Diary of an Insurer: Hamilton’s Jacqui Spencer-Sim

Monday

The first task on any Monday morning for me is catching up on any emails that have come through over the weekend. 

My team works with a number of international brokers, so I normally dive into a pile of emails from partners from all over the world. 

Once I’ve cleared anything urgent, I dial into our Monday team meeting where we catch up on the weekend’s activities and what we have coming up this week. 

I lead a team of six underwriters and we work closely together, discussing individual risks and our business development strategy.

I have a meeting of the Lloyd’s Market Association’s Cyber Business Panel this afternoon, so spend some time preparing by looking through the agenda over a large mug of coffee. 

Top of the list is our continuing discussions on emerging parametric products and how they will impact claims payments.

Tuesday

I typically spend three days a week in our London office, and today is one of those days. Having completed the school run in record time, I make it to the office for 9am on the dot, coffee in hand. 

I meet with my team for one of our twice-weekly policy review meetings, where anyone can bring something that needs a second set of eyes, from an unusual client where out of the box underwriting is required, to an approval of a new facility.

Today, one of the underwriters has come up with a structure to insure a group of entities with an aggregate deductible and ability for individual entities to improve cover mid-term, should controls improve.

I head over to Lloyd’s after the call for a regular catch up with one of my main broker partners. 

Being able to discuss policies face to face with all of our brokers is what builds lasting broker insurer relationships and makes Lloyd’s truly unique, and what makes having time in the office so worthwhile for the team and me.

Over lunch I check the news headlines, ensuring that I stay plugged into any emerging issues that could affect my clients or our policy wordings, and anything that the team might need to feed back to our executive team.

Wednesday

Today is quite meeting-light, so I make some good progress on my to-do list, and finish writing up notes from a cyber day last week, where we used the global CrowdStrike outage to explain the insurance implications of a cyber event to a group of recent graduates.

In need of refreshments and a break from my screens, I meet one of my mentees – a junior member of staff at Hamilton – in the Lloyd’s coffee house. 

We discuss an upcoming ‘cyber whodunnit’ event I’m currently planning, and I pick her brains for an interesting case to use for inspiration.

Thursday

Making up for an unusually quiet Wednesday, the universe rights itself with a back-to-back morning of policy review meetings that leaves me in dire need of a restorative lunch. 

The leftover pasta that I brought in this morning no longer appeals, so I pick up a salmon poke bowl from my favourite food place as a treat to get me through my afternoon.

Waiting for me in the office is the weekly report on exposures from our legal partners, which I spend the next hour running through with the team. 

This is a key part of our week that helps us to stay on top of emerging threats to our clients and informs updates to our risk modelling software.

We discuss how threats might alter their exposures, and where we will need to adjust our coverage. We spend about ten minutes explaining to the newer members of the team how today’s cyber policies have evolved over the last ten years, and how the risks that were relevant then are different today. 

Cyber is about adapting coverages to risk, resilience and the ever-evolving threat landscape.  

Friday

Today is a welcome work-from-home day for me, where I spend most of the morning in focussed work, reviewing a new pack of wordings and working through some referrals.

My son breaks from school early today for half term, so I embrace the opportunity to collect him and get lunch from a local café to eat together.

Once I’ve finished my work for the day, I start preparing for the imminent arrival of my sisters and their families for a birthday dinner this evening. I’m hopeful the ominous clouds on the horizon hold off until bedtime.