Richard Brindle: the unique matrix of The Fidelis Partnership

What is the strategic thinking behind The Fidelis Partnership’s unique business model?

According to CEO Richard Brindle the firm is now increasingly perceived by balance sheet reinsurers as a distributor, as opposed to a direct competitor.

He tells Behind the Headlines that the diverse structure – including backing from a listed balance sheet, plus two Lloyd’s syndicates and MGA incubator Pine Walk – is the best thing he has built in his career

The firm is ploughing ahead with its strategy to expand in high growth global markets beyond insurance’s traditional heartlands – an area where he says the wider industry’s track record has been “woeful”.

In a typically forthright interview, the serial entrepreneur also shares his views on the 1.1 reinsurance renewals, opportunities linked to data centres, and the work ethic in the City.

Plus, Fiona Robertson discusses the Insurance Insider editorial team’s predictions for the major themes to shape 2026.

Transcript

Sam Casey: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Behind the Headlines, brought to you by Insurance Insider. I'm your host, Sam Katie, and this is our first episode for 2026. As ever, I would urge you to subscribe to the show, which you can do on our website or on your podcast platform of choice. Today's guest is one of the London market's most recognisable and successful entrepreneurs, the Fidelist Partnership CEO Richard Brindle. Richard made a name early in his career, underwriting alongside John Charman, Lementon's found and eventually float the insurer Lancashire. At the Fidelist Partnership, he's built a unique business, an underwriting entity with a diverse spread of capital support, including a listed balance sheet. The firm now also boasts two Lloyd syndicates, as well as an MGA incubator, Pinewalk. Richard told me that the distinct model is the best thing he's built in his career, and means the Fidelist Partnership is not a competitor to traditional balance sheet reinsurers, but rather a valuable source of distribution.

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

The network or the matrix of relationships we have now is pretty extraordinary. And what's very interesting to me, and what's very vindicating in terms of our business model, which is, as you rightly say, and thank you for that, unique, is how the really smart companies like Renry have come to regard us as trans-ri, genry, these type of people, really professional reinsurers, don't regard us as competitors. They regard us as a distribution source, and our relations are calibrated accordingly. And that's brilliant, because that's what we are. We are a source of business, then we're not a competitor. We're not a balance sheet. I thought it would take people longer to get their heads around that, but it hasn't.

Sam Casey: 1:45

Before we come to that, to kick off 2026, the Insurance Insider team has been working hard to establish which themes are set to be the most influential this year. To discuss our findings, I am joined by Insurance Insider editor Fienna Robertson. Fienna, welcome back to the show and a happy new year.

Fiona Robertson: 2:01

Same to you, Sam.

Sam Casey: 2:02

I mean, it's no secret from suddenly on the reinsurance side, all the broker reports we've had out, the market is softening. And this is definitely going to be a cyclical trend for the year. But as we look at that a bit more grandly, what are the kind of real elements of the cycle which will be noteworthy to watch closely in 2026?

Fiona Robertson: 2:23

So I think it is definitely, you know, last year I think we called 2025 a bit of a transition year for the market. And this year is going to be where that really starts to be felt. I think the first one is probably just obviously watching the pace of softening and how it goes from here, both on reinsurance and primary markets. But more broadly, I think because of that softening, you're going to see some knock-on impacts, and probably the one that everybody will get excited about, including us, obviously, will be MA. Because as you get into a softer market, people will start to look for new ways to find growth and consolidation and ownership change will be, I think, a big one. Then there'll probably be other knock-on impacts like expense savings and you know, how do people uh try to become more efficient? That will still be a focus.

Sam Casey: 3:09

A big emerging trend we've seen in the last couple of years has been around facilitization, brokers launching lots of these vehicles. It's probably now to the extent that the market is more facilitized, really, than we've ever seen before. How might that develop this year as we enter that next phase of the cycle? What are the things to watch?

