Diary of a Insurer: Aon’s Bethany Jackson

Monday

I joined Aon in 2018 on the graduate programme after spending four years at university studying natural sciences. As part of the graduate programme, I rotated around three teams before joining the North American Property team permanently in April 2020.

I start this week working from home to maximise sleep as I travelled back from Aon’s Property Symposium in Florida at the end of last week.

This event provided an opportunity to gather clients, underwriters, and brokers together across several days for mid-cycle or renewal discussions. The conference was really worthwhile, and it was great to see so many clients and colleagues in person but the jet lag hasn’t quite worn off by Monday morning.

I start off the morning catching up on emails and tasks from the week before. I see a couple of client and underwriter emails of thanks for a great series of meetings last week, which makes me feel like all the coordination was worthwhile.

I have received a couple of new submissions and so I start on the account set-up with help from one of the graduates in our team. I have a mid-month new account binding, so I work through some final terms and conditions points with markets and retail and begin preparing documentations.

Tuesday

The insurance programme for a new account is due to incept on Wednesday, so I have received the firm order overnight and review the schematic to see if there have been any recent capacity updates and to analyse the lines that the client wishes to bind in London.

I send out the final slips as quickly as possible to allow markets time to agree before the end of the day.

The rest of my day is spent chasing up markets to agree the slips and dealing with any final issues.

Once the contracts are agreed I confirm the signed lines and file the contracts in our systems. I then draft the cover confirmation email and send that out to the client team outlining the coverage and any differences from the original policy form.

Wednesday

I start the day in the office by completing some of the post-placement work of the bound account. I file the relevant documents in our electronic filing systems and prepare the account for invoicing.

Once this is complete, I spend the rest of the morning sending out emails to chase up terms from underwriters I spoke to at Lloyds and organising meetings to discuss upcoming accounts.

At lunch, I head out of the office with a colleague to meet an insurer for lunch to discuss some upcoming opportunities.

It turns out the insurer has some target accounts that they are looking to grow on, so I take this information back to the team and discuss with the relevant brokers when I get back.

In the afternoon I head into Lloyds to broker some of my upcoming accounts. I am able to see a couple of underwriters straightaway, but the other underwriter has a long queue. It’s not urgent so I’ll come back another day.

Thursday

I received a 1 April renewal in overnight, so I spend the first part of the morning reviewing the submission.

I save all the documents in our accounts folder and start undertaking the natural catastrophe exposure analysis to create my broking notes. I send the required compliance emails to the US broker to confirm receipt of the renewal and ask any remaining questions.

I also participate in the Aon NexCo committee, a group of high-potential colleagues who come together for educational and networking opportunities, and to help identify and drive key projects and initiatives.

I meet with the other NexCo members across the organisation to discuss upcoming projects such as the upcoming panel we are hosting in conjunction with the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Friday

As part of the NexCo I am involved in an innovation committee working on how to foster and promote innovation within our business.

I have a conference call to share ideas in the morning with representatives from across Aon and it creates some really interesting conversation.

This gives me a lot to think about and some new ideas to take back to my team. I have a couple of virtual calls with underwriters and get some terms via email, which I put up to retail before lunch.

After lunch I have a series of back-to-back virtual client presentations with incumbent underwriters. In each meeting the client offers an update on their business and risk management before we ask to hear a synopsis from underwriters about the market, their company and their expectations for the upcoming renewal.

At the end of these I am pretty tired from the week and ready to get the weekend started. I have one last call with my retail colleague to discuss the progression of an upcoming renewal and the London terms I sent earlier in the day. It is nice to catch up with them and hear about their experience of the conference we both attended last week.

Finally, I tie-up a couple of loose ends and head off for the weekend. A busy week but a productive one.