Ep 16 Inside the first syndicate in a box with Stuart Newcombe, active underwriter

Tuesday Mar 31, 2020

One of the most eye-catching parts of the Lloyd’s of London Blueprint reforms has been the Syndicate in a box initiative.

The idea of a fast-track, light-touch, low-cost, fast-fail Syndicate has gone down very well with the market.

This is because over the past two decades many players have bemoaned the steadily increasing cost of starting a new Lloyd’s business and have wondered where the next generation of new Hiscoxes, Kilns, Catlins and Beazleys might come from given that barriers to entry are now prohibitively high.

The received wisdom over that time has been that MGAs had become to the go-to place for entrepreneurial underwriters to  prove their mettle.

But while the Syndicate in a box initiative was well received as an idea, the only trouble was that many in the market were a little confused about what the new structures can and cannot do in practice.

And that is why I tracked down this episode’s guest.

As the active underwriter of the first and currently only Syndicate in a box, Stuart Newcombe of Munich Re innovation Syndicate 1840 is uniquely positioned to enlighten us all on this exciting new departure for the Lloyd’s community.

Stuart is an engaging and personable character with over thirty years experience in the market.

I really enjoyed chatting with him and exploding some of the myths around the new structures.

But what I liked more was hearing all about what the syndicate is up to.

This includes guarantee products for solar panels and energy saving schemes, ideas to insure the gig economy and autonomous vehicles, as well as lots of interesting angles on the use of parametric insurance to fill in the gaps left by traditional indemnity cover.

I think you’ll enjoy it too…