Innovation Ecosystems and Global Market Transformation with Dawn Miller from Lloyd's

0:00On this episode of the InsureTech Geek Podcast, we explore innovation ecosystems, global market transformation, and the future of insurance with Dawn Miller, Chief Commercial Officer Lloyds, and CEO of Lloyds America.

0:25The Insure Tech Geek podcast is all about insurance and how it's being transformed by technology. Join us on a disruptive journey, interviewing the leading voices of the insurance industry from all around the world. So, enjoy the ride and geek out.

1:09on. Really well, thank you. Fabulous energy here today, right? It is. It's a great conference. It is. It turns out the Brits know how to put on a conference. That, 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 InsureTechConnect ITC, but you look at the majority of the rest of the conferences are all won out of England. I don't know what it is about those Brits, but 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.

1:38And you live in London and you obviously with the role you play at Lloyd's, you're at the mother show. Yep. I just got back from my very first visit to maybe we call it the insurance mile in London. Right. It was eye opening, incredible. It's impressive, isn't it? It is. I've been insured 25 years. I never imagined there would be a place where everybody worked in insurance. 50 ,000 people all in that space, just moving and living through. It's fantastic. It's incredible. All from a coffee shop. Yeah. And think about the things we can solve, you know, together. And we do. Yeah. It's exciting. So we're going to talk about that in a second, but just real brief, like, where are you from originally?

2:14Where were you born and raised? I'm from Georgia. I grew up in Georgia. I went to university in Washington, D.C. I wanted to become the next head of the UN and I wanted to save the world. And it turns out I'm not saving it necessarily through diplomacy, but through risk transfer. There you go. Exactly. But But, you know, as all young students do when they're in Washington, D.C. at university, they carry on. They do their internships. And 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.

2:52And 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 economy. 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. I did have a brief moment as an entrepreneur for a couple of years in Eastern Europe. An entrepreneur in Eastern Europe? No, no, you had to skip over that. I did.

3:23I did. I did. Where in Eastern Europe? I was based in Prague and I was there for about two and a half years. I was going to guess Prague. I went to Prague in 1997. Yep. I stayed in the first Western hotel built after the fall. I was there shortly after that. I had the craziest experience in Prague. I ended up introducing mosh pitting to Prague. I like to go to concerts. I like to go dance. I love to go out. And Prague was the coolest place. It was like you had that feel of capitalism coming in and this new energy. of the West. I mean, very cool place. Absolutely. I think my first trip there would probably in 1990.

4:06And then when I went over there with my little company, it was in 96. So, and we were just highly focused on North American investors coming into the infrastructure space and how can you help them have a clear view of the opportunity. And we worked in collaboration with many of the big consulting firms there. So what a time to be alive, right? Anytime. But again, what it really taught me, what I took from that moment, like so many businesses, many fail, many succeed. This one was maybe marginally successful and then 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.

4:39And that's something that I think applies across any career. So let's talk about what, what led, I'm always interested in the path to Lloyd's and the path to chief commercial officer. Like that's a big deal. So when you help me understand what kind of led to you wanting to do this. Yeah, sure. So again, I've spent the last 25 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 for the good times and the bad.

5:13What 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 343, 338 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 solving tomorrow's challenges.

5:59And I want to be a part of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think a lot of us do. A lot of us want to be part of something really big. I don't, you know, meaning is something I think all of us look for in our careers and having, like doing something that afterwards you look back and say, yeah, I made the business community in the world and my industry better. And 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 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.

6:36When 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 3 500 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 your chief commercial officer you're ceo of americas voids americas 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 times fantastic that's great that's I'll try not to talk about it too much.

7:09I know. I do love it. I'm super proud of it and everything from its creation to where we are today. I'm going to try not to fanboy out on the Lloyds lab. We'll see how we do at the end. Many of the initiatives that are shaping the whole marketplace, not just Lloyds, what is that role? Because you have two roles. Yeah. What's it look like? Yeah. What does that look like day to day? And 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 200 trading rights. We have 25 offices around the world. We've got three insurance companies.

7:41We've got a lot moving. And for us, we are that front line. 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, et cetera. And most importantly, our investors and managing agents. So we are accountable for making sure that that landscape that everyone's operating on 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.

8:14And so that is what our teams do. So when you think about a landscape or a garden, right, my colleagues who work in performance management or in 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 write the business that they want to. They've got to perform. They've got to carry on 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.

8:44We've got interface with brokers and intermediaries. We're working on our brand. 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 kind of goes back to what I said earlier. What is our narrative? How do we show up? And it is on us to make sure that others understand the Lloyd's market. We can't just say, we started in a coffeehouse, which we're super proud of. We've been here for 338 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 our story is clear and that 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.

9:29So 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 the edge of the market? How do we, who do we? Does pushing the digital market mean covering uncovered risks? What does that mean? What it means is going out to new parties to say, 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?

10:01whether it's a balance sheet challenge at a large carrier, whether it's creating a reinsurance captive, whether it's helping a new business thrive that is tackling topics around resilience or large infrastructure, etc. So I spend 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.

10:33But 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. Yes. 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 London, but 60 percent of our revenues are the premiums for the marketplace come out of North America.

11:11We are growing hand over fist in Asia and other emerging areas as the change in their markets places 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. That's cool. I was I wouldn't because I talked to a lot of my friends that aren't in insurance.

11:43And I try to explain 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 a challenge. And I never worked at Lloyd's or a syndicate or anyone. But I work for a lot of insurance companies who have Lloyd's somewhere up in that tower. Yeah, sure. There's a syndicate somewhere in there. Yeah. That's why I always feel like even... I almost feel like Lloyd's is the invisible hand at some point. Because it's somewhere in the transaction stack. And we're very proud of that, that the talent that is in our marketplace, that our managing agents and our insurance syndicates can write those risks and attach to those risks.

