A Resilience Industry That Happens to Sell Insurance: Dawn Miller on Lloyd's, Ecosystems, and the Narrative Problem

Dawn MillerAnd with me is Dawn Miller. How's it going, Dawn? Really well. Thank you. Fabulous energy here today. Right? It is. Really good. Some great conference. It is. It is. It turns out the Brits know how to put on a conference.

James BenhamThat, I think they do. That's right. That's right. You know what's really funny is the majority of conferences that are put on other than InsurTech Connect IGC that you you look at the majority of the rest of the conferences are all one out of England. I don't know what it is about those Brits, but they can't they can't not do global. We like to convene just like Lloyd's. Right? We like to convene. We like to bring people together and share. Yeah. It's really fun. And you you live in London, and you obviously...

With the role you play at Lloyd's, you're at the mother's show. Yep. I just got back from my very first visit to maybe we call it the Insurance Mile in in London. Right. It was eye opening, incredible. I'm interested. It? It is. I've been in insurance twenty five years. I never imagined there would be a place where everybody worked in insurance. 50,000 people all in that space just moving and ebbing through. Fantastic. It's incredible. Yeah. All from a coffee shop. Yep. And all the... Think of all the things we can solve.

I know. Together and we do. Yeah. It's exciting. So we're gonna talk about that in a second, but I just... Real brief, like, where are you from originally? Where were you born and raised? I'm from Georgia. I grew up in Georgia. I went to university in Washington DC. I wanted to become the next head of the UN, and I wanted to save the world. And turns out I'm not saving it necessarily through diplomacy, but through Through risk risk transfer. We like transfer. There you go. Exactly.

But, you know, as all all young students do when they're on... In Washington DC at university,

Dawn MillerThey carry on. They do their internships. And I... The first job I had out of university was at OPIC, now DFC. And so there, I was exposed to political risk insurance. And then after that, after graduate school, went to work at Willis in political risk. And, really, it was at a time, this confluence, when all of the governments around the world were offering guarantees. So foreign companies would come in and help them rebuild their economies. And I just found that absolutely fascinating how you could have an intersection of commercial need, true infrastructure public need, diplomacy, and finance altogether.

And all of it stitched together with insurance, so I've stuck with it ever since. Nice. I did have a brief moment as an entrepreneur for a couple of years in Eastern Europe. Then what? An entrepreneur

James Benhamin Eastern Europe? No. No. You you can't skip over that. You did. I did. I did. Where in Eastern Europe? I was based in Prague, and I was there for about two and a half guess Prague. Yeah. I went to Prague in 1997. Yep. I stayed in the first Western Hotel built after the fall. Okay.

Dawn MillerI had to shortly after that. I had the craziest

James Benhamexperience in Prague. I ended up introducing mosh pitting to Prague back back when... I mean, I mean Yeah. So I mean, it was... I like... I I like to go to concerts. I like to go, you know, dance. I mean, I love to go out. And Prague was the coolest

Dawn Millerplace. Was It's It's It was like... You had that feel of capitalism coming in and this new energy of the West. I mean, very cool place. No. Absolutely. And I think my first trip there were probably in in 1990. And then when I went over there with my little company, it was in, like, '96. So... And we were just highly focused on North American investors coming into the infrastructure space and how can you help them Yeah. Have a clear view of of the opportunity. And we worked in collaboration with many of the big consulting firms there.

So What a what a time to be alive. Right? Sweet time. But, again, what it what it really taught me, what I took from that moment... Like like so many businesses, many fail, many succeed. This one was maybe marginally successful, and then we we sold it on. But but what it it shared the importance of owning a narrative, understanding the context of place you're in, and creating transparency. Yeah. And that's something that I think applies across any career.

James BenhamSo let's talk about what what led... I'm always interested in the path to Lloyd's Mhmm. And the path to chief commercial officer. Like,

Dawn Millerthat... That's a big deal. So help me understand what what kind of led to you wanting to do this. Yeah. Sure. So, again, I've spent the last twenty five years in the commercial insurance markets all around the world extremely grateful to have worked for some of the most incredible companies that are out there. Right? So for Chubb and AXA and AIG, incredible companies with incredible learnings, and been with them through the through the good times and the bad. What made me look at the opportunity at Lloyd's and say, this is something, is that we're looking at an institution, right, that has got a legacy of three hundred and forty three, three hundred and thirty eight years behind it.

