Alexander Georgetti: Building a Career in Reinsurance | TRP #141

[Music] [Music] Hey there. Welcome to the Reinsurance Podcast, the place where we dive into all things reinsurance, the coolest part of insurance. We're your hosts Jared and Ben, a couple of ex-practitioners who love the industry so much we founded Super Seed to tackle some of its biggest headaches. And we're here to share our insights and stories with expert guests as we uncover what's really going on in the industry. Welcome back everybody to a special episode of the Reinsurance Podcast. We're doing a follow-up here to the group episode you've hopefully just heard of us speaking with a few people from the under 35's reinsurance committee. First up, we've got Xander Georgetti, who's here to tell us all about their experiences before becoming a part of the under 35s committee, since becoming a part of the under 35s committee, and a few wider things across the industry. So, welcome Zander. How are you today? Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It's um it's a real pleasure to be here, having uh watched and listened for so many years. So, yeah, really good. Thanks for having me. No, we appreciate it. I should probably say as well, you've benefited from my northern accent, either Xander or a Zander. It's funny because uh of some of my rugby mates are from the north. I'm a Zander. Yeah. And the southern one's a mazander. So I'm happy with with any. So the the American accent would be the Xander be the northern coach. Yeah. So we'll just say it. We'll get all varieties here. I'm happy with that. I'm easy. I'm easy. There we are. Icebreaker tackle. And we can dive into the under 35. So yeah, I'd love to hear the classic question where we start with, you know, how did you get into the industry? But if you can overlay a bit of that with what role the under 35s played during that would be brilliant because I know you had a slightly unconventional route in to the reinsurance part of the world. So I'd love to dive into that to start with. So um I was looking to do my chartered accountancy after university and I was looking at as people do the big four grad schemes audit firms and uh a friend of mine worked in in the insurance industry and he was like oh you know I think we we've got a finance team and I I think you know they they'd probably be keen to have like someone on. I was like okay do do you know what they do or anything? He was like yeah I think they kind of like pay salaries uh expenses and like obviously when we have claims they got to pay claims. I was like, "Okay, I'll check it out." And uh you know, six rounds of interviews and different things later on and I managed to obtain a position on the grad scheme as a finance grad. And it was awesome because it was a rotational grad scheme. So it was very much based in the finance department, but I got to do the comments in underwriting, claims, actuarial, uh marketing, things like this. And the main aim at the grad scheme was by the end of it they want you to understand from you know the start to the end how the company operates. And I always knew at that point I was like you know I'm really happy to work through and do my charters accountancy and and I was very fortunate I worked in a more um middle office more of like uh what they call it financial performance analysis FPNA like financial strategy stuff. So you work really closely with the business. So you get to understand that a little bit more. But I always knew there was that like itch and I said to myself internally I was like in 5 years time I I won't be an accountant and I'll kind of transition over. So COVID then hit and you take away the enjoyment of coming into the city, seeing people, working with people and and I was like, "Okay, well perhaps this is the time." And this is where the under 35s kind of came through because whilst being um at my company, I'd attend some of the under 35's events um whether that be talks in the library or the Christmas party and things like that and that helped kind of build out that network of people that I knew. Um, and that's when I started to speak to different people. I was like, "Okay, well, I think I'd like to move over into reinsurance broking." And that was the role that I kind of then transitioned over to. And I've been doing that for four years um, in credit and financial risk. Oh, amazing. You You must have a pretty unique insight into how the business works that a lot of brokers. I'm by no means saying I'm an expert. I am not saying that whatsoever. It was a very highlevel um, whistle stop tour. Mhm. It's an I think the industry does this incredibly well. Grad schemes that take you through these rotations or programs like consulting where you get a lens as to all the different component parts of the business. I think it's a really amazing and valuable thing that most companies in our space do and it's an immensely valuable because so often times as a grad you don't really know what you really love doing yet and that's okay cuz you're only 24 years old or whatever it is. Um, but it presents an opportunity for you to look at that array of opportunities across a business or the industry more broadly and go, I can learn a bunch of these things here, but I really want to scratch the niche and go do that at some point. Um, when you sort of when we were speaking before the before the show, you're talking about the role the under 35s and the relationships and network you built had in exploring, you know, the jobs you might get next. You talked a bit about how so often at a certain point in your career, you don't look for jobs being posted online. You talk about what you want to achieve and you go to your network and say, "I'm looking to make a move here." Walk us through a bit of the relationship building that the under 35s had in the early part of your career and how you sort of leaned into that as a way to sort of find that next step in your journey. Yeah. I know that's an interesting one actually because for me when I was looking to transition from sorry transition from the