Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Thomas Buberl

Transcript

Thomas Buberl · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Thomas Bubel is a CEO of Accent, one of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: world's largest insurance companies. I recently had a chance to
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: sit down with him to talk about the risk facing
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: global insurance, particularly relating to war and climate change. Explain
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to people who aren't familiar with life insurance or health
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: insurance or any kind of insurance, what is the main business.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It's the underwrite, what the risk is, make a profit
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: presumably on the premiums you charge, and then take those
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: premiums and invest it and do well on the investment
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Yes?
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  Speaker 4: And plus we have to pay claims as well, So
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: we receive at the beginning of the year a premium,
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: we invest the premium, and then when the claim happened,
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: we have to then pay it out. And all of
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: that should be managed in a way that we protect
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: the number of people that we ensure and also make
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: a profit.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: So on the premium that you charge. The underwriting risk
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is very complicated. You have to assess what the risk
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is that somebody will live or die or get an illness,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: or a property will be damaged. Do you try to
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: make money on the underwriting or you try to break
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: even on that?
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: No, we have to make money on the underwriting because
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: obviously there's capital that needs to be put behind that business,
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: and also we have shareholders that want to return. So
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: what we basically look at we have a lot of
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: historic data that we can use to price a building
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: and then make sure that over the duration of a
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: contract we make sufficient money to remunerate our shareholders and
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: get remuneration.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: For the risk.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: What type of return do you try to get on
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: your investments? And do you have thousands of people to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: invest the money and who does the investing?
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: So what we do is we are not speculators. We
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: very much look at what are our liabilities, and so
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: we invest in terms of duration exactly in the same
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: way that we would expect the liabilities to come, and
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: we mostly hold our assets to maturity. And therefore it
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: really depends what the liability looks like. This determines the
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: return you need, and the longer the liability, the higher
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: the return.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Now, Warren Buffett famously bought some life insurance. So I
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: guess reinsurance companies years ago. You bought General Ree and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: he takes the premiums and he invested in and he
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: very good investor. Is that a model you use, which
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: is to go get really good investors that you give
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: money to and tell them to get a higher rate
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: of return than you would normally get if you're doing
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it yourself.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, we obviously need to split our assets
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: across many, many asset managers to make sure that we
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: have a high degree of diversification. We have a fullse
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: area of business which is the investment management. So we
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: have ACCE Investment Managers that has around seven hundred billion
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: of assets and we obviously invest a lot through them,
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: but we certainly also do a lot with external asset
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: managers to make sure that we play the market.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: But also optimized it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: So in an era when we have high inflation, high
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: interest rates, what kind of rate of return do you
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: need to get to kind of be comfortable. You need
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: to get a seven, eight, nine, ten percent rate of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: return or much higher than that to feel that you're
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: doing a good job investing the money that you have
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: from their premiums.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: So again it depends on the liability profile. We always
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: look what is the division of the liability relative.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: To how we need to invest.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: But it's obviously clear now that in an environment like this,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: we need to get much higher return than we used
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: to in a zero interest rate environment. And therefore the
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: insurer is a very slow moving investor. So we invest
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: around ten percent of our balance sheet every year, so
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: it is not that when market changes we immediately change
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: everything to change the return pattern.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So if I wanted to go in the insurance business myself,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: would you recommend that I go into life insurance, automobile insurance,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: health insurance, property.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: And casual Which is the best business to go on?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Of those four?
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  Speaker 4: I would say the property and casualty insurance for commercial
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: business and the health insurance. Why because those are two
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: business that are growing the most. On the property and
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: casualty for company, you've got all the new risks supply
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: chain risk, cyber risk, climate transition risk, and on the
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: health side the question a more longevity but higher healthth
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: cost and how can you help people to live a
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: better life. Those are the two areas I would recommend
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  Speaker 4: to you.