Fiona Robertson: 3:30

It is going to be a really interesting one to watch. And that facilitization is all part of that efficiency drive as well, or the grab for business on the carrier side. We've come through the one-one renewals where some of the big facilities renew. And so far we've only heard publicly about a couple of renewals where they were flat. So ACT and Amwins Amplify. And that I think points to the sort of maturity of the space and the fact that they may have got to the scale they want to. But I think I'm sure the brokers will be trying to find new facilities to launch and monetize. So it could come through in terms of watching for commission pressure, extra commissions, or it could come through in terms of just more facilities, you know, and whether that's monoline or other firms that haven't yet got a big cross-class facility. There's not very many of them left now, but you know, new types of firms might be looking to do bigger facilities. So for the follow market as well, that's where if you're not in the game, it becomes a concern. And, you know, where that capital goes, I don't know that anybody really knows yet. That will be something to watch and see.

Sam Casey: 4:35

And your historic area of expertise, Fiona, is the ILS market, which has been going through a bit of a boom time in terms of camp bond issuance and also an increasing diversification of what kind of areas of the market that these camp bonds are covering. Do you think we're due a similar boom market this year?

Fiona Robertson: 4:55

Love the ILS market, it's such a great market. Uh, and it has been a very competitive one at 1-1. But I was slightly ashamed to realize that I was a little bit behind on what we were tracking towards for annual issuance in 2025 when I looked at the numbers and realized just how big of a year it had been. I think you sometimes get lost in the headlines. And when you look at the total, you realise, gosh, that's quite incredible where it used to be. So there was, you know, more than 23 billion assistor title insurance inside of ILS tallied up in terms of volume throughout last year. And they've spoken to broker dealers forecasting the outlook for this year, and it's it's quite similar, really. So another 20 billion year, and just a couple of years ago, that would have been a really big lift for the ILS market. And this is just on the cat bond side as well. That's one corner of the ILS market and the one that's been the busiest in the past few years, but not the sole part of it by any means. So I think that there will be more volume continuing. There's also a lot of maturities coming through the cat bond space, though. So if you look at sort of new new volumes that might slightly taper back, and obviously there has been a lot of pressure on rates already. So it could be the case that the cat bond spreads start to find their floor, perhaps. And while remaining a very important part of capacity for responses, it could be that we've seen the most acute pressure in terms of competition so far. But I think definitely we'll still be an active year for that market.

Sam Casey: 6:23

Good time to be an eye on this thing.

Fiona Robertson: 6:24

Yes. Well, I think it might be time for me to ask you some questions, Sam. Yes, go ahead. Essentially, what we're talking about here is, you know, what do we need to be thinking about for the year ahead? It was quite interesting that in the one-one renewals reports, you know, there's all the usual chat about rates and what's going on in different markets, but almost all the major firms really focused in on data centers and what data center business could bring to the market. So, what are the highlights of what people are hoping to see or what can be achieved, do you think?

Sam Casey: 6:52

The whole discussion around data centers in the market seemed to begin around conferences. And when we were just beginning to get inklings, that it was viewed to be a big thing for the industry. And since then, there's just been a crescendo. And now you can barely tune into an earnings call, or as you say, read a reinsurance report without mention of data centers and the opportunity for the industry. The boom in data centers is being driven by the similar activity growth in artificial intelligence, which everyone knows about, both from reading the news and also using Chat GPT to fulfill any mundane day-to-day tasks. And uh because of the growth of AI, the construction of data centers in order to uh support that is set to be pretty monumental, funny money, trillions of dollars. And naturally, for an industry which is always in search of new opportunities to write business, that's music to the ears of insurers and reinsurers. In terms of how big the opportunity will be, some of the big players in the industry have actually come out there and put some numbers on it. Aeon, for example, the CEO Greg Case in some recent earnings calls said the opportunity was sustained and monumental. And Aeon, as a brokerage, have estimated that by 2030 alone the premium volume tied onto data centers could be in the region of$10 billion. So it's a big deal, and it's definitely going to be an emerging theme. There's also naturally challenges with any kind of emerging business like this. One thing which is emerging for data centers is some of the construction projects are simply so massive, the insurance limits being sort of really stretching the capabilities of the industry. They're in the multiples of billions of dollars. So whilst there's clearly going to be a lot of activity there, it's also going to require some innovative thinking in order to help facilitate that real cyclical shift in economic activity.

