SUMMARY TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

TECH & INNOVATION PRACTICE GROUP 11 MARCH 2021 KINDLY SPONSORED BY: EXECUTIVE Perhaps the stand out quote from the March 2021 Technology and SUMMARY Innovation Leaders Practice Group meeting was “we made it happen”. A simple line, repeated a few times, which celebrates WHERE THERE’S A two universal successes of our industry in the face of the ‘WE’, THERE’S A pandemic: first, that companies have delivered, despite the WAY unprecedented circumstances, and second, it wouldn’t have happened without the ‘we’—the human element. Success and human endeavour were key themes that featured throughout our three excellent talks from Olly Venables and Dimitris Solankis of Charles Taylor InsureTech, Ben Laidlaw of Carbon Underwriting, and Ian Broughton of Oracle, who all told us how the last year has impacted their IT strategies or those of their clients, and what it means for the future—read on for more. CHARLES TAYLOR Our first talk from Olly and Dimitris focused on the race for INSURETECH Charles Taylor to be ready for remote working this time last year. Dimitris explained that, thanks to some quick thinking (not RACE TO BE READY to mention a couple of late nights), the company were able to manage the impact of the hard lockdown on their offshore service centres, with a switch to UK-based teams. With hardly any downtime and a desire to continue to fulfil their obligations to customers—not to mention the lottery of home broadband connections — Dimitris explained that the people were key, monitoring the situation as soon as operations went live in the UK and keeping in close contact with one another. While Microsoft Teams had some limitations in the “recording” department, the most important thing was being able to restore the functionality of keeping the phone lines open. Dimitris added that in the brief moments where he could reflect, he realised that the offshore partner was caught “off guard” by the pandemic and advised others to review their BCP preparations, if they had not already done so. LONDON MARKET FORUMS LEVEL 30, THE LEADENHALL BUILDING, 122 LEADENHALL STREET, CITY OF LONDON, EC3V 4AB. +44 (0) 203 551 9188 | [email protected] | WWW.LMFORUMS.COM

KINDLY SPONSORED BY: CARBON How do you launch a data driven syndicate during lockdown with UNDERWRITING a small team? Ben was on hand to give us some insight into the inner workings of Carbon Underwriting and his experiences of the STARTING OUT last year. While it’s not ideal to be kept away from your clients and colleagues, remote working did have some benefits, Ben explained. With the opportunities for face-to-face meetings during this lockdown period limited — they’ve managed just six in total — and they were able to utilise the extra time, in the absence of travel, with back-to-back zoom calls. Sometimes a bit of a grind, but handy when you’ve got lots to get through. With that in mind, he promoted the benefit of “protecting” time from the continuum of back to back meetings — whether that’s on one specific day or across lunchbreaks—to give members some headspace. Something we could all use a bit more of, no doubt. It’s not been all plain sailing though. Ben’s team is growing, and without face-to-face contact, it’s a little harder for new members to engage and absorb company culture and content. Regular team comms seems to be the answer until things start to open up again. POLLING SESSION In our polling session, we learned some of the biggest challenge YOU’RE NOT ALONE companies have faced in the shift to home working. Setting up home offices have naturally been an issue for some —a lack of kit, or bandwidth— in what was such a fast-moving situation. However, the greatest theme emerging in the polls was the impact on “people” and especially over the long term: mental health, support for junior staff, impact of one’s personal life from home working. Human problems that need human responses. Elsewhere, we learned many of our businesses have adapted well to the changes to working practices, demonstrating great resilience, while operations and transformation projects continue to be the big focus regarding capital investment going into 2021. LONDON MARKET FORUMS LEVEL 30, THE LEADENHALL BUILDING, 122 LEADENHALL STREET, CITY OF LONDON, EC3V 4AB. +44 (0) 203 551 9188 | [email protected] | WWW.LMFORUMS.COM

ORACLE KINDLY SPONSORED BY: NEEDS AND We wrapped our speaker sessions up with Ian from Oracle, who BEHAVIOURS guided us through an investigation into how human behaviour has changed since last March. Customer behaviour has shifted, he explained, because their needs have changed. We live in a time where people are more conscious of their safety and how they do all the things they took for granted pre-COVID, and there’s not going to be a ‘reset’ on that. Instead, we need to celebrate a shift in our own behaviour—in the way we’re ripping up rulebooks and innovating new solutions in a way we thought we couldn’t before. With trends like working remotely likely to remain in the post-pandemic world, the tech solutions developed to help us through the current period will need proper investment, moving forward, to maintain and build on them. To ensure the right areas are invested in—like automation of mundane tasks or leveraging The Cloud— companies should formalise the inclusion of “employees” as part of the ongoing processes of innovation. BREAKOUT SESSIONS After our popular Breakout Rooms concluded, where we openly AND CLOSING discussed our IT challenges over the last 12 months and our REMARKS plans for the coming year, our group reconvened to share some closing thoughts on what they’d heard during the event. Some described their good fortune in surviving a relatively stress-free transition at the start of lockdown, while others painted a picture of the future where face-to-face and online collaboration go hand in hand, enabling teams to choose the approach best suited for them. Our final remark was on the implementation of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning and a reminder that whatever fantastic new solution companies roll out, there will always be a need for a person to oversee its implementation. The human element lives on in our increasingly digital world. LONDON MARKET FORUMS LEVEL 30, THE LEADENHALL BUILDING, 122 LEADENHALL STREET, CITY OF LONDON, EC3V 4AB. +44 (0) 203 551 9188 | [email protected] | WWW.LMFORUMS.COM

KINDLY SPONSORED BY: THE NEXT If you know of other professionals responsible for Tech & MEETING WILL Innovation and working in the insurance sector, they are also TAKE PLACE ON eligible to be a Member of the Practice Group, which meets quarterly. 25th May 2021 Please feel free to share these notes and ask them to contact us today: [email protected] at 11.30am LMForums operates on a \"Not For Profit” for the benefit of the insurance Market, helping to bring professional together to share knowledge, network and collaborate. We are the most active hub of our type in the insurance market, with 50+ events a year, bringing together over 3500 professionals. www.lmforums.com ROGER OLDHAM MANAGING DIRECTOR LONDON MARKET FORUMS LEVEL 30, THE LEADENHALL BUILDING, 122 LEADENHALL STREET, CITY OF LONDON, EC3V 4AB. +44 (0) 203 551 9188 | [email protected] | WWW.LMFORUMS.COM