finance department into more sort of front office role I was pretty certain I wanted to do reinsurance broking but like honest answer was I I couldn't tell you like accurately why that was and I was still looking at underwriting as well. I was also pretty set on working in some kind of financial um lines type of business because that was my background. So I was like that's my kind of strong part. But through the under 35s I'd met people who were in a whole array of different um product lines and that was kind of the first step that I did. I was like, can you Okay, so like you're a reinsurance broker marine, you're a reinsurance broker in aviation, you're a underwriter in property, like just be honest with me like you know what does your day-to-day look like and you know all of this and and that really helped solidify how I went forward into my decision of doing it. But actually through coming to like select uh the line that I wanted to go into and who I was going to reach out to, it was just fortunate that like naturally you come across people that you have the same interest in sometimes. And it's really funny because when you build relationships with people, you never know when it starts, right? You you don't know that first time that like this is actually going to turn into something which is now going to run for many years. Like the first time um Ben and I met Well, yeah. Yeah. Was like cycle, right? And and you just you don't know who the person is. You don't know their background necessarily. It's an organic meet and you just go like, "Oh, they're quite nice." And you see them at another under 35s event like, "Oh, hey, how you doing?" Yeah. You go like, "Oh, their name." Yeah, that was Ben. Oh, yeah. And you just build that relationship a little bit more and a little bit more and then it it just kind of happens sometimes. So when when you're looking at it, you just go, "Yeah, that's a it's a nice fit." That is really exciting to hear. And also, and I completely share the same view from my own experience, getting drawn into that reinsurance crowd. I loved how you said, you know, early on you were able to start exploring what not not just what reinsurance was versus insurance roles, but what flavor of reinsurance you wanted based on all the different kind of lines of business within reinsurance. Do do you remember you might be a long time ago now when you first sort of found out that reinsurance was a thing and how that happened because clearly the the under 35's star shines very brightly and that helps people discover it. But do you remember when you were first like reinsurance? What's that like? Yeah. I mean I don't want to use a classic tagline that everyone use like how do you get into insurance reinsurance? I literally fell into it was through someone and I remember like a friend of mine was doing an internship whilst we're at uni and he was I'm in reinsurance. I was like what's reinsurance? He was like insurance of insurance basically. I was like, "Oh, yeah, of course." Like, um, but to your point of reinsurance, I like the holistic aggregation of things like more of that helicopter view of of bringing your wrist together and and you know, that's one of the main reasons why I love it bit. So, that's quite of a straightforward answer, but it's just interesting in that way. You can touch point like a much wider net. Um, and I just think that's really cool. And, you know, my background is more financy mathematical basis. So like aggregating risk in that way I always find it quite interesting. Yeah. When we talked about with the broader group we looked at sort of the ambitions and the direction of the under 35s and sort of where you want to go in future but do you see the the role of the under 35s being one to sort of draw people into reinsurance from like adjacent sectors? Obviously the sort of initial exposure everyone gets from our side is oh I'm working at AON as a grad or at you know Munich or Swissery or wherever. Um, and I'm sort of given insight to this group, which is interesting. But in the world, we've talked um before on the podcast around how social media is being used to attract talent to the industry. And do you see the under under 35s as a way to sort of present the sort of reinsurance category to someone who's maybe in finance right now or in insurance right now, has yet to see the light that reinsurance provides. Definitely. Um, I I think it's a great tool. It's it's a tricky one. It's probably our biggest challenge is the committee for under 35s in the sense of we want to do more. We want to go into schools into universities like target um you know target it from a social media perspective. Actually my first uh manager was Sam Ridgewell of empowered development and she was just like excellent. She probably gave me the bug. Yeah. Also a friend of the show. Yeah, like she she probably gave me the bug for this and I like this being like the under 35s and all of that and her Tik Tok like as part of like her team is incredible. I personally don't have Tik Tok or social media um but I've seen little bits that she's put on put on LinkedIn and I think that's so cool. Uh it's tricky I think to target um outside of the industry. But it's funny I think it was Sam who said in our first year she was like you know all these young kids and whatnot at school or uni or whatever they watch these movies like Wolf for Wall Street and they're like oh banking trading like that's cool. And she was like, "You know what we need to do? We need to build build like make a Hollywood insurance reinsurance movie and they'll flock into it." But like, you know, like how do we do that? Like seriously, how can we get a Hollywood movie on insurance and reinsurance? Like people are going to watch and be like, "Ah, that's cool." But like we all work in the industry, right? Whether it's insurance, reinsurance, um, whatever department within that. And we're like, "This is a cool industry." Like it is like there's no getting around it. Everyone thinks it might be boring, but it's not. It's incredible. The idea has made