Fiona Robertson: 8:58

Yes, I think the aggregation risk must be what everybody's worrying about, possibly alongside hoping that all the activity keeps going. But I think, you know, it will be interesting to see whether some more splicing and dicing of the risk goes on, going back to the ILS market. I know some suggestions are that they could perhaps get involved in taking some of the NATCA risk associated with it. So that might help.

Sam Casey: 9:20

Yes. And as you say, people are excited about the opportunity of the new business. But we've seen in other emerging areas, renewable energy, for example, that when you go headlong into these more prototypical type technologies, sometimes you can uh end up being faced with some unexpected loss activity.

Fiona Robertson: 9:39

The tech stocks just seem to be gaining galore. So uh I'm sure that the insurance industry will be hoping to get their slice of interest. I guess more broadly speaking, the the headlines as we've gone into this year have been very much focused on geopolitical volatility, which we picked as one of our themes for 2026, didn't have long to see that play out in reality. What do you think insurers will be up against on the geopolitical front this year?

Sam Casey: 10:06

Donald Trump and the US administration kicking off the year by swooping into Venezuela and picking up its president and taking it back to New York on drugs charges just underlines the ongoing volatility in the geopolitical climate, which insurers and brokers are navigating. Then we've still got the active war and negotiations around Ukraine, a fragile ceasefire in Gaza. So there's no shortage of things for people to consider. For the London market, it's one of the key centres of war-type insurance. So really monitoring all these developments and underwriting around them, making sure that global trade can still flow is going to be a key consideration for the likes of the marine and political violence markets. The tensions between China and Taiwan remain a really key focus for that market. And whether that is going to be impacted at all by what the US is doing and how China retaliates is certainly something which the very smart people who they employ, who are experts in geopolitics, which will be thinking about. But more broadly, for these international companies, there are more big macroeconomic things to think about. Donald Trump's tariff regime, Swiss re have said, has already hit premium growth thanks to the impact it's had on the global economy. And insurers also hold huge asset books, which can be impacted by these sorts of developments. So I think it's definitely going to be something which is going to be on the top of considerations for companies this year.

Fiona Robertson: 11:38

And like you say, sometimes it can be those knock-on implications, can't it? Because when you look at a country like Venezuela where there's been sanctions in place, the war markets tend to be quite nimble about having adjusted their portfolios or indeed not being able to offer cover. So in this case, we wouldn't be expecting necessarily any impact immediately, would we?

Sam Casey: 11:59

Yes. I think um in Venezuela, certainly for the marine side, the calls that go into that country, which are not uh subject to sanctions, are pretty negligible. But as you say, the situations change very quickly and they have to be very nimble in responding. But I think that's all we've got time for today, Fiona. But thanks for coming on again. And by the sounds of it, there's going to be plenty for us to continue reporting on in 2026.

Fiona Robertson: 12:22

Yes, we'll keep tuning in.

Sam Casey: 12:25

The Fidelis Partnership CEO, Richard Brindle, is one of the London market's best-known CEOs. Richard doesn't shy away from speaking his mind. And in this interview, he goes into real depth about the strategic rationale of the Fidelis Partnership's business model and its plans of the future. I hope you enjoy our discussion. Richard, thanks for coming on the show and happy new year. Thank you. Given we're speaking in the first week of January, I think it makes sense maybe if we start off by touching on the one-morne renewals. Reinsurance to start off with. When our team were first reporting in mid-December, it was a bit of a stampede towards reductions, which we detected. The brokers have obviously come out putting core property camp business in the double digits. How was the market from your point of view?

