Ep317 Jason Keen CEO Wholesale & Specialty Everest Insurance: No time to be stuck in the middle

Well, let's talk about the market.

What's going on? What's the state of the market today? It's a particularly interesting market, and it seems to be quite fast-moving.

Well, I think any market is always in transition, whether it's hardening or softening.

And I think this is just another stage in that, you know, having sort of went into my sort of third decade in this industry, just nothing surprises us anymore.

You know, this is not new territory.

I mean, I think, you know, what we see with capital increasing and rates falling and competition continues to get bigger and bigger.

I think that's one side of it.

I think the other side to us is where there's introduction, more complex risks coming through.

We see what the geopolitical landscape looks like.

We're also looking at The development of infrastructure, the emerging risk that technology is bringing, as well as the climate that persists in giving us challenges throughout any cycle.

And I think in any market cycle, there's this huge opportunity.

And I think the way that Everest is positioned with not just only the product suite we have, but the geographic spread that we're able to achieve allows us to trade and navigate through these transitioning markets.

And I think that's what presents always opportunity for us.

You've got plenty of fingers in different pies.

And so where is it best at the moment? Where is it sweetest?

Well, look, if I think about our business, I really think about it in three different pillars.

There's core P&C business, property, casualty, financial lines, our specialty business, which is our real special source, which is our credit, political risk, surety, aviation, marine, energy, construction, surety business.

Not everybody accepts that risk.

Not everybody writes those lines of business.

And that's something that we've done and continue to do very well.

And then the third pillar is our facultative reinsurance business, which is where we really can deliver to core clients a very bespoke market offering.

So it's not just a annual renewable cycle.

It's actually bespoke solutions for specific issues.

And actually, going back to your business, what sort of scale is it for anybody who doesn't know platforms and the amount of people you've got working under you?

We're closing in on about $4 billion.