It has an opportunity to shift as financial markets are shifting around us as protection gaps are becoming stronger around the world, and I saw it as a huge opportunity and transformation challenge. And when you look at what Lloyd's has, and maybe we'll talk about a little bit later in the podcast, but when you look at this... Our financial strength, our licensed network, we trade in 200 countries around the world, the timing that we've been around all of this time, the learnings that we have accumulated, the data that we have, and the incredible ability to convene, mixing all that up creates an opportunity to absolutely contribute to to solving tomorrow's challenges.

James BenhamAnd I wanna be a part of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's... I think a lot of us do. A lot of us wanna be part of something really big. Yep. Meaning is something I think all of us look for in our careers and doing something that afterwards you look back and say, yeah, made the business community and the world and my industry better. And I I think one thing I love about insurance and why I've really dedicated my life and career to it is that without it, stuff doesn't happen.

Correct. I mean, without it, like, people can't buy homes. It's incredible, isn't it? And we're really... In the... In that respect, we're in the resilience business, and we're helping communities grow and families grow and economies grow and helping them figure out ways to pivot. When a risk becomes too big, how can we share that? And I just think that is incredible. Yeah. And it's it's no it's no surprise that the Babylonians three thousand five hundred years ago started adding premium to their loans to forgive, you know, ships if they sank because without it, we wouldn't have had global commerce back then, and we wouldn't have that right now either.

Exactly. So you're you're chief commercial officer. You're CEO of Americas, Lloyd's America's. You oversee market development, global commercial strategy, Lloyd's Lab, which, of course, I've covered... It's so cool being with you because I've covered Lloyd's Lab a bunch of time from those podcasts. That's

Dawn Millergreat. That's great. I'll try not to talk about it too much. I know. I I love it. I am super proud of it and all of its... Everything that it's from its creation to where we are today. And I try not to fanboy out on the on the Lloyd's how we do at the end. Yeah.

James BenhamMany of the initiatives that are shaping the whole marketplace, not just Lloyd's, what is that role?

Dawn MillerBecause you you have two roles. Yeah. You know? What's it look like? Yeah. What does that look like day to day? And, like, where do you spend most of your time and attention right now? So myself and my team's all around the world. I mentioned we have the the 200 trading rights. We have 25 offices around the world. We've got three insurance companies. We've got a we've got a lot a lot moving. And for us, we are at that frontline. That front door, whether it's actually a physical front door one walks into or the narrative one has about Lloyd's or the education they receive or a new entrant coming into the marketplace, or we're working with regulators, clients on the ground that have issues, etcetera, and most importantly, our investors and managing agents.

So we are accountable for making sure that that landscape that everyone's operating on is is fit for purpose, that it is... We are clearing the roadblocks out, working on the challenges, and making sure that the conditions for success are there. And so that is what our teams do. It's it's... When you think about a landscape or a garden, right, my colleagues who work in performance management or an oversight, they're making sure those gardeners or those players are fit for purpose. We're making sure that landscape that everybody's operating on allows our managing agents, our insurance companies, and our syndicates to to write the business that they they want to as they've gotta perform.

They've gotta carry on and and be part of our market, but we're creating those conditions for success. And so that means that I've got teams working with regulators every day. We've got interface with brokers and intermediaries. We're working on our brands. We're working on how do we show up from an education standpoint. How do we also attract new capital in the market? All of that converges on the point on being super clear about what is our narrative. So it kinda goes back to what I said earlier.

What is our narrative? How do we show up? And is on us to make sure that that others understand the Lloyd's market. We can't just say we started in a coffee house, which we're super proud of. We've been here for three hundred and thirty eight years. We're large and global. That's not enough. We are complex, and we're simplifying as the days go on. But we have to make sure that that our story is clear and that it's... People can understand that by investing in our marketplace, by participating in the marketplace, they can take the risks and solve the challenges they want to.

So a lot of time on the narrative. What do you do personally? What I do, I spend an enormous amount of time, working with our teams, helping them figure out how do we keep pushing pushing the edge of the market. How do we... Who do we Does mean... Does that... Does the edge of the... Pushing the edge of the market mean covering uncovered risks? What does that mean? What it means is going out to new parties to say, have you... How are we working? How could becoming part of the Lloyd's marketplace, whether you're placing risk into Lloyd's, okay, and we do that in collaboration with brokers, or whether you're investing in the Lloyd's marketplace, how does that help solve a challenge?