SPEAKER_01: 13:08

I spoke to our team in probably first week of December. We obviously realized it was going to be a different type of renewal than we've had in recent years, with the dynamic more in favor of buyers and sellers, obviously. And obviously, I've done this for a long time. And obviously, as a group, we've evolved a lot since our bifurcation three years ago. So we are now covering a multiplicity of lines of business, and we operate pretty much in every corner of the globe. So we now underwrite, as a group, including Pinewalk, 148 lines of business. And we have a very deliberate and specific strategy, as I think you know, to develop what we're calling a high growth market business. So most of the growth in the world is outside of the OECD, and in fact, the growth levels are much higher outside of the OECD. And it makes perfect sense for us as a business not to be overly reliant on the areas where our industry has traditionally excelled, namely USA, Western Europe, Japan, Australasia. We have to do better. And as I think we've probably covered before, Sam, our industry probably derives 5% of its premium outside of those areas. That's woeful. We as a group are around 12.5% to 15% at the moment. And I want to push that up to 25% in the next couple of years. That involves a lot of travel. That involves being very relevant and useful to our clients around the world, to our brokers around the world. And in that context, I sort of advised the reinsurance team about how to how to go about the renewal. I said, look, you've got to be as helpful as you can be to the brokers and the clients. Go early, go big, go multi-line, offer to travel, offer to lead, offer to price, write generally through programs if you can, unless it's just horrific.

Sam Casey: 14:53

But it was a renewal where everyone wanted to do more, isn't it? So I guess you've got to persuade people to give you the time of day.

SPEAKER_01: 15:00

They did want to do more, but often in a rather narrow context. In other words, you know, a lot of the underwriters in Bermuda are just monoline property excess of loss underwriters. That's all they do. Now we do a lot more than that. We now have casualty, AH, we have surety, we have obviously a big specialty capability. This is all within the context of reinsurance. But we also pivoted in many cases to proportional away from non-proportional, where the underlying rating was more favorable. So, you know, we've got some very strong relationships around the world on the proportional side now. So I think a lot of the guys in Babira are kind of one-trick ponies, if I'm honest with you. And yes, everybody wanted to grow. Brokers told us anecdotally, pretty much everybody just accepted the FOTs and basically said, right, we'll accept the FOTs and can we double our line? We didn't do that. You know, I said to our guys early on, we're going to have to come off some business here. I don't think we're going to have to come off a huge amount, but we will have to come off some. If we have clients, and I really would absolve the brokers on this, they're just doing their job, but we had a handful of clients, and it only was a handful, Sam, who were just completely unwilling to have any sort of discussion with us. And he simply said, those are the FOTs, stuff it up, you jumper. There's nothing you can do about it, take it or leave it. And in those circumstances, we left it. Because we are very reasonable people, but we're pretty big and we're pretty influential, and we frankly demand to have a level of dialogue. We're always up for a compromise, always, and I think any of the brokers will tell you that. We're tough, but we're always here to do a deal. But if we're simply being having FOTs rammed down our throat with no possibility of negotiation, that doesn't work for us.

Sam Casey: 16:39

And was there anything that surprised you about the extent of the softening? Or was do you think the writing was a sort of on the wall if we look at conferences and everyone wanting to expand the increase of capital?

SPEAKER_01: 16:50

I think there was a degree of panic in certain quarters, and I think that became more acute as December went on. When you account for the fact we wrote a lot of post-loss business, we were able to do a lot of private deals or semi-private deals. And because we are so relevant now to our major clients, because we're able to offer not only throughout the property piece, including ags, selectively, you know, ags can be pretty dangerous, but ags can be fine if they're structured properly. But also we're able to offer across the whole gamut of products that I've just mentioned, and because we went early, and because we were always up for a dialogue and tweaking here and there, horse trading, all of the things underwriters should do. And I might add, because our underwriters stayed on the island right up until New Year's Eve. A lot of people left, you know, around there was a flight when I was out there on, I think, the 19th, which is a Friday, and a lot of underwriters left. Well, how does that work? If you're underwriting a cat renewal book out of the meadow and you leave on the 19th of December, I don't understand that. So that's where perhaps we do work a bit harder than some of our, they're not really our competitors anymore, because we're not a balance sheet, but some of our peers, what's that saying? Life is 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration. I think all the brokers would tell you we were there, we were always there to pick up the phone right up until New Year's Eve, and we were always there to do a deal. So we were able to, frankly, massively outperform the market through a combination of those factors.

