How Brokers Prove Work with a Client Workspace | TRP #168

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 loved the industry so much we founded Superseed 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 to the reinsurance podcast where this time reinsurance brokers, we're talking to you. Center stage. Indeed. I've got one right in front of me here. >> [laughter] >> It's been ages since I've been under the spotlight. >> Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm I was trying to think of a good way to to lead into this one and what came to mind funnily enough was a a Simpsons quote I from the Monorail episode. One of the classics. I was happy you got a chance. >> [laughter] >> Monorail. Monorail. Um but there's there's a character in that and my memory is slightly too hazy to remember which Star Trek alumni I it is who appears in that episode and at some point says at the end, "My work here is done." And Homer's like, "But you didn't do anything." >> [laughter] >> And that's got that's kind of the setting here for this episode which is that I brokers do a huge amount of work in actual fact. >> Yeah, yeah. You know this. Or at least you've told me this. Yeah, yeah. But that's that's the dynamic, right? >> That's the ruse, you see. >> [laughter] >> It's it's really hard to evidence Yeah. what brokers actually do. So clients go and they're like, "Which broker should you choose?" And it's like, "Well, there's one broker that sponsors a big football team and there's another broker that's Yeah. got loads of clients like me. Yeah. I and then there's all these challenger brokers who say they're going to do it better than the others, but as a client, you don't really get to see what a broker does, so that makes it very hard to choose which one you should go for. >> Yeah. What and what you have is just and rightfully so, a reliance on just the outcomes. Like um and you build this trust that says, well, we went to RFP and broker A said they'd get us this result and broker B said they'd get us this result. We chose one and we look back and say, did they in fact deliver on that promise? Um if it's yes, it's due to our excellence. If it's no, there'll be some economic market shifting thing that challenged us more than we anticipated. And but but you're right, all the while there's this like lack of true insight into like the work that's being done. Um a while ago and we've talked about this a lot, I think the the value the brokers bring to the market is very much in this like consultative, like deeply collaborative role. But if you think about and we we both have consulting backgrounds as well, but if you think about a consulting project, the most important thing is like the outcome that we get. Did this project that we procured give us a a road map or guidance to deliver that? And when when we go into that client meeting at the end, you say, you know, here's the five pages executive summary that's going to tell you everything we think you should do, client. But with that comes 200 pages of the work that we as consultants had put together to justify the two, three, four, five pages of the summary that gives you the indication. I think what reinsurance brokers have often lacked is that stack of work. You say, oh, here's the the one in 500 PML or here's the the curve or here's the output of the cat models and things and it kind of goes, "Great." Like totally ignoring just the volume of effort that has been happening in that process. And then which means that it becomes purely outcome-based. Which again, outcomes do matter, but it the outcome has to sort of be built off the back of here's all the work we've been doing in the assessments and judgment calls we've made and and things we've corrected and work that we've done that to get to these decisions and evidencing the sort of showing your work element. And I think that's the really important thing to to get right. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's why we wanted to do this episode actually. Just to shine a bit of light on how brokers are thinking at the moment, especially when it comes to technology. Cuz I think we've had other conversations, you know, with with other suppliers, with other characters from around the market where it's like how does how does technology fit with this business that likes doing things in an old-school way, that likes, you know, it's very traditional approach to to getting deals done and that doesn't have a great deal of I you know, obvious use cases for all this AI that's flying around and so on and so forth. Um the answer we're hearing back from brokers time and time again is they want a way to make visible the really hard work that they're doing so that clients value them and understand what they do. I think they're fed up of being the butt of the joke of like, "But you didn't do anything." You know, which comes back to them. The client has this impression that if the client went direct, they'd get pretty much the same result and the value comes from just reinsurers wanting to work with their brand and that the brokers just taken their information, stuck their logo on it and gone to market and had a few beers and and done the same deal as last year. But in reality, you know, there's huge amounts of transformation happening to everything that's given to by to them by those clients. Yeah. I think there's a a genuine This isn't to say the brokers aren't pushing and leveraging modern technology. They obviously they obviously are and they're working towards deploying strategies internally to to do that. But I think it's one of the reticence of in the sort of black box AI world where if if a seed believes, even if it's not