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  Speaker 1: The biggest risk in property and casualty is that now
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: climate change or climate are kind of things that are
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: changing the way that the Earth deals with weather and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: things like that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so absolutely, when you look at natural catestrophes, the
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: number of events has significantly increased, and not only the
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: very big events like hurricanes, but also what we call
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: secondary parrots, so wildfires, floodings, and drought. And this leads
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: to the fact that you have far more events and
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: therefore a much higher cost of all of the natural catestrophes.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: How do you really assess the risk of climate change,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: because how can you possibly know whether they're going to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: be a hurricane or a flood. It's just based on
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the past or the projection of the future. How do
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: you do that?
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  Speaker 4: So essentially we use data from the past, but as
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: you say, since the dynamic has changed, we need to
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: also look forward. And what we do a lot. We
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: work a lot with scientists who understand what the warming
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: of the earth and climate change will mean for the
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: question of taking risk. And secondly, we take much less
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: risk than we used to take because we have to
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: be careful.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: So let's suppose there are a lot of hurricanes. Is
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: that good for property and casualty insurance? Or not good
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: because people say, well, there's going to be more hurricanes,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I al should buy more insurance or not good because
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: you got to pay a lot of claims.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: It depends.
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  Speaker 4: I would say it's good because I mean a it
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: creates the awareness to do more prevention.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: What we see.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Today is that, as I said earlier, there is more events,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: it becomes more and more difficult to ensure, and therefore
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: we work a lot with our customers around preventions. And
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: so if you look at the large hurricanes, Hurricane Katrina
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: and Hurricane Irma, for example, they're about fifteen years apart,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: costs have actually come down over time despite inflation.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: So prevention does work.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Let's stop talk about another type of insurance, which is
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: life insurance. Are you better off if people live a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: long time so they don't claim their life insurance, or
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you're better off that they die sooner.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: It always depends.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: So dying sooner is mostly better because if people live longer,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: you have the longevity risk and you never know how
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: long people live, but that really depends country by country.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: We have certainly made the choice of being relatively cautious
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: around life insurance. We used to be eighty percent in
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: life insurance in our whole portfolio.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: We are now twenty percent in life insurance.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Because life insurance is very much financial risk, which is
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: not diversifying. And secondly, it is very much linked to
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: a high degree of regulation which makes the business very,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: very difficult.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about health insurance or third type of insurance.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of obesity going on in the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Western world, a lot of drug abuse in the Western world.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Do you take that into account when you sell health insurance?
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, obviously, I mean you have to give you a BMI,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: which is then the proxy around the question how it
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: bees are you or not? But even for example this area,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: we are at the beginning of quite a big revolution.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: If you look at all the new drugs like ozembic
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: and others, they could change the pattern of obesity significantly
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: going forward, which is actually an exciting journey to go on.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So the United States has a complicated healthcare program. I
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: don't know how it works in Europe, but is our
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: program the United States? Some call it Obamacare Affordable Care Act.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Is that program better or worse for health insurance than
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: whatever you have in Europe?
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  Speaker 4: Both have the same issue, which is a demographic issue.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: If you look, for example, in the US, I think
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: about ten to fifteen years ago, about twenty percent of
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: the federal budgets and fiscal budgets were related to welfare.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Today we are at thirty nine percent to the fact
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: that people are getting older. You see exactly the same
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: pattern in Europe, So the question around public or more
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: public type health system will come on the table and
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: new solutions will be needed.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Now, maybe unfairly, but insurance companies have a reputation for saying, well,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: we'll show you insurance, but when the claim comes they say, well,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: maybe it's not so as much damage as you claim
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and they take a long time to pay out. Is
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that a fair portrayal of the way some insurance companies
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: are and how do you deal with that image?
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  Speaker 4: So when I joined the insurance industry in two thousand
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: and five, this image was already there, and I would
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: say at the time it was also justified in a
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: to a certain degree because we were not enough engaged to.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Work really for the border society. We were still very bureaucratic.