Sam Casey: 18:10

And taking a step back, how was 2025 more broadly for the Fidelist partnership? Yeah, I mean the announcement second syndicate, for example, which really boosted up in Lloyd's.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Yeah, a wonderful year. Um, the first Lloyd Syndicate 3123 has grown now. The capacity is over a billion dollars now for 2026. Our cooperation with Lloyd's has been magnificent on both sides. We're very appreciative to Patrick and Rachel of the team of how they welcomed us into Lloyd's. We think we've fully redeemed our side of the bargain, which was that we would provide underwriting discipline, price making, thought leadership. We've done all of those and we've helped Lloyd's reclaim ground that it's lost over probably three decades now and a lot of those specialty lines. So that's kind of what we said we'd do. We've kept our expenses low. Our expenses for the syndicates are around 4% of gross premium, which is very low compared to the market average of 11%. So I think we've done everything we said we'd do. We have a fantastic open relationship with Lloyd's. We are very critical of some of the more ill-disciplined stuff that we're seeing going on, and we make our voice known, but hopefully in a constructive way. Now, of course, we've done Syndicate Mark II.

Sam Casey: 19:19

Yeah, can you talk a bit through more about the rationale for that syndicate, the partnership with Blackstone, what it brings, which maybe the other names back syndicate doesn't do?

SPEAKER_01: 19:28

Well, first of all, I have to pay tribute to Hamden's, you know, I think names, traditional names, have been written off many times over the course of my career and frankly treated with a lack of respect by various people. They are actually a wonderful form of capital. Not only are they enormously patient and long term, and we regard them as semi-permanent capital, but they're also very knowledgeable about what we do. You know, a lot of these names really understand our market, and they've been very, very well represented by John Francis and the team at Hamden. So that's important to state that. Blackstone is obviously a different form. Of capital, but their capital they've allocated to Syndicate 216 comes from, I think I'm right in saying they call it their permanent capital fund. So that kind of says says what it does on the tin. It's a long-term collaboration. We have an excellent relationship with Blackstone. They did our debt back in the days when credit markets were basically closed and they went out on a limb for us and we've repaid them handsomely. They're also equity holders in the Fidelist partnership. I think they have from John Gray down a genuine interest in our industry. And uh Lou Salvatore, who's our interlocutor in New York, is a great partner and friend. And I think what I like about that syndicate is it's so diversified. Some of the business that accepts is intragroup reinsurances of the insurance group and of syndicate 3123, but also because we now ourselves are so diversified, we're putting a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of the other. It's not particularly catty. You know, some of these new syndicates and lawyers, these new sponsored syndicates are very, very property heavy and you know quite binary if there are severe weather, the string of severe weather events. We're we're not that type of outfit. So we think it's going to be a very strong uh brancher for the future.

Sam Casey: 21:10

If I look at the structure of the business now, I've got the MGU with the balance sheet, two Lloyd syndicates, an MGA incubator within it, it is unique. Yeah. Are you pleased with how that's all set up now? Is it all working as you intended?