probably not true, believes that they can hand this thing to the broker and the broker just chucks it into an AI wizard that outcomes the end result. That the client would be like, "Well, okay, that how much is that little like 30-second black box thing worth to me?" And it's surely not the price we're paying you for all of the management of our reinsurance. So, I think there's a reticence of you working with technology that feels more like value-destroying versus like, "Oh, machine says X for my client." And and I think this is why brokers are leaning so heavily into certainly tools that make their jobs easier and accelerate the work that they're doing, but ones where it's like, "Here is the work that we did. We did this and then I got us here and then we took that. We went and did this and therefore like that that process, that journey is super super important." >> And and I think this is something that happens at the nexus between the client and the broker as well, right? Because it's not just showing that you've done the work, but also showing how and why and being able to evidence at each step of the rationale, the the assumptions, you know, that have been involved in that decision-making process, really bringing out I why we did things the way we did things because in a black box version, as you said, you lose the explainability factor. Nobody can explain to the client on one hand why, you know, you think this structure is the best or why you want to present their information in a certain way or why you've created this exhibit to try and pitch that client. If if there's no way to explain that, then not only can you not explain it to the client, you can't explain it to the reinsurers either. Yeah. I and I've had this experience actually first hand I at Supersede where we've been approached I by reinsurers in the past who've said to us, "Oh, can you can you have a a chat with or try and work with client X because we get really strange data from them. And we actually get some data from the broker and some data from them and they don't match up. >> Mhm. And they don't talk and and so we we actually did a bunch of work with the client and with their broker to try and figure out what was going on, what was getting lost in translation. And it turned out that exactly that, the client was was handing over lots of information to the broker, the broker was then doing a lot of stuff in a quite black box way that they couldn't really explain Mhm. to the client. And then the broker was going to the reinsurers with that information and were unable to explain what had happened to get from, you know, the client original information to that Yeah. broker enhanced information. And that actually created more doubt, more confusion and was as as the reinsurer openly told us, increasing the price that they were having to charge Yeah. because they were like, "There we were we've got so much uncertainty now because we're getting two stories that conflict. We don't know which one's the right one. We have to assume it's the worst one." Yeah. And in general we're we're just like uncomfortable about doing a big share of this client that hasn't got their their house in order. So, I think you have to be also careful Yeah. >> as a broker as well to make sure you can explain you know, why you're putting things together the way you have. Yeah. Well, and we've buried the lead a a bit here cuz what we're doing now is we're launching a specific product called client workspace, which is designed to be this place where the broker and the seed do this work like together and collaboratively. Cuz one, it brings that work like into a singular place. So that like that deep like collaboration alignment happens where one, the client can see like where it's at. The other thing that happens a lot is here's the data dump. The next week you're like, "How's it coming?" It's like, "Working on it." Or and then one day it's done. And however long or short that might be, it's either it's either done turned around really quickly. Like that could be cuz it was the most important thing, because it was easy like cuz you have fancy tools, but there's no view as to the magnitude of the work and or what where it's at along the way. Um but two, you have it where not only is it sort of worked on in in sort of finalized and done together, then you have this sort of data that's done in such a way that as the process progresses from there, the data is always there and correct and workable and malleable to whatever's needed. So it gives you that sort of like default confidence that you that you hit on. Um going back to the consultant consulting analogy, um we'd done some projects together in the past where instead of presenting a singular like PowerPoint that says, "Here's the five things you should action." The output of it was like a a workbench or a tool by which the client could have more questions. And if they had these questions, they could apply these different filters and the the sort of tool we had built them would generate like new charts or new points and views of data that would allow them to go, "Oh, okay. I can What if if I want to make adjust this thing?" And it becomes like this kind of powerful data leverage tool. I think this is also what is like in this experience is this idea that once the data gets in order and you put it into the space, you can do all sorts of things downstream with it knowing that, no matter what you like data is done cuz you did that piece first. So, it's these steps along the way that make it like infinitely more valuable than that like, oh, when the black box was finished and I got my report with these three piece of advice. The end, right? You