The pace of change will never be this slow again, said Mo Tooker, head of enterprise sales and distribution, global specialty, middle and large commercial, Hartford Financial, referencing the insurer’s new Risk Monitor Report.
Following is an edited transcript of the interview.
Q: Tell us a little bit about the report. How long have you been doing it, who the respondents are, things like that?
A: This is the first time we’ve put the report together, and it’s based on feedback from brokers and agents from across the country. We’ve been getting this feedback from our distribution partners that they’d like some more information about where the world is going and making sure that the insurance carriers have the solutions that they need for their customers.
Q: What are some of the key takeaways from the study?
A: I think there’s a lot on our agents’ and brokers’ minds, a lot on their customers’ minds, a lot on the geopolitical front, and especially with elections coming up, I think there’s a lot to think about there. Lots of concerns on the economy, a soft landing or not. That’s a secondary concern.
Certainly a lot of conversation we’re having with our agents and brokers about gaps in insurance, nat cat, extreme weather, cyber, artificial intelligence. It’s certainly lots of feedback that we’re getting from our agents and brokers about concerns they have for their customers.
Q: Were there any surprises to you, as far as the report was concerned?
A: No, we’ve been working on a lot of these themes. The economy’s the one that’s been changing around.
Obviously, for some time now, we’ve been thinking that we would be at risk of recession, so people’s minds keep changing on that one a little bit in terms of how the soft landing might or might not happen. That’s the one that’s been bouncing around for us, John, but the rest of these are fairly consistent.
Q: Now, you touched on it, but one of the sections takes up the topic of geopolitical themes to monitor. Does the presidential election in 2024 play into that?
A: Yeah, very much so. We’re watching that closely, especially as we start to think about some of the supply chain risks that our customers face. The election, potentially, whether that impacts China or Taiwan, or the war in Ukraine, or just relationships across the world, we think that’s a really important topic that we’ll continue to watch.
It does have implications for our customers, as you know, whether that be trade flows or how we think about capital flows into the construction market. We think the political environment will have a significant impact on most of those things.
Q: You mentioned implications for your customers. What are the key takeaways for insurance professionals here?
A: There’s many. The top one we’re thinking about is we’re really focused on the insurance gaps that our customers face today. That’s coverage for things like flood, cyber. Do customers have the right coverage for risks that they face as they take their business outside the U.S.? We call that multinational exposure.
We continue to struggle with just valuation on property, making sure that the insurance, the value is correct. There’s a lot there that we hope to partner with our agents and brokers to try and close those gaps for our customers.