Whether it's a balance sheet challenge at a at a large carrier Yeah. Whether it's creating a reinsurance captive, whether it's helping a new business thrive that is that is that is tackling topics around resilience or large infrastructure, etcetera. So I spent a lot of time on the front line working with prospective and current investors. And when I say investors, I mean risk takers in our market. Is the goal of Lloyd's to be part of every insurance transaction on Earth? That would be quite lofty, and that would assume that every transaction on Earth is going to produce the performance that we need to get the right return on capital for our investors.

But our aspiration, in fact, new purpose statement that we've just announced to the market in March, As an executive team, we've reset the strategy for Lloyd's, and I can talk about that in a moment. But our aspiration and our purpose, because we realized it was a little... It needed some refresh as we move forward, something very, very clear, is that we bring together the world's leading risk takers to advance global progress. So there's a couple of things in there. Right? Risk takers can be defined in many ways.

Global and world mentioned twice. I think that's incredibly important. We may be headquartered out of out of London, but 60% of our revenues or the premiums for the marketplace come out of North America. We are growing hand of our fist in Asia and other emerging areas as the change in their marketplaces are experienced. So we wanted to make sure our purpose statement reflected that, but also was about the corporation of Lloyd's. What is the corporation of Lloyd's, those of us that work there? What are we doing to make sure our market can thrive?

And then that marketplace is part of what you saw when you were just in London. Right? You know, our 100 plus syndicates that we have and all the investors behind.

James BenhamThat's cool. Yeah. I was I... When when... Because I talked to a lot of my friends that aren't in insurance. And and I tried to explain, like, what... How Lloyd's is very different than anything else they've ever looked at. And I'm like See how hard it is? This is about the narrative. It is. It's actually it actually It's a challenge. And I never worked at Lloyd's or a syndicate or

Dawn Milleranyone, but I but I work for a lot of insurance companies who have Lloyd's somewhere up in that tower. Yeah. Sure. There... There's there's a syndicate Yeah. Somewhere in there. Yep. And that's why I always I always feel like even... I almost feel like Lloyd's is the invisible hand at some... At some point because it's a... It's it's somewhere in the transaction stack. And we're very proud of that, that our... That the that the talent that is in our marketplace, that our managing agents and our our insurance syndicates can write those risks and attach to those risks.

And the invisible hand, I would say, is is the relationships that we have with governments and regulators all around the world, helping them understand what good looks like from a resilience perspective, helping them what understand what dealing with protection gaps could look like. We have many governments and regulators come to us to say, you know, what are some steps we could take to make our environment more attractive to the underwriters in your in your market? Very cool. Well, let's talk about ecosystems. Yep.

James BenhamYou know, you're speaking here Mhmm. About ecosystems. Yep. And you feel... You really think about why why those define the future of insurance and also, like, tackling questions, the biggest ideas in insurance and what they are today. But, like, I I really wanna talk about ecosystems because a lot of people use the word ecosystems. I'm not sure they know what it means. I agree. It's it's just like I... And I'm I'm really big on defining words Yeah. Because my English teacher was British Yeah. And senior of high school in Southern Louisiana.

Yeah. And it's amaze. That's that's like a Wow. Okay. Georgia. Another podcast. You're Georgia. Yeah. You're not from, like, Calhoun Georgia, are you? I am not. Like, one of my best friends is from Calhoun. Yeah. No. I'm not from there. Okay. So Farther north. It's it's... Oh, farther north than Calhoun. Okay. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Almost Tennessee. So I'm actually going to North Georgia tomorrow... Sunday to drop my daughter off for camp. So Very good. Love that. Way North Georgia. Yeah. Jasper. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So I... I'm thinking about ecosystem. I'm thinking about word definitions because a lot of people in insurance throw phrases around they don't understand. Mhmm. So please define ecosystem for me.

Dawn MillerWell, I'm not sure I have the exact Webster dictionary. There is no web definition. There is no right definition. Yeah. Exactly. But to me, when I... You're right. A lot of people are allergic to the word ecosystem because we use it all the time. And I... And and to me, it just... It's a way to describe the inter... The multiple parties' inter... Interconnectedness and the intersection of multiple stakeholders and needs into one place, that they're all supporting and contributing to each other. And and whether it's...