12:20And the invisible hand, I would say, 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 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 market? Very cool. Let's talk about ecosystems. Yep. You know, you're speaking here about ecosystems. Yep. And you really think about why those define the future of insurance and also like tackling questions, the biggest ideas in insurance and what they are today.

13:02But like, I really want to about ecosystems because a lot of people use the word ecosystems. I'm not sure they know what it means. I agree. It's just like, and I'm really big on defining words because my English teacher was British and senior of high school in Southern Louisiana. And it's amazing. That's like a, wow. You're from Georgia. You're from Georgia. 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. Farther north. It's, it's, oh, farther north than Calhoun. Okay. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Almost Tennessee.

13:33So I'm actually going to North Georgia Sunday to drop my daughter off for camp. Oh, well, good. Well done. Way north Georgia. Jasper. Oh, right. Okay. So 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. So please define ecosystem for me. Well, I'm not sure I have the exact Webster dictionary definition. There is no right definition. Yeah, exactly. But to me, you're right, a lot of people are allergic to the word ecosystem because we use it all the time. And to me, it's a way to describe the multiple parties, interconnectedness, and the intersection of multiple stakeholders and needs into one place, that they're all supporting and contributing to each other.

14:19And 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 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've worked in a few industries outside of insurance where I had to build software projects or technology initiatives. I'm a politician as well, so I'm currently chairman of the board of Texas Southern University.

14:54Governor Abbott put me on that six years ago. And so I do have to lead a public university, which is a very, very, very different beast. And a fascinating type of ecosystem, right? It is. That 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 themselves. Insurance is really interesting because, you know, 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, could be your client the following.

15:27And so by careful, you have to always treat everyone as if they're really critical because they actually are really critical. Yes, absolutely. of what goes on. 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. And also within ecosystem, I think it's, 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?

16:00Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. And you have the ability to actually diagram and track transaction flow through an ecosystem, though, right? I mean, you actually have the data on the ecosystem, right? We do. Which is something that's kind of unique. It is. It is. I'm not sure we're absolutely maximizing it right now as much as we can. And we certainly would never look to maximize that in a way that is not for the benefit 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.

16:30So 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 and 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 it's certainly not as advanced as one might think we would have done. Yeah, it's really interesting. Lloyd's is known from being kind of old school in some regards where people still come into the office and work together and they kind of go around to the different desks.

16:58and you, which I love and appreciate because insurance is about risk transfer and sharing risk. Insurance also has a human in the loop, right? Because you're making a promise. And I think we've got to 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 in too. But what's been cool for me is that you have this very traditional, and by the way, impressive because I don't know of any other company that's been around this long, 330? Eight years. That's mind blowing. The statistical probability of that happening is one thousandth of one percent of surviving that long.

17:34So kudos. You have Lloyd's Lab, which is doing some of the coolest stuff I've been covering for the last seven years on the podcast inside this very traditional, very buttoned up insurance company. It's a huge credit to those that started it when it got started. Yeah. So how did it get? 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 marketplace is known for the first of most policies and most lines of business that you're familiar with, the first D &O, first cyber, first space, autonomous vehicle, all of that.

18:12And 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, 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 ensure 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 10-week accelerator program with one idea and come out with another, possibly with capacity and contracts.

18:56About 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 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 some of the risk issues, the horses, 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.

19:28We 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'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 10 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 proof of concept service contract.

20:03And 95 % of those companies are still in the insurance market today. That is, seriously, that's the success rate on this. Yeah, 85 % are still in the Lloyd's space. We've had some great fundraisings on NASDAQ. Sixfold, I'm just going to see them later today. They did a bit of fundraise on NASDAQ. We've also had some great acquisitions, Credit Cap being a great example of that. We have others like Testudo who are pushing the envelope on Gen.ai. So we feel very proud because with that also comes a methodology around what is the problem statement? What is the methodology for testing and learning?

20:37And 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 fund, so we really keep that separate, for those that are not going to be risk-taking. They're just providing services, which is vital. It's about a 50-50 split. So some of the operational efficiency teams, there is an opportunity for that investment. Amazing. So last 30 seconds that we have, what are you most excited about with Lloyd's for the next year?

21:13Looking 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 whether it's through facilities, new entrants, et cetera, so that plus bringing in the power of AI to help us be more operationally efficient in our own business, and 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.

21:48You know, I've been writing software since I was 11. I'm 46 years old, 35 years building software. And I said that's, people have a lot of doom and gloom around AI. And I'm like, look, honestly, I think this is going to be the best thing ever for getting rid of all this menial stuff that we hate doing. Exactly. And a lot of there's, I think we're in a transition though. So I'm hopeful that we're resilient through the transition. It's, there's a lot of, I think, some scaremongering about will this allow, will people be out of a job? It's going to change the jobs that are required, change the skill that's required.

22:16And 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, way stronger than expected. Yes, absolutely. We're multiple years into LLMs being adopted and we're still seeing strong hiring demand.

22:45We need new types of rules and new types of thinking. And we also are in the middle of a demographic crunch. And last I checked, every insurance company I work for needs more underwriters and adjusters and qualified people. And also 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. And my whole industry didn't exist 75 years ago. There you go. Excellent. Dawn, thank you so much. No, this has been so fun. We appreciate your time. Thank you. you out there in listener land for tuning in today to geek out our interview with Don Miller from Lloyd's.

23:16We're here at InsurTech Insights New York 2026. Enjoy the ride and geek out.

23:41Thank you.