heritage can be heavily involved and the cost can really ratchet up and then you have an issue with under insurance as well. So you know, there are there are claims here where you know, a list grade one listed mansion houses has had a flood and English Heritage was insist that the tiles are made in the Saxon same way as they were back in 1750. Nails recraft are the same way and the costs just become exorbitant. The other thing, which I guess you have the same problem is alternative accommodation. So when you know the clients lost their home, they're out of the house for, you know, a year potentially or six months, or maybe high net worth clients don't want to be put in some, you know, they used to a certain standard of living, and that certainly the rental costs in the UK are rocketing as well at the moment. So that's another cost that insurers are getting.

Kurt Thoennessen: 21:17

And in the in the US, oftentimes with the high net worth carriers, the loss of use coverage, or the Alternative Living coverage is unlimited. We have seen in certain states and certain areas that that coverage is being pared back in certain situations, right, is that coverage look like in the UK?

Giles Greenfield: 21:34

It's not unlimited. It tends to be up to three years, four years or five years, I think the max you get is five years. But you know, that's an awful long time to paying rent or whatever amount it is, you know, so, so very, I mean, I can't rebuild a house or repair a house in five years, there's a fundamental problem. But yeah, there is a cap on it.

Kurt Thoennessen: 21:56

And And last question on escape of water, because this is an important one for me, I deal with a lot of New York based clients and Connecticut, even New Jersey, even. We deal with this a lot. I talk about automatic water shutoff valves all the time. Yep. Do you have the same thing?

Giles Greenfield: 22:13

We do. And you know, it is something that insurers are trying to push to their client base, they really are. But it's I don't know how you're finding occur when you when you're, when you're trying to get clients to install these things. There'll be a reduction on premium or whatever it is, but you know, I need an alarm, I need this, I need that, you know, my flip buy house, this is going to have my house. So it's a tough one. But I'm sure if you look across the board of the high net worth market, you know, if you took out escape of water claims through burst pipe or you know, overflowing baths, or whatever it is, that would take a big chunk out of it. So, you know, I think in a hot market, I'm sure you had this conversation yesterday in the New York chapter. You know, prevention is key to try and advise clients on how to mitigate. And but yeah, that's the other thing we have, I guess here we certainly in London, there are a lot of basements. And we get flash flooding occasionally. You know, it's a bit like New York, it's a lot of concrete around, there's nowhere for the water to run when it rains, and often they go down into basements. And those can be big claims as well.

Kurt Thoennessen: 23:16

That's interesting. Yeah. And you're right. Yesterday, they did mention this, and Steve poops is the king of preparing and preventing. For loss. He mentioned this as well, and so important to do that. And yes, we have. I have a difficult time sometimes with clients getting them to put it in. Yeah, but if I keep saying it over and over again, sometimes they they do it. Well,

Giles Greenfield: 23:38

your advice on you. You're offering this advice, and that's

Kurt Thoennessen: 23:43

But you mentioned this flood, flash floods. And can you tell us a little bit about the flood market in the UK?

Giles Greenfield: 23:51

Yeah. So we have a thing called Flood Re here, which is where the government provide basically insurance for a set price. And insurance can often lead to to flood rain. I think you have something very similar in the US. And that's been introduced over the last 10 years. I guess the issue? Certainly here is floodplains. People properties are still being built in floodplains. And every year, just you know, there's already been a flood. I think, last year, this year, it's getting worse and worse. And there's no real solution to this. So the government stepped in. And a lot of the insurers are seeding to Flood Re. So there's least cover for the client, but it can be a bit more restrictive, obviously, they would be honest. And then how's the policy? So I think that's quite similar to the US and

Kurt Thoennessen: 24:44

other limits. Like in the US, we have the National Flood Insurance Program. We have some private mortgage options as well. But the NFIP, the limit is 250 for the dwelling 100 For contents.

Giles Greenfield: 24:55

I really I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure exactly what the limits are on it, to be honest with you, but I It won't be as wide as I think it'd be wider than that. But but not as, but it's not to say, you know, 10 million pound house or coming in$2 houses, you know, it's, it doesn't always, it's not always adequate insurance. Sorry, I say the insurers also are, they are offering terms now for a lot of properties without flood cover. And that never happened before. But that's now seeping into. So this goes back to the environment changing Simple as that we're seeing we're seeing it actually come through now.

Kurt Thoennessen: 25:33

And this guy goes to your point of under insurance and how big a problem that is. And it's a problem in the US as well. Quick question on that? How do you determine replacement costs for you know, the listed homes or just any home in the UK?