You know, marketplace sort of gets that, but not quite because that seems very commercial. Ecosystem is the only word that, at least in my mind, gives a sense of a a a bit of a heartbeat to the center of it. Right? Yeah. You're trying to connect the dots to try to then squeeze out something and grow something even more improved. Yeah. Well, insurance is an interesting beast that way. I I... I've worked in a few industries

James Benhamoutside of insurance where I had to build, you know, software projects or technology initiatives or... I'm a politician as well. So I'm I'm currently chairman of the board of Texas Southern University. Governor Abbott put me on that six years ago. And and so I do have to lead a public university, which is a very, very, very different And a fascinating type of ecosystem. Right? It is. It has its own set of invisible rules and pace. There are. Universities truly are ecosystems, and then the group of universities is an ecosystem in them...

And themselves. Insurance is really interesting because, you know, at... And and you and you also have to be really you have to be really careful in insurance because your competitor one day could be your partner the next day, could be your vendor the next day, be your client the following. And so I... Be careful. You have to always treat everyone as if they're really critical because they actually are really critical Yes. Of

Dawn Millerwhat goes on. So And we very much feel that we are very proud of our ability to convene, and we very much do take that neutral sense. Right? We need everyone operating together, right, according to their strengths to solve those challenges of tomorrow. Also, with an ecosystem, I think it's... You... When I think about ecosystem too, I almost feel like you can almost see the cells moving through. You know? You can see the value moving through, you know, versus maybe just a connected network, which your university example is a little bit of that.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. You have the ability to actually

James Benhamdiagram and track transaction flow through an ecosystem, though. Right? I mean, you actually have the data on the ecosystem.

Dawn MillerRight? Yeah. We do. Something that's kind of unique. It is. It is. Our... Well, I'm not sure we're absolutely maximizing it right now as much as we can, and we certain... Certainly would never look to maximize that in a in a way that is is not for the benefit of of those that are the members. Those are our clients, right, first, but, we definitely have the data. Right now, I believe that we've been collecting a lot of data over the years. So what we have committed to our market is to make sure that we are astute and smart with the data that we're collecting and see how we can peel back from a little bit of that.

Have you all scanned in

James Benhamand transactionalized all of your historical data from the beginning of Lloyd's to now? We're in the process of working to see how to do that. But but but it's it's certainly not as advanced as one might think that we would have done. Yeah. It's really interesting. Lloyd's is known for being kind of old school in some regards where people still come into the office and work together, and they kind of... You go around to the different desks and you, which I I love and appreciate because, I mean, insurance is about risk transfer Yep.

And sharing risk and get the edge has a human in the loop. Right? Because you're making a promise.

Dawn MillerAnd and I think we... We've gotta provide that infrastructure and this place to convene, but there's going to be that human in the loop even as we see more AI come into. But what's been cool for me is that you have this very traditional...

James BenhamAnd by the way, impressive because I don't know of any other company that's been around three... This long, three hundred and thirty Eight years. Yeah. That's that's mind blowing. Yeah. The statistical probability of that happening is one thousandth of one percent of surviving that long. Right. So kudos. Yeah. You have Lloyd's Lab Mhmm. Which is doing some of the coolest stuff I've been covering for the last seven years on the podcast Mhmm. Inside this very traditional Yeah. Very buttoned up experience.

Dawn MillerTo those that started it, right, when it got started. Yeah. So how did it get... Or just tell me the origin story and what it's doing now. Yeah. So Lloyd's Lab started seven years ago, and it was really an answer to the call to make sure that we were challenging ourselves to innovate. Our our marketplace is known for the first of most policies and both... Sorry, most lines of business that you're... They're familiar with, the first D and O, first cyber, first space, autonomous vehicle, all of that.

And we wanted to make sure that we still had a place where we could curate that entrepreneurial spirit and continue to test and learn and sometimes succeed, sometimes fail, sometimes both at the same time in some ways with new product. So when the lab started seven years ago, it was... Let's... That was aligned with a lot of the InsurTech excitement that was out there. Come in and use the power of our marketplace. Use the power of our marketplace to have mentors, to walk out with capacity, to to ensure that that you have everyone guiding you along.

