Ep185 Paul Bantick, Global Head of Cyber Risk, Beazley: Providing for Cyber growth

Cyber is rightly never far from the news.

It’s a class of business that’s only 15 years old, but is already producing annual income in the billions of dollars for many insurers and reinsurers.

Today’s guest is Paul Bantick, Global Head of Cyber Risks at Beazley

Beazley’s gross cyber income was already well over a billion dollars in 2022 and is still growing strongly into this year on the back of seemingly insatiable demand, despite a near trebling of rate over the last three years.

And this is demand that is picking up globally well outside the core market of the US.

A lot of the cyber buck therefore stops with Beazley, and so what Paul has to say is really important for the future direction of the market.

And we’ve got a huge amount to talk about.

Cyber is at a crossroads. Rate has come off recently as underwriters have benefited from the pricing re-set of 2020 to 2022 and posted some very healthy combined ratios. The question now is whether we are going to descend into a difficult-to-comprehend downwards spiral like has happened in D&O or whether core discipline will hold.

At the same time Beazley and others have pushed to impose much greater clarity around cyber war coverage, something that has sent waves through the market.

In the meantime the work to get reinsurers and capital markets more comfortable with its view of systemic risk and supporting a cyber catastrophe market has continued in earnest with Beazley sponsoring a cyber cat bond – Cairney – at the beginning of 2023, a cover that it has since topped up twice with subsequent issuances.

We talk about all this and an awful lot more besides.

Happily Paul is really easy to talk to – and easy to follow.

So if you want a comprehensive update on the insurance world’s most exciting class of business from one of its best-known lead underwriters, listen on.

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