“I remember going out once a year to a restaurant, I never went on vacation, and when I follow through my childhood, I never went to university because we couldn’t afford it,” Kerridge, who grew up within the UK, mentioned.
“I guess I dropped into insurance because that was the opportunity I had at the time.”
Kerridge acquired his insurance coverage break when he landed a job with financial institution Barclays at age 18 and has not regarded again since. He has now been with Hiscox for 26 years and has been CEO of Hiscox USA since May 2021. He’s additionally been on the board of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association since 2022.
The chief has, at completely different occasions, been answerable for driving the insurer’s digital business insurance coverage push in each the UK and the US.
Removing the insurance coverage “stigma”
Kerridge, who mentioned there’s a “really hard-edged commercial benefit” to bringing in various views, believes that his background helped him construct values which have set him up for fulfillment.
“I came from that background where we weren’t well off, and I think that’s a good thing, actually, because it moulds you as an adult not to take things for granted, to have values, and all that stuff – hard work and effort,” Kerridge mentioned.
While the butcher and housewife’s son could should some extent fallen into insurance coverage, traditionally seen by some as banking’s much less enticing cousin, he advised Insurance Business that he believes that the business has turn into a extra enticing vacation spot for expertise trying to “purposefully” develop a profession there.
“At the time [around 30 years ago], insurance always had a bit of a stigma, it’s a place you went into if you didn’t get into proper banking,” Kerridge mentioned.
“I often reflect how it’s very different now; it’s almost turned on its head and insurance is an exciting place to be now with the advent of the use of data and technology, and it’s a really good place to build a career.”
Diversity of thought could also be one thing that Kerridge is “passionate” about, nevertheless it’s range of expertise within the earlier days of his profession that has helped him turn into a extra versatile and profitable chief. Kerridge has labored throughout advertising and marketing, operations, underwriting, and broker-facing enterprise growth, and hailed “spiderwebbing” – or attempting a hand at completely different roles – as key to constructing versatility.
Rise of the web
It was the expansion of the web that spurred Kerridge to new heights at Hiscox within the late Nineties.
“The internet was coming, people started to use it, and we had dial up modems – looking back it [dial up] was really painful actually – but that’s when it started,” Kerridge mentioned.
Kerridge was pulled into a gathering with then Hiscox group managing director Bronek Masojada and requested to place a proposition collectively for a way the enterprise may take advantage of the web.
What adopted three months later was a lunch – Kerridge mentioned he nonetheless vividly remembers the assembly – at which he was given the instant inexperienced mild to maneuver ahead with a direct-to-consumer web proposition.
“He [Masojada] had two questions for me … primary was, ‘do you want to do it, get it running and going?’ and the second query was, ‘how much seed capital do you need?’
“And over lunch, literally, we agreed that I’d do it and he had given me a million pounds in seed capital to get it going.”
And thus, Hiscox’s digital UK push was born, with the enterprise – which Kerridge described as “really insurtech before insurtech was even a word” – launching in 1999.
Hiscox takes on the USA
Ten years later, at one other lunch with Masojada, who was by then CEO, the plans can be put in movement for the launch of Hiscox USA. Given the UK’s place as a comparatively small territory and its maturity on the time from a digital e-commerce perspective, the large query was the place Hiscox may take its components subsequent.
The end result was a two-week US journey that, for Kerridge, who was with the insurer’s UK digital enterprise on the time, delivered some stunning outcomes. Two issues struck him, with the US market on the time showing to be about “seven years” behind the UK.
“The first was nobody was doing online in small commercial,” Kerridge mentioned. “I mean, I just couldn’t believe it, I was trying to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.”
The second was the regulatory surroundings within the admitted market, which was “very heavy 13 years ago compared to the UK”.
Building a 600,000 coverage digital enterprise
When Hiscox USA launched in 2010, it was the primary small business insurer with a digital proposition for small companies, in line with Kerridge.
“I still pinch myself today that this unknown, international company came in and built a domestic powerhouse in digital,” he mentioned.
“We’re sitting here today with over 600,000 policies in force on that digital platform, which when other carriers hear that, they’re like ‘holy cow, that’s an incredible amount of scale in a relatively short amount of time’.”
While the digital enterprise is – maybe unsurprisingly – near Kerridge’s coronary heart, international insurer Hiscox has additionally been constructing out its US providing in areas like kidnap & ransom, terrorism, media, leisure, and a number of the “more traditional lines that we’re known for globally”, Kerridge mentioned.
So, what’s subsequent for Hiscox USA and Kerridge?
With 32 million small companies within the US, and Hiscox USA overlaying round 600,000 of them, there may be nonetheless loads of alternative to develop.
“I’d like to think that my legacy when I eventually retire, and it’s a long way off, is that I leave a business which has got a very strong reputation in the market, because that’s important to us, but a business which is multiple times the scale it is today, so several billion dollars rather than a billion, but also incredibly profitable,” Kerridge mentioned.
Hiscox USA CEO Kevin Kerridge on:
Building a distinctly American enterprise…
“We’re just a normal American business, we don’t think of ourselves as a global business, what we do here has a very domestic focus. We’re here to build America’s leading small business insurer, that’s what we want to do.”
His greatest achievement…
“I really love my time here at Hiscox, whether I was in the CEO role or before. I still spring out of bed at 4am every morning, looking forward to coming to work, so I think lots of small things. The exciting thing for me is I honestly feel that my biggest achievement is still to come. You know, [we’ve built] a billion dollar business in the US today, with over 600,000 policyholders. It still feels like we’re at the beginning.”
Feeling the “energy back” within the dealer enterprise…
“We made some choices round our urge for food, popping out of a number of the larger dangers, above $100 million of income, and – other than a few the specialist areas like kidnap and ransom and terrorism, that are international franchises – actually focusing the rump of that dealer enterprise on smaller insureds. It’s very worthwhile, we really feel we’ve acquired it proper to win there. And we’ve spent 18 months repositioning the enterprise for that. That completed in May final yr.
“Since May, our underwriting teams in the regions… have been out there on the front foot reengaging, and rebuilding with brokers, and getting back to that profitable growth agenda. That’s going well, you can feel the energy back in the business.”
Learnings from Robert Hiscox [former Hiscox chair]…
“I had the good fortune to report to Robert Hiscox for a couple of years when I was in London and there were two things that he always used to say to me. One was, ‘I’ll forgive you for losing the money occasionally but never ever put me in a position where you lose me my reputation’. That’s always stuck with me. The other one was ‘volume is vanity, profit is sanity’.”
Offering an “arm around the shoulder”…
“I bear in mind the time the place once I joined Hiscox, I regarded to others for hope and reassurance, and generally an arm across the shoulder. And it’s abruptly occurred, and I don’t know when, however you look again and say: ‘Blimey, I’m that particular person now. I’m the person who different individuals look to for reassurance and a little bit of hope when issues are robust, and a little bit of teaching.’
“[I was recently asked by someone] what piece of recommendation I might give them that has labored for me, and what I mentioned to them is that there are two issues I at all times search for in individuals who work within the enterprise.
“One is just coming to work every day with a great attitude. The other one is coming to work and making a difference. If you do those two things, you get noticed and doors open, because who wouldn’t want a person in the business on their team that’s got those two traits?”