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  Speaker 4: If you're fast forward now twenty almost twenty years forward,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: this is not the case anymore. We are extremely engaged
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: in society. Take the topic of climate change, take the
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: topic of on socially include and we have significantly changed
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: the whole customer service. So most of it today is
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: very digital and it's much easier both in the administration
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: and the claims management.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about your background for a moment. Where
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: are you from originally? Where were you born?
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  Speaker 3: I was born in Germany.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Where did you go to school?
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  Speaker 4: I went to school near Disseldof in Germany and did
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: all my childhood in Germany.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And you were a German speaker, I assume yes. Did
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you speak French as well? As a young I learned?
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  Speaker 4: I learned French in school. It was my third language.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: So I did Latin English and then French. And at
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: the time I didn't know how valuable it would be
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: that I learned French.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Now, in the United States, you often hear people saying
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I want my little boy to grow up to be
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: an investor. They wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: You never hear people saying, I want my little boy
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to grow up to be an insurance person. So how
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: did you grow up to be an insurance person? Your
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: parents tell you to be an insurance world.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: No, not at all when I studied. So after I
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: finished my studies, I wasn't really ready to decide in
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: which industry I went, and so I went into consulting
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: to prolong a little bit. The journey and test certain industries.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: And so during that consulting time I did amazing projects.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Somewhere in insurance.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: Other were in women's underwear, other were in IT distribution.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: So I saw very different sectors, and I really liked
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: the insurance sector at the time because I saw exactly
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: what you mentioned earlier, that there is an industry that
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: is deeply rooted in society because we are basically promoting
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: and ensuring social cohesion. Yet the industry was not recognized
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: for it. It was that question around a very bureaucratic industry,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: and at the time I wanted to make a difference
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: and wanted to go in there.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: So right before you joined the Action, you were working where.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I worked for Boston Consulting.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: Then went to winter To Insurance, which was bought by Access.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Second signature I had to give was the NDA of
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: the AXA deal. Then I went and ran Zoich Insurance
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: in Switzerland and then back to Accell to run Germany
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: for Exile.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: You've been the CEO since twenty sixteen and the stock
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: is up about sixty percent since that time.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I think it's a little more.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: I started more than sixty percent sixteen euros and today
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: it closed at thirty.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: One okay, and the market capitalization is up almost an
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: equivalent amount.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, we are about seventy one billion dollars.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Now, France is a wonderful country and they have a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: lot of great companies. Usually they're headed by people that
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: are born in France. So how did a German get
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to be the head of a French major company?
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: You have to ask my board of directors.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Now, essentially, I mean we the board ran a process.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: They first looked at extra candidates. They then looked at
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: internal candidates. We I think if a member correctly, were
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: seven internal candidates, and then over time the process took
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: three years, they eliminated and we were just at the
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: end of the day two left, one French person and me.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: And then the board looked at essentially three criteria which
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: was very much away from nationality. One was track record
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: within AXA, the other one was what is the value
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: set of the person? And the third one what is
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: the capacity of the person to reinvent him or herself.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So in many cases the large French companies, the largest
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: ones are run by French people, typically men who have
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: gone to the so called elit power schools. But you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: didn't go to one of those schools. So does that
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: mean you're an outsider a bit in the French business
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: establishment or you've been able to work your way in.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: I've been able to work my way in. But that
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: needed two things.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: One the curiosity of the French CEOs in me, but
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: also my ability to then fully dive into it. And
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: so what I did, for example, with my woundimentary French
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: knowledge that I had from school and studying, I only
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: spoke French the whole day to make sure that this
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: would work, and I integrated myself wherever I could. This
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: point around the university is actually a very good one,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: because in France you compare the very good schools with
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: less good schools. I was neutral because I came from
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: a university that nobody knew, so I wasn't placeable in
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: the hierarchy of universities.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: When you're conducting business in the actually headquarters, do you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: speak French or do you speak English or German?