need something that has that kind of like living ability for the data to when corrected and, you know, um sufficiently completed, be able to be something that goes to that chain and then in those conversations when other questions come up, I'm like, that's fine. Let's let's look at it from that lens then and and you're on that same page which again adds confidence all the way through. Yeah, I think I think you were right at the beginning of this conversation to to highlight that this is a very consultative uh conversation because as you illustrated there with that example, the the role of the broker is to help the client make better decisions at the end of the day. And the client can't do that unless it has all they unless they have all of the information they need. And so, being able to support that partnership and being able to equip the brokers with better information when it matters, so it's actually there, you know, when the clients need it to understand, you know, should we go with this structure that we used last year or should we change it? Should we divide up our portfolio in this way or in a different way? I should we accept the terms that have come through on this layer that we don't normally buy or not? Yeah. Those kind of decisions at the moment I think are too often being taken without that information, without that context, and kind of on a best efforts point of view and people only get chance to think about retrospectively, Mhm. did we make the right call? You know, our brokers swayed us one way, but we didn't know why. We didn't understand why the broker advised us to do that. What I think the brokers are trying to get to with technology is to understand and evidence this is why client you need to take this decision. This is why client we think you should go down this route. >> Yeah. Uh not just trust us we're big brand X. Yeah. All right, but now we're going to be able to show you every step of the way the consequences of going down each route and why one is better than the other. Well, and this is why the clients we have and the people we're speaking with are so excited about this because like it's exactly the thing that they've been bumping into, exactly the challenges they've been facing and and not just you know, with solutions like ours, but when they look at leveraging modern technology the constraints they've sort of bumped into of like well, we've built some of these tools in house. We've built this really powerful thing that we can use for clients. But we're not really seeing the clients aren't looking at going you guys are amazing. They're kind of going, okay, like that's helpful for you and and so when we go and speak to the brokers like this because we understand this journey. We understand those interactions. We've been in those conversations with cedents and reinsurers. Like we know what is happening and and in many ways the challenges of evidencing your value as a broker, right? Like making it where that value is like visible. Like here is what we have done and that's like it's almost tactile to what you can show. Like that is so so important when it comes into renewal conversations, when it comes into brokerage remake conversations. Like you have to have the receipts that say look at the work we've put in for you here. And and that becomes like central to what we're trying to achieve, what we're doing now and and why that output is is so engaging. Um and I think when you look at the various brokers like very few brokers in the world can just like brute force this stuff in the way that a couple can. And so it's how do we give this sort of ability to brokers who can't just throw, you know, 40 people at Yeah. a specific data set and say, "Off you go, crank this thing out." It's It's like the difference if you if you go to somebody in the street and you're like, "How do I get to this place?" Or you're like, "Well, where should I go, right?" If they just respond and they're like, "Oh, you should go this way." Or that way. And they just tell you what to do. Yeah. That's much less reassuring, much less powerful than them, you know, getting out a map or getting out their phone and showing to you. >> Mhm. "Oh, it's this way. Look, if you follow this road here, it's quicker than this other way. Yeah. And it's going to take you this long. And there's also this really great place right nearby you should check out whilst you're there." Yeah. That whole experience is is so much more trustworthy and so much more value adding when you can, you know, cement that around evidence that you can actually follow. Yeah. Well, and if you think about the world before phones and GPS, it'd be like, "If you see this, you've gone too far." You're Okay. There's this awareness of broader context that says, "Okay, I've been given all these directional points as well as additional things that say, if I see other things, I've I've made mistakes and I should retreat." Um and so, I think you're right. It's It's how do you add the additional level of confidence and comfort that the person like, "Okay, they know what they're talking about." cuz they introduce other elements to this story and to this a journey that they wouldn't have known if they if they weren't like experts in in what advice they're giving. And And I think the other funny part is as well, if you think about the timings that these decisions work on, I clients are working with lots of different brokers and they are doing lots of renewals at different times of year. And only every year, like once a year, really, do they go back and look at the decisions they made in the previous year. Mhm. And there isn't much of a record of why decisions were made. You know, it's