SPEAKER_01: 21:23

It's the best thing I've done in my career. Very, very proud of what we've achieved. I think we had a situation back in 2022 when our original private equity backers wanted liquidity. The market at the time was pretty uninteresting in terms of multiples for balance sheets of barely above book. It was hard to see how we could, you know, offer our original private equity backers liquidity at anything approaching an interesting return for them. The act of the bifurcation was almost like an act of alchemy, was it unlocked an effective goodwill payment, which meant that the multiple for the private equity guys was, you know, depending on how long they hold the IG shares for, you know, not far short of two times books. So that's a great result. Um, and what it then did was create the conditions for us to launch the Fidelist partnership. I do want to talk about our relationship with the insurance group because it is fundamental. They bear the same name as us, they literally are one floor up in this building from us. I've known Danny Burroughs since the mid-90s. It is a unique relationship, and I'll give you a really good example. Everybody talks about these data centers. So when they started coming to market, it became clear to me that this was going to be a big opportunity. We had to be big and relevant and first responders. I always say to our underwriters, we have to be a top-stream market in everything we do. That's partly a function of line size, is also part of function of being very responsive, being available 24-7 to brokers, which we are, unlike pretty much all of our peers. But we had a relatively small line for these DCs under our binding authority with the insurance group. We called their CEO, Ian Houston, and obviously he spoke to Dan and all those guys, and within 24 hours we'd agreed, we'd mutually agreed it was a really interesting opportunity, and they'd agreed to more than double their line on the DCs. We then built a consortium in addition to that. So now we have a line approaching$300 million to write on DCs. But the point about the IG is we did that in a day. Now there is no other carrier MGU relationship like that in the world where you could get that sort of thing done so quickly. So yes, we're big. Yes, it can get complicated. Yes, the risk allocation rules are a little bit mind-boggling sometimes. But we built something very special here, Sam, to your question, and I'm enormously proud of it. The two words that we use to describe ourselves now are risk allocator. We don't really like being called an MGU. Traditionally, an MGU is a single line of business with annual capacity. We've got 148 lines of business. We have 10-year rolling capacity with the IG, we have, as I've described, semi-permanent capital with Lloyd's, and we have permanent capital from the Blackstone Fund. That's a brilliant position to be in. Again, the IG is absolutely our principal relationship, and I think we'll remain so for the foreseeable future. But these other relationships are paramount too. We have eight consortia in Lloyd's now. We have over 60 outwards quota shares. So the network or the matrix of relationships we have now is pretty extraordinary. And what's very interesting to me, and what's very vindicating in terms of our business model, which is, as you rightly say, and thank you for that, unique, is how really smart companies like Renry have come to regard us as transri, genry, these type of people, really professional reinsurers, don't regard us as competitors. They regard us as a distribution source, and our relations are calibrated accordingly. And that's brilliant, because that's what we are. We are a source of business, then we're not a competitor, we're not a balance sheet. I thought it would take people longer to get their heads around that, but it hasn't.

Sam Casey: 25:05

And talking about that distribution aim, and you've got the BRICS plus strategy of building business in those countries. How do you achieve that penetration where the industry historically has suddenly failed to achieve a similar traction outside its North American and European heartland?

SPEAKER_01: 25:24

A lot of it is, by the way, we're calling it high growth markets now, because I think the trouble is the BRICS, is Russia's sanctions. We've concluded India is probably too difficult to market to operate in, nothing against India, but it's just very bureaucratic and burdensome regulatory-wise. So uh we can't really call it BRICS anymore, but we're calling it high growth markets. And I think the simple answer, Sam, is first of all, you've got to have the geopolitical vision. You've got to see what's happening in the world. It's clearly a multipolar world. It's clear that not everything comes to London anymore, and that those who sit in this square mile with that mentality are going backwards, not forwards. And it's also just much more interesting, frankly. I'm an intelligent guy, I would like to think. I have a deep knowledge of global affairs. It's very interesting to me to trade globally. You know, one of our underwriters today has a Zoom call with somebody in Ulam Batur in Mongolia. That's brilliant. I love that kind of thing. That's a market which hasn't really been exploited at all by London till now. Obviously, very, very useful having the lawyer's licenses now. But the basic answer to your question is again, perspiration versus inspiration, hard work. Get on planes, go and see people. We're everywhere. At any one time, we've got people traveling around Latam, Southeast Asia, MENA, got an office in Abu Dhabi now. I like to think we're covering the globe now. And having the Pinewalt cells is very complementary to that. For example, we've just launched Imaleri, which is a Latham reinsurance cell based in Miami, run by a guy who my deputy chairman Charlie Mathaz gave him his first job 30 years ago. But you know, we just launched a uh surety cell with a speciality in in Latham. We've got offices all over the world now.

Sam Casey: 27:03

And Pinewalk's well over a billion dollars now, I think so.

SPEAKER_01: 27:06

It's going to be about a billion and a half this year. More sales this year, or yeah, we we did um, I think we did five sales last year. And there's a lot of embedded growth there. The great thing about the Pinewalk model is we bring in entrepreneurs, we make them a working capital loan, which they then repay to us. We then own the majority of the equity, but they have a big chunk of it and they're able to remunerate themselves and their teams and attract talent. And then we provide all of what you might loosely call the back office function. So they're just free to trade. And you know, Clive Washburn is a great example, very well known London market.