it onto a slide before. I won't tell you where, but yeah, I have seen it literally proposed before. So, you never know if it gets budget, maybe we'll be watching the next sort of mad men for insurance and reinsurance. Yeah. And and then um to answer the second part on people transitioning from their careers, I think there are a lot of people who do come through uh and maybe they start off in something like banking or asset management uh or other financial services companies often is like where I see the transition as part of uh the under 35s and they hear through a friend who perhaps works in insurance or reinsurance like oh wow like your job sounds quite interesting and you know you get to do some really cool things and they and they do three or four years like one of one of my best friends did it and he now will never ever look back. He is so happy was like I wish I'd done this from the beginning and I think that's so cool and you don't have to be in your early 20s or mid20s. There's someone who I know who moved over in their 40s and have been doing it for a few years and they're like wow like this is awesome. I wish you didn't regret the start of their career but completely a close friend of ours started his career making films um and was an economist by trade but now works in retro and is but like that that journey it's one he's like loves what he does but and doesn't again doesn't regret the early part of his career but he's like it was a very different sort of space to be in but that's okay right you if you've got the the sort of capacity and the way you think about the world aligns with this industry it can work really really seamlessly my biggest to anyone. It doesn't matter what age you are. And I I do gush about this because I really do care is it doesn't matter what your background or your interests are. There is a role for you in in uh reinsurance and insurance. You know, if you're interested in art, that could be amazing. If you know, I'm not going to list through everything, but like whatever your background, there is a role. And it doesn't have to be an underwriting or broking. There are so many different departments in this industry where you would be excellent and I think that is something which we all need to push. You know recruitment is everyone's job. It's not just the big companies or the smaller ones that go like oh look look how interesting it is. It's on all of us to talk about our roles, the industry, and like push that on because I I really truly believe that that's quite a a strong point because we talk a lot about the challenge our industry faces with getting talent in. I think you you that's the direct the the correct direction of travel there is it's an industry sort of challenge and I think these types of programs and presenting our industry in that light which feels interesting and compelling and intriguing to outsiders is a really powerful way for them to go hang on a second I want to double click on this and then you have you know forums or groups like the under35s have become an accessible entry point to say I can actually ask a mate about this thing or go explore it a bit further. And just like that, you sort of catch the bug and you become deeply fascinated by where this can take you and and off you go. But I think there must be as well and your your education and learning role probably comes in quite handy here. But it's not just a come and find out about reinsurance and you're great for a job here, but actually come and find out about reinsurance and see that from the moment you get here you're going to get support that continues through your career. I think you know that's fantastic when you look at you know your back to basics lectures that sort of thing. you know, there's there's not just this promise that you'll be plopped into a a role that that suits your interests, but actually rather you're going to avoid the imposter syndrome as well because the industry is actually going to teach you and make sure you know what you need to know. So, yeah. How have you found that in your career as well that you found? Uh I mean through the under 35s you've obviously you got different pillars and I work in the training education side and we're a team of four and we put on a load of different um events throughout the year. Some of them are free to attend and so like the lectures in the Lloyd library. We have had such demand in the last couple years that we're now running a spring lecture series of three or four lectures and an autumn one and they're free to attend in the Lloyd's library and we're selling out like the whole when I say sell you know we have to allocate tickets to people because of the breaks and stuff and yeah 150 people down and we did uh one in spring last year which was on different product classes which was really interesting and then completely switched it and did the autumn one on technical basis. So we did actuarial pricing and modeling um investments and finance uh and all of these events were so well attended because people go like okay I do want to learn a little bit more about that and that's really nice and then some of the bigger ones which go back for under 35 so 50 years old I think it'sif will be 54 um years old this year I believe um the underwriting seminar which is an offsite two-day course uh and You on the first day you do technical pricing and you learn about all the different techniques and then you get put into smaller groups and you get given different case studies and you have to kind of price it yourself. You know, it's it's like actually tough. It's like I think some people go like, "Oh yeah, that'd be relatively straightforward or they don't want to make us work too hard." It's like, "No, no, this is like a fullon two days." And people love it. Uh and then the other one which is we're really really proud of, we started it in the autumn last year which was an evolution of the mentor scheme that had been running for the last couple years is called the professional development scheme. So it's a six-month program where we have 20 