So many of the people I see walking around here today are Lloyd's Lab alumni, and they have gone into the lab in that ten week accelerator program with one idea and come out with another, possibly with capacity and contracts. About three years ago, we reset the lab a bit to say, let's be more structured. Let's... Each call that we make for the two big cohorts a year... There are many programs in the lab, but the the flagship is the accelerator. So let's make sure that the call for applicants that we have twice a year is a bit more structured.

So we oriented it around the... Some of the risk issues, the ORSAs, the own risk solvency assessments, sorry to be so technical, that the syndicates do, the managing agents do on their businesses, what's on their mind. So that feeds into the themes. We put in some geographic themes. We often have a partner. We partnered with the Bermuda Monetary Authority, UAE government, with Irish government right now, and what's on their mind. A lot of times, it's resilience, a lot of access to data, mapping, and we we...

We're very specific about the themes. And then with that, we also are very specific about the mentors we bring in. So the companies come in. They're with us for ten weeks. They're part of our marketplace forever, and they have as many or as few mentors as they'd like. And they ebb and flow their business, and they generally walk out the other side with some test capacity or a, you know, proof of concept service contract. And 95% of those companies are still in the insurance market today.

That's... That is seriously, that's the success rate on this. Yeah. And 85% are still in the Lloyd's space. We've had some great fundraisings on NASDAQ. Sixfold, I'm just gonna see them later today. They did a bit fundraise on NASDAQ. The... We've also had some great acquisitions, Credicat being a great example of that. We have others like Testudo who are pushing the envelope on Gen AI. So it's it's... We feel very proud because with that also comes a methodology around finding... What is the problem statement? What is the methodology for testing and learning?

And it's okay to say no. It's okay to fail fast and learn from that and succeed faster. But when they go through Lloyd's Lab, does Lloyd's keep a piece of the equity of all those companies that go through the lab? We do have the ability from our central funds, so we really keep that separate to... For those that are not going to be risk taking. They're just providing services, which is vital. It's about a fifty fifty split. So some of the operational efficiency teams, there is an opportunity for that investment.

Amazing.

James BenhamSo last thirty seconds that we have. Yep. What's... What are you most excited about with Lloyd's for the next year

Dawn Millerlooking forward? Yeah. I'm excited about... As we push our strategy forward, there's so much going on in the world right now related to a need for large scale solutions. Data center needs, energy needs. There's a lot of pressure around the world, and I think our market is completely set up for it. And and and whether it's through facilities, new entrants, etcetera. So that plus bringing in the power of AI to help us be more operationally efficient in our own business and also the business... Also our underwriting organizations, seeing how AI is helping them move some of the tedium away so they can really be focused on these complex problems.

You know, I've been writing software since I was 11. I'm 46 years old, thirty five years building software.

James BenhamAnd I said that's...

Dawn MillerPeople have a a lot of doom and gloom around AI. And I'm like, look. Honestly, I I think this is gonna be the best thing ever for getting rid of all this menial stuff that we hate doing. Exactly. And a lot of this... I think we're in a transition, though, so I'm hopeful that we're resilient through the transition. It's it's... There's a lot of, I think, some scaremongering about will this allow... Will we... Will people be out of a job? It's gonna change the jobs that are required, change the skill that's required.

And what's super important about our industry is while that's happening, we are competing for talent with so many other industries. So the faster that we are proud of our industry, stand up proud about our industry, talk about us as a resilience industry that happens to sell insurance, we're going to attract that talent because we're an amazing place to be. We just need to broadcast a little bit more. Yeah. The ADP hiring report came out yesterday, and it was super strong,

James Benhamway stronger than expected. Like, we're multiple years into LLMs being adopted, and we're still seeing strong hiring demand. New types of roles and new types of thinking. And we also are in the middle of a demographic crunch. And we... And last I checked, every insurance company I work for needs more underwriters and adjusters and qualified people. Some of the roles of, say, if we were having this conversation in three or four years, some of those roles haven't been invented yet. Correct. And they will be the roles that resources of today will fill.

My whole industry didn't exist seventy five years ago. There you go. Excellent. Dawn, thank you so much. No. It's been so Appreciate your time. And thank you out there in listener land for tuning in today to geek out our interview with Dawn Miller from Lloyd's. We're here at Insurtech Insights New York twenty twenty six. Enjoy the ride and geek