Sam Casey: 27:39

He's been on the podcast as well.

SPEAKER_01: 27:40

He's Clive's absolutely brilliant. What you might call an old-fashioned underwriter who just wants to deal with brokers and clients. He travels a lot, by the way. He is very joined up with us in terms of our high growth markets initiative. We were just talking about it today, how we need to get people on planes together across TFB and Pinewalk because we're all one company at the end of the day. And you know, he's doing extremely well out of the deal. And I'm delighted for him. And so his team, Audie Clarks, he's a fantastic deputy. Henry on the cargo side, they've got a really strong team. They get to do what they do best, and there are liquidity options via call options. It's exciting. You have to work hard, you have to be self-motivated, because these guys, it's their business at the end of the day, with a sort of silent shareholder, but they run the business. We don't overly interfere, we do cross-sell, we do collaborate with them, but it's their business, and it's very attractive to a certain type of very self-motivated entrepreneurial individual. If you just want to do nine to five Monday to Friday, forget it.

Sam Casey: 28:37

I mean, Fidelis has that reputation in the market somewhere where people come and they have to work hard. Yeah. And they're here five days a week or they're across the country. Yep. And you're quite unashamed of that reputation you have.

SPEAKER_01: 28:49

I'm very proud of it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what's happened to the work ethic, and I think the UK seems to be particularly bad, but I think it is a global phenomenon that people don't want to go into an office anymore. I don't understand that.

Sam Casey: 29:00

Cold day today, so that's probably an ISOTREX or something, I should think.

SPEAKER_01: 29:04

Just stick another layer on.

Sam Casey: 29:06

And you've you've mentioned a few times getting on planes. The aviation market was a bit of a bêt noir last year that you called out. I think we did an interview where you called it self-destructive. There were so many events in the latter half of the year. Did it start to sort itself out?

SPEAKER_01: 29:20

It did. It was good to see more resolved than we expected in Q4. I think the Hull and liability market was really pretty okay, actually. I mean, it's still underwater if you look at the Lloyd's stats. We we missed a lot of the claims. I think we probably have just about the best results in the aviation market uh the last couple of years. There were plenty of losses, and there's still more needs to be done, but there was certainly no rate reductions in Q4 that we entertained, and pretty much everything was going up in pricing. We still stepped away from quite a few risks where we didn't think the pricing was adequate, but it was better than expected.

Sam Casey: 29:54

And on the war side, you are obviously one of the carriers heavily involved in the Ukraine situation. We had the butcher ruling in the middle of last year. Has that squared things off for you, or are there still negotiations taking place around there?

SPEAKER_01: 30:06

That's a question for the insurance group. To quote what they've said publicly, I think they said they're 95% there. There may be one or two things still out there, but they basically took the view, which I think was exactly right, which was get out there, settle these claims, avoid any bad faith judgments, and just get on with it. And they did exactly the right thing. And I would just say that I think it's quite remarkable that the insurance group had to deal with what was for them really a black swan on a black swan, because it's no secret, we've always been big in aviation war, and this was the biggest aviation war claim in history, and they've absorbed it in a three-year period without going over 100% combined. I think that's a fantastic story. And it speaks to the diversification and the breadth of the offering of the Fidelist Insurance Group that they can ride a storm like that and come out unscathed.

Sam Casey: 30:52

Well, on that note, Richard, I think it's all we've got time to speak about today. But I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you very much. Before you go, here are some of the top stories from the last two weeks. Insurance Insider revealed that Eric Anson has been lined up as the CEO-elect of AIG from the beginning of June, with Peter Safino moving from CEO to become executive chair. And there was a flurry of deal making in the transactional liability space, with CRC confirming its acquisition of the MBGA Euclid Transactional, and Howden buying Atlantic Global Risk. That's all for today, but we'll be back again in two weeks' time.