Markel’s Wilson wants to rediscover ‘founder mentality’

Markel Insurance has emerged from sweeping organizational changes, including exiting the reinsurance underwriting business, with a renewed focus on specialty insurance.

Simon Wilson, Chief