Giles Greenfield: 25:48

So so it's, essentially you talk to a client and they say, I bought a home for 5 million pounds, which is what six and a half million dollars? And then obviously, they work out? How are they going to insure that property and obviously, we advise them, you don't insure it the market market price because a property in North of England, or Scotland or somewhere that has a market value of six and a half million pounds, the will be very difficult to rebuild, and the property in London and a property in London, can actually rebuild could cost 3 million pounds, you know, the bulk of the cost is actually in the land itself. Whereas if you're in a rural part of the country, a six and a half million pound rebuilding, purchase price can be a very, very large home. So it's all about the rebuilding costs, which will be exactly the same as you and clients, we try and get clients to have appraisals where the where the property value, the property cost is calculated. They're going up dramatically, certainly post COVID. They're going up because of you know, I've talked about this before restricted supply chains, cost of labor has gone up. And so they're increasing and index linking is certainly when inflation has gone up quite rapidly in the last certainly 18 months dropping a bit now. But underinsurance almost by default happens because, you know, if you had a property insured five years ago and got it appraised five years ago, those same materials are going to cost a lot more now. And if index linking hasn't been put in place correctly, there's going to be an under insurance issue there. So yeah, again, getting a rebuilding appraisal done with you know, someone comes in and calculates the rebuilding cost is the way to go.

Kurt Thoennessen: 27:26

I wanted to go back real quick to the hard market. And you said the UK is experiencing a hard market, as is the US. But in our previous conversations, you've talked about how capacity is shrinking in the UK. And there's less options for the UK brokers, can you talk a little bit about that and, and maybe intermingle because you also have an mga if you weren't sure on that as well. So

Giles Greenfield: 27:52

we run a high net worth mga and we've got about 120 Odd brokers that we trade with in the UK place business into us. We try and be very conservative, I guess in the business we write. And we've always tried to do that historically to make the capacity providers money. Frustrating probably for some of our brokers. But the bottom line is we're still you know, Touchwood, making money for our, for our insurers, and therefore we're still going forward in the right direction. But I think one of the issues as a private business, we had never had an external debt. So we had no pressure from shareholders, saying you got to grow quickly. So we've kind of been the tortoise, not the hare, I guess, is the best way of putting it. But it's difficult to get capacity, it is difficult to get past it. Because, you know, you look at I think Deutsche Bank did a report about the PNC market, and now it's running at 120%. You know, it's insurance thinking why? Why do you want to use? Why do you want to write business in that class of that class of business, when we can go into cyber or or whatever it may be it made more money there. So it's becoming a hard place to find insurance to write. And we have a thing in the UK called The high point review, which is a list of the high net worth insurers and nga in the UK. And I looked at it from two I think that shows you its current list different 2021. And out of the 12 ensures that there are more that are the 12 there on that list. I think five are no longer trading through they're pulled out of the market or for other reasons. So we're seeing a shrinkage. And certainly from our mga perspective, we're seeing a lot more quotes coming in, which makes service difficult. So it's, I think the best way of looking at it is it's a pricing correction in the UK, you know, that's what's happening in our market. It's been under priced for a long time for the level of cover that's there, and now it's going back and it's hurting mgas insurers and making it difficult for the brokers. Sounds as though it's very simple for you as well.

Kurt Thoennessen: 29:52

Yes, it is very similar in the US. And, you know, over the last seven or so years, the carriers have changed hands. They have maybe gone out in market, but we don't have many. And so there are not a lot of markets to go to these days. We would love more. So if you're anybody listening that can bring some capacity please do. And so in your experience with the MGA because that's fascinating, it What, what are the things that you won't write because I know in the US, there are not necessarily uninsurable risks, but But certain risks that don't fit the appetite, or the guidelines of a high net worth carrier. And so So kind of

Giles Greenfield: 30:39

the I mean, the client that the example that people use, you know, turning up to an insurance say, I've got a perfect risk. It's a, it's a professional footballer who's 25 years old with loads of jewelry, he lives in a race, he's got a Range Rover that costs 200,000 pounds, and he's lives in effects batch house. It's just that's not insurable. You know, the batch catches on fire, the Range Rover gets stolen the jury, you know, you've got a young guy who is keen to show his wealth. So there are certain risks that are that are a bit of problematic. The the one thing which we're seeing here is on the claim side is thick that recently can't insure it. I mean, there's certainly certain cars are being stolen a lot with the new technology Range Rovers in the streets of London ever getting very difficult to insure as certain Ferraris as well, I'm sure there are a few other electric cars that are having problems, you just can't get insurance for them. There's an issue with watch theft, as well, that's happening quite a lot in certain cities, with the prices of watches going up, you know, that's, that's an issue. So I think provided the client has the right security and the right risk profile. The insurers are happy to write their business. But if it falls outside, underwriting is becoming more conservative, and that becomes more of a challenge.

