Change is the Only Constant – Ian Summers and Melody Miller on 2025 Challenges

Change is the only constant, as Greek philosopher Heraclitus preached.

Fast forward 2,500 years, and he could easily be referring to the London insurance market.

With artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and regulatory pressures in play, insurance leaders have plenty to consider.

Fortunately, help is at hand from Sea Change, a change management firm founded by Melody Miller and Sam Nowell.

Miller joined AdvantageGo’s Global Business Leader Ian Summers for a discussion with Voice of Insurance podcast host Mark Geoghegan.

Beginnings

Before founding Sea Change, Nowell and Miller worked at Lloyd’s on large change management programs, Brexit, and other operational transformations.

Using their deep insurance market knowledge, they created a consultancy to help companies navigate change.

“Unless you work in insurance, it’s not going to mean anything to you. If you’re talking about your AdvantageGo, all of these systems,” Miller explains.

The firm is female-owned, which gives it a unique perspective.

“That’s what we’re really passionate about,” she enthuses. “That’s how you change the space—by being female-owned. So, we really want to champion that.”

AdvantageGo Partnership

Being part of the AdvantageGo ecosystem is invaluable for Sea Change. It provides wide distribution and flexible access to their support.

“It gives us ‘that nice, seamless delivery,’” explains Miller.

Summers adds that AdvantageGo’s ambition is to ‘build that ecosystem which is full of real, deep domain expertise.’

Summers supports Sea Change’s mission, emphasising that managing change is critical for insurance businesses in the London market: “It always seems to come down to change management where we fail.”

Operational Resilience

Miller highlights a major challenge for London market insurance leaders—the ending of the regulatory transition period on March 31 for operational resilience.

The goal is to ensure firms can operate and provide essential services during significant disruptions, such as cyber-attacks or natural disasters.

“That deadline is getting closer; we’re getting lots of knocks on the door, and it’s one of our favourite subjects,” Miller notes.

“We’ve delivered it many, many times over. We worked with Lloyds last summer to put together a trends report to give a market view. We’ve got a really good idea of where the market is and what you need to get there.”

Blueprint Two Challenge

Blueprint Two is the manifestation of change. With shifting deadlines, it adds complexity to the digital transformation project. It’s a priority for AdvantageGo.

Summers states firmly: “It’s a necessary change that we need to make in the London market. A necessary evil, if you like; we’ve got to go through this pain to come out the other side.

And that project is to digitise the way we do the insurance risk transfer in the London market. Unfortunately, we’re sitting on 35-40 year-old technology. We say we’re not as efficient as everywhere else around the world.

“We are still getting away with it, but that’s not the right place to be. So, this investment is absolutely needed.”

Artificial Intelligence

Grappling with AI and its implications is huge. It’s not just about transforming work. It also raises regulatory and ethical concerns.

Miller explains: “If an AI machine is making decisions that could be discriminatory—you’re not allowed to use that, or you have to rate it, or you have to put it on a register.

“So, we’re already thinking about that. I think we’ve seen a sort of appetite for it; it’s very exciting. But A: how do you use it appropriately? And B: how do you use it to get the best of it?”

Summers takes a balanced view on AI, acknowledging the risks but highlighting significant upsides.

We look at it and the first things that jump to mind are the threats that you can bring in. Is it regulated well enough? Can it blow up the world if it takes over? Can it do me out of a job?

“When actually, where AI really is going to help us is understanding risk better. Making us more informed decisions.”

“That’s not taking the job away; that’s helping to define the risk that we’re trying to insure. The more information we can glean from that risk, the better we can price it.”