delegates this year. Nice. who are one to two years into their careers and you get paired up with a mentor based on things that you kind of like to know and then every month six weeks we've got different softsklls training courses. So whether that's uh one on negotiating, one on presentation skills, one on networking and etiquette and then at the end you get put into smaller groups and we're going to decide some sort of small topics and allow those. But the big cell of the professional development scheme is that you're new into your career and you need to have that ability to meet people, but sometimes it's quite tricky to like throw the net really really wide. And obviously the under 35s facilitates that, but this is somewhere where we're like, guys, you're a cohort who in 20 40 years time potentially will still know one another. Like this is like really buy in to these relationships that you're going to build. Yeah. Um and and it's great. Yeah. I think it's it's one reflects when people get into our industry, they don't leave very frequently. They're here for life. And and especially those who are so engaged that they want to put their hand up, they want to be involved with those types of programs and initiatives. You're completely right. the number of those individuals who'd know each other, work together very early in their career, and then just by chance or by by work um and effort, you know, 20 years later, they're like running companies and working alongside like mega mergers and all these things with those relationships established is is quite impressive and unique. Um you mentioned there's 20 sort of people in the cohort right now. for listeners who are sort of early in their careers and looking at the under 35s as a as a vehicle by which they grow and and build their careers, how should they find and put their hand up to be part of these programs? How do they go about applying? What does that process look like? Yeah. So, I mean, the first thing to say is that it's a it's free to be a member of the under 35s. You go on to the under 35's website, sign up via email, and then you'll receive all of our um newsletters and different things that they come through. And often so for the professional development scheme uh we sent out an email detailing the sort of parameters of the background of like people that um in terms of the amount of years in and then it was a it was sort of a sounds boring say like a form fill but it was very much articulating how and why um you'd like to be involved and obviously we put across like what the benefits are going to be for those and it's really tough going through like when when you know when I say it's not a Oh, we know that person. They're quite good. Like we we anonymize it basically and we go through and we're like, "Yeah, I think that's a really good fit for that person." And and we try and have a really um equal split of, you know, different product um different uh department. So, it's not just half underwriting, half broking, and then it's not going to be like, "All right, all the big brokers get some all the big underwriters." It's trying to diversify as much as possible so you get a real different background and mindset of of people and skill set into there. Um, and for the other events, you know, for the lectures or, you know, we we threw an insure tech evening which you guys coated which was awesome. We do lots of other events like that and you know, as soon as that email comes out, you got to sign up quick because these tickets they go they go fast. Um, and it's a lovely way like, you know, people always go, "Oh, I I don't know. I don't really have anyone to go with." Like, you know, don't be afraid to come. People are so welcoming at these events. And I mean that like people want to see other people come down. And if you're not feeling confident enough to do it, like, you know, grab your mate because it's always a lot easier if you do it in a pair and you'll be like, "Okay, well, if we go together, then it's a lot easier to go up to another pair and talk to them." And and naturally, you will see the same people again and again at at different events. And that's lovely. Yeah. Well, it's also easy now. They can they can walk into event, they've seen your face on our YouTube channel and all these things now. So, they can just walk up to you and be like, "Zander, hey, I saw your podcast." And as as you sort of started off with icebreaker done and they're they're in learning and talking into the under 35. Do you know what that that's a really lovely point because for me I'm part of the under 35 committee because it gave me such a benefit when I was looking to transition careers. I just wanted to give back because I think a lot of people go like, "Oh, you know, a lot of these industry groups like they're just for people in front office roles." Like that is not true. Like whatever department you're in, please come along. Like it's just great. It's all about learning and meeting other people, whatever that that kind of looks like. And it's just, you know, it's just such a lovely way to to meet other people in in that sense. But yeah, to your point of people coming up to you, sometimes people will do that and I'm like, "What?" And it's the most humbling thing in the world. They'll go like, "Hey, you're the guy who you did that uh like, you know, lecture on the whatever in the library." Like, and I'm like, "Yeah." And and they're like, "Thanks so much. That was so interesting. Like, I'm going to look to come to some more and like bring my friends." And you were like, "Wow." Like, that is so lovely that people enjoyed it that much. Yeah, that they wanted to say that. Yeah, perfect. Well, Xander, I appreciate you spending some more time with us after the group session. Um, and for those listening, if you go to 35's event, say hi to Xander, say hi say on the podcast or heard him on the podcast. Um, but absolute delight, sir. Thank you. Thank you both so much. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. 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