Kurt Thoennessen: 32:00

Interesting, it's hard for me to imagine not being able to insure a Land Rover. And so what happens

Giles Greenfield: 32:07

Range Rover Range Rover,

Kurt Thoennessen: 32:09

so what happens if you can't get coverage as a client? Well,

Giles Greenfield: 32:16

there's in the press, funnily enough, there was an article in the press weekend, I think, the Sunday Times it was about someone who bought 100,000 pound range rover, and they just couldn't get insurance for it. So they had to sell it, you know, it's got that bad and they are being shipped out. That incorrect, oh, absolutely being broken down, shipped out of the country for parts. And, you know, it's a whole industry. But I think this is more than technology. And, you know, hackers have worked out how to hack it. And that's an issue, I guess, a Range Rover, they're delighted because more and more people are buying more Range Rovers. So it's a strange place to be in. But but you know, 10 years ago, that you could easily write that that type of business, you know, the, the, the risk profile of the client is, is, is key. And I think as long as they are aware, you know, having floating this floating amounts of jewelry in a bank vault, for example, as opposed to wearing it the whole time, they're kind of aware of what they're doing. And also, you know, one of the big issues is social media profiles as well, you know, people being on Facebook, or the bit families kind of as they hop on their private jet, and you know, their house is empty. And there have been numerous examples here of recently famous people in the UK who have been targeted, because they've been doing stuff online, and people know, they're probably in the country.

Kurt Thoennessen: 33:34

Yeah, that's a whole nother topic. Risks. Yeah, a lot of risk in putting out information out there. I just saw a new tool called pika. It's like an artificial intelligence tool, you know, because they have chat GPT. And they have cloud AI. This is one that came out like four days ago. And, and they have image creators, too. This is not an image creator, where you type in, you know, create a gingerbread house with, you know, animals. This is a movie creator. So you can type in your description, and it'll create a video. Whatever your description is, and I test I saw the test. It's on Twitter. Yeah. And it was incredible. So, I mean, it looks like fun, but also, you know, pretty scary when you think Chris Yeah, you can take all this, all this information, pictures, from wherever and throw it in here and then make a video. Yeah. So as we finish up the conversation, I had one one last question that I wanted to ask you for some final thoughts that you'd like to share. But Brexit was a big deal. A year or so ago, recently, and I wanted to ask, what kind of impact did that have on the UK insurance market?

Giles Greenfield: 34:50

I think maybe a naive but I think everyone's very surprised that it happened. Certainly in the insurance market, they were surprised I spotted a shock I didn't mean it's going to happen. The implications were we lost business. Because we had clients who we were insuring in Europe, in Germany and France. And it was more cost effective to that business go than it was to set up a license and set up an operation in Europe. So I think that the larger insurers and the larger brokers have, have dealt with it. And I've got licenses and have people on the ground in certain countries, so they can write business there. I think for the for the smaller independent brokers, they probably just said, you know, it's not worth the regulation, it's not worth that the higher to be how much business that we got, if it represents 10% of our income, or 5% of our income, is it worth actually writing business there? So I think a lot of the International brokers and insurers that were established that they had a contingency plan, you know, a lot had presences in Europe anyway. But for the smaller broker stroke agent, I think it had an impact person who went to affected by but I'm sure there are, you know, brokers loss business, and it's, you know, is personally I find it sad state of affairs that we got there. But these things happen, and who knows what the future holds? Yeah,

Kurt Thoennessen: 36:15

no, I agree. I mean, it's, it's so important to make doing business easier among states, like in the US and among countries, because the world is becoming a much smaller place in the US, the government is trying to get, or they already have the national producer licensing, where you can get one number, and I think that's still rolling out, because we still have to get individual licenses for each state. But the process is relatively simple. And it's, you know, there's a fee to do it, and you fill out an application, sometimes you have to get your fingerprints done. But it's relatively simple, but making things easier to do businesses. I

Giles Greenfield: 36:54

think the UK was probably hoping would be the 51st. State of the USA, after Brexit. That's what we were. We were banking on. And we were told back of a live workout. That didn't work out too well. Already was wouldn't be Last of Us. But there we go. We'll we'll we'll see how it turns out. But it's been it's been a bit it's been a burden for regulation across the financial services industry in the UK. Yeah.

Kurt Thoennessen: 37:19

No, thank you for sharing that. Well, this has been an amazing conversation, I have learned a tremendous amount. I know our audiences has really appreciated your knowledge. Giles, thank you so much for being here today.

Giles Greenfield: 37:32

It's a pleasure, Curt and nice to see you. And yeah, you know, look forward to coming to your side of the pond at some point to see catching up soon. Yes,

Kurt Thoennessen: 37:41

as do I, as do I. And if someone would like to get in touch with you, whether they're in the US or in the UK, whether it's about your MGA, whether it's about the UK chapter. What's the best way for someone to get get in touch?

Giles Greenfield: 37:57

Oh, my email, I guess, or mobile. So I will sell the differences in words. So yeah, by email, so mark, and if you go to Mark and private clients, look it up. All our details are on there.

Kurt Thoennessen: 38:10

Excellent. I'll put the link in the show notes as well. That's fine. It's going to Excellent. Well, thank you to everyone who is listening to this episode today. I am very appreciative of your time. Thank you again to Giles. This was an amazing conversation. Thanks, God. I look. You're welcome. And I look forward to chatting with everybody soon. And thanks again. Have a great day, everybody. Take care.