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Or what I speak? No German.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: And obviously whenever there is a person in the room
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: that cannot speak French, we only speak English.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: But I still do.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: As many of my meetings as I can in French
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: if it's possible.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: And your business is a global business, what is the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: biggest place where you have the most people. Is that
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: France or Europe or United States?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: It's Europe.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: So essentially we have about twenty percent of the business
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: in France, forty percent of the business in Europe, twenty
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: percent in the US, and then twenty percent Asia.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And any interesting growing your business by making an acquisition
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: or doing something like that.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we have done quite a few acquisitions.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: As I said earlier, I started with eighty percent life
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: insurance and we are now at twenty percent life insurance,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: having kept the same revenue, which meant that we had
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: to do a.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Lot of transactions.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: For example, the company you mentioned earlier, Equitable, we ipo'd
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: in the US. We bought XXL in the US, so
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: we did transactions probably in the area of about thirty
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: billion Europe.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Now, as the CEO of a company does, do the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: insurance people come to you and say we have a
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: big risk here, we're going to underwrite or do they
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: leave you out of the underwriting business.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: It always depends on what size of us you talk.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: Normally they are doing their own business. So we have
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: a clear grid of competence for underwriting, and about ninety
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: nine percent of all risks is done in the entities,
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: and so it should be. But yeah, there are some
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: risks that come to me where I have to take it.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: So let's suppose I'm in business school and I say
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I want to go in the business world. Why would
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I want to go into the insurance world.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: So interestingly, we actually get quite a few young people
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: today in the business and when you ask them why
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: are they in the business, the number one reason they
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: always say is the purpose of insurance, because insurance companies
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: do protect individuals, but they also help society to develop,
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: and so that's the number one driver while people are there. Second,
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: we have a lot of people that have analytical background,
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: so people that love data, and obviously our industry is
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: data rich. With the revolution and wave of AI coming,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: we now have the ability to also analyze unstructured data,
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: which would broaden this much more. And so those are
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: the two areas why you have a lot of talent
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: actually coming in our industry.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: In the United States, people i'd say, well, you're a
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: really attractive business person, why don't you go in the government.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: You might be a cabinet officer, or something you have
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: any interest in that or in France you can't quite
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: do it that way.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: So obviously, in our job you have a lot of
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: links into politics because you know, when you touch sourcial
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: security systems, when you touch the question around natural catastrophes,
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: when you're the biggest instruer of satellites, then you always
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: have ties into government. And obviously part of my job
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: is also then to be in.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: That spare and help where I can.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: Does it entice me to switch over to a political
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: career The answer is no.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So today, do you have any aspirations to do something
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: beyond what you're doing. You're not going to go in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the government, you said, go into philanthropy at some point. No.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, I've been in my job for eight years.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: I have a lot of fun in the job, and
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: there is also still a lot to be done, so
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: I will continue on my journey. I will not be
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: seduced by politics. And when you think about philanthropy, we
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: do a lot of philanthropy also in Acceillentle for example,
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: go running for money that we then donate to charitable institutions.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: We do a lot as well on the art site
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: and helping artists and helping restoration of art in France
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: and otherwise, so you can do a lot while being
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: a company CEO.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk about the economy.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: The United States has a situation where we have reasonably
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: good growth in twenty twenty three over three percent.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Europe has not grown quite as well.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Why do you think the United States seems to be
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: pulling away from the European and Chinese economies in terms
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of our growth? Is it something about the American business
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: environment that the United States has recovered from COVID maybe
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: better than Europe did or China did so.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I think it's a couple efectors. Number one is fiscal stimulus.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: The fiscal stimulus in the US was much higher than
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: it was in Europe, and obviously fiscal stimulus leads to
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: more demand. Secondly, there is a lot of unshoring happening
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: or reshoring happening from somewhere else into the US, which
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: is obviously something that creates growth as well. And then
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: certainly when you look at your demography, this is much
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: healthier than what we have in Europe.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Recently, we've had high interest rates and high inflation. I
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: assume you've got through that reasonably well. But now we're
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: going to go into an era where interest rates are
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: probably going to come down and inflation seems to be
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: coming down. How are you going to reposition your company
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and deal with that different economic consequence.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: Obviously, these changes produce a high volatility of the economic environment,
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: and certainly we spoke earlier about the geopolitical environment. So
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: in a highly volatile and highly unpredictable environment, it is
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: important to take a strategy of low risk. And so
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: essentially what we have said, we have built now our
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: platform that is working very well. We are the biggest
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: insurance now of enterprises across the world.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: We are one of the biggest in Europe.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: We want to make sure that we scale up this
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: business more in the next phase.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Do you worry about Russia Ukraine as a potential insurance risk?
