Back to the classroom

Hiscox London Market launches Hiscox Broker Academy.

On Tuesday 19 September, 16 brokers, selected from across the London Market – with their gold invitation tickets in hand – made their way to Hiscox’s St Helen’s London office to start the first session of the inaugural Hiscox Broker Academy.

Devised to help develop the student brokers’ industry knowledge from underwriting through to modelling and claims, as well as to facilitate networking between the brokers and Hiscox underwriters, the Hiscox Broker Academy will take place over the next three months and promises a packed timetable of events.

An introduction to underwriting

First up, we kicked off with ‘An Introduction to Underwriting’, which looked at the role of an underwriter, the journey of a risk, and a review of the underwriting calendar year from business planning through to evaluating the end of year profit and loss.

To follow, students of the Academy can look forward to six more sessions. ‘Aggregates and Catastrophe Modelling’ will talk through how we manage catastrophe exposure at Hiscox and the impact on the pricing of a risk, the pricing of reinsurance and capital allocation. Then it’s on to reinsurance where we will look at how we buy reinsurance at Hiscox, the different types we use and how this has changed over time. The brokers will then have the chance to receive a condensed version of the sales training that all Hiscox underwriters have been through.

The fourth session will look at the claims process at Hiscox and will be followed by reserving where the brokers will further their understanding of the role of an actuary at Hiscox, the key components of reserving and how to build a claims development curve. Finally, the fundamentals of pricing insurance and how this differs between classes of business will be presented during the pricing session.

Getting a ‘yes’ from the Hiscox Dragons’ Den

All the knowledge and skills the brokers acquire throughout the training sessions will be put to the test in the Hiscox Dragons’ Den at the end of the Academy. Working in groups, and with the assistance of a Hiscox underwriter, the brokers will be asked to present a risk to the Hiscox Dragons in the style of peer review – but will they be able to get a ‘yes’?

I’m a broker – get me out of here...

The good news for the hard working brokers at the Academy is that it’s not all work; we have several social events being run across the three months, including a ‘hostile environment’ day with security consultancy, Control Risks, taking place at their training ground in Shropshire. This will be a hands-on practical experience, where the brokers will learn the basics of personal security when travelling abroad, how to deal with common problems – such as ATM robbery and carjacking – and self-defence.

For future updates on the Hiscox Broker Academy, follow Hiscox on LinkedIn and Twitter.  


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