like, "This is what we bought last year. Can you remember why we bought that last And it's Is that one of 20 different treaties maybe that they've bought in the previous year? And then I think we spoke to the broker about something about that reinsurer wanting something. And it all gets a bit muddled. I'm whereas I think what brokers want to be able to do is is to really catalog their engagement with the client in a way in a place that they and the client can see together, right? So you can say like, "Oh, what should we do about this year's property per risk?" And you go, "Well, let's open up you know, the view on Supercede's client workspace, for example, and see what did we do last year? We chose to go down this route. We explored these different options. The reinsurers didn't like this bit, so we tweaked it slightly. We got really good quotes from these markets, so we moved the lead." I'm And And being able to show all that rationale, suddenly like, "Got it as a client. This is why I love working with you, broker, because you You remind me why we did it this way last time, and you make it clear why we should do it a different way next time." I think you touched on something is really interesting there is this idea of tracking or at least having some line of sight to some of the decisions cuz sometimes those decisions are based on the conditions the conditions at the time. Like you might do that review and go, "Actually, those reservations that they had for the uh first approach probably don't apply now that the market has softened. They would that And you sort of get a better way to sort of surface those sorts of things." Um but it reminds of had a bit of PTSD when you're when you're >> [laughter] >> doing that one. Um But it's that it's that sort of opening up the workbook for a consulting project or a broking project and seeing a bunch of like hard-coded numbers. And I fully trust the work that I had done last year and the belief that that number in that cell is in fact accurate. But I do not know if you if you made me like recreated This goes back to the conference piece that you raised earlier and then someone goes, well, where did that come from? You're like, not entirely sure. But I'm very confident in it. But you have like no ability to say it was these two things which came from these sources and we applied this mathematical, you know, equation to it. Um and I think it's it's a version of that, right? It's being able to say, here's the numbers that we put together, here's the decisions we made and the exact sort of path by which we got there, you know, to a point of like Yeah. original data or something. And those are really important parts of that journey. I think I think that's the broker's biggest fear, isn't it? That one day, you know, bearing in mind they've got a ton of clients as well, one of their clients comes to them and says, we were looking over the spreadsheets from last year, right, that you did for us on that one placement. I I we found some numbers that we're not sure about. Immediate reaction from the broker is like, it's no way I'm I going to be able to remember or explain why we changed those numbers or created those numbers in that way last year. And they're like, suddenly you're on the spot. Suddenly you're stressing like, whoa. Even during renewal seasons, I remember there is these these parts where um I'd have in this like sheet that was keeping track of like all the responses are similar. Um like an authorization or a signing number or something. And all of a sudden someone like, wait, this one email I have says a different number than what's in your sheet. And I was like super diligent. And I'm sitting there going, that is that is in fact true. But I really back the thing I put it like and so now you're having this like moment of like you're digging through emails trying to be like, this has come from a place which is is just superseded the thing that he's showing me here, but like There was a reason for this. >> But you're like in this like deep and and there there are probably people listening who like have those like those moments. It doesn't like it's not they're not super super frequent, but god are they unpleasant when you have those cold sweat things and it's me able to go, "No, that that that this thing happened and then that's why we changed it." Like, Oh, yeah, you're right. Okay, great. There was a reason. There were assumptions made that caused us to make substantial changes to these numbers and to completely reforecast X Y Z. I wish I could explain to you [laughter] what they were. Um and that's the at a very high level, like that is the thing that we wanted to set out with with the broker specifically in mind is to say, we know that this happens. We know this happens between um the data prep and the data cleansing and the data manipulation that happens and we know this happens like during the management of the deals and everything else and we we want there to be a space that says, you can open this up for your seedent and you to go, "Hello, we're a team on this." And and make that thing something valuable and um the early feedback on it has been incredibly powerful. Sounds like uh we should watch this Supersede work space. >> [laughter] >> I think that's a a excellent ending point. Nicely done. Thanks all for listening. Thank you all. >> [music] >> Thanks for tuning in to the Reinsurance Podcast. If you enjoyed our show, don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to let us know how we're doing. Preferably five stars. For more insights and updates, follow us on LinkedIn and visit our website at supersede.com/podcast. You'll find the links in the show notes.