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, we worry a lot about these risks because
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: a these risks do create claims, and so the Russia
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: Ukraine situation did create a lot of claims on the
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: political risk side, on the marine side, on the aviation side,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: and so for us it's important to look out for
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: them and certainly are to see where the next crisis
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: come from, because even if the Ukraine Russia crisis was
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: to be resolved, I'm sure the next crisis coming. Look
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: at what is happening in the Red Sea now, which
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: again has massive implications around maritime transport work, cover for
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: maritime transport, supply.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Chain risk and so on.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: So I project myself in a world now in which
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: we see many many more of these crisis happening and
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: we need to deal with it.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: How has technology changed the insurance business and how do
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you expect AI will change the insurance business?
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: So I would say three phases.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: Number one, technology has changed our industry so in order
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: to handle large data sets, to do analysis, to also
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: simplify the customer service and also the customer expertise, so
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: that I would say is done. We now have AI
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: coming in where I said earlier, making sure that we
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: use the unstructured data that we have and a lot
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: of our data is unstructured, is really beneficiary to really
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: understand risk more. And then I think there is a
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: third element I mentioned earlier, the topic around prevention. This
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: is very much happening today through digital services. Example, when
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: we look at how to analyze the risk of a
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: property relative to climate risk, we use a lot of
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: satellite data. Or if we want to ensure a marine
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: transport and see where is the danger of theft and
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: damage the highest, we use satellite data. So all of
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: this has a technological component that would increase much more.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Now, you look like you're in pretty good shape. Are
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you an athlete? I mean you have to be if
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you're the head of insurance company. You can't be very overweight.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Doesn't look good, I assume, so you're underweight or you're
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: certainly trim. Do you run a lot or you exercise
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a lot?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: What do you do?
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: So?
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I do run every morning. I do five kilometers
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: every morning. And I'm a very passionate horse rider. And
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: in order for the horse to support you, you can't
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: have too many kilos.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But isn't that like dangerous because you're an insurance company CEO?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: The horse could stumble and you could fall, and the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: horse could fall on you. You ever had that problem?
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: I've fallen many times.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Were oversee a helmet and wear a vest like you know,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: the motorbicker vest. When you fall, it blows up, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: so far apart from a broken finger, nothing.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well that's another sport.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I probably won't be if I told your insurance people
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: that I was going to be doing horse jumping, they
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: wouldn't give me a life insurance.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Yes, they would if you do it. If you don't
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: do it professionally, they would.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: What's the greatest pleasure of running AX or running a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: large multinational, Like, what is the great fun of it?
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: So, first of all, it's great to work with so
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: many motivated people. Yes, you say it's difficult to get
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: good people, but we have good people and it's a
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: pleasure to work with them. Secondly, an insurer looks into
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: every industry, so from satellites to crocodile farms to travel insurance.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: So it's a very broad view, and certainly it is
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: really a place where.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: You can do good for society.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: So what I mentioned earlier around our approach on climate
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: change and investing in a different manner and underwriting in
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: a different manner, you can see the change you can
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: make on society.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So on the whole, the message you want to give
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: people is access the best insurance company that they should use,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and insurance is doing a useful thing for society.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Is that your exactly perfect summary, and.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: No regrets about not going into investment banking, private equity, government,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: you're happy with what you're doing.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I'm very happy with that I'm doing what I'm doing,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: and since I don't know what the other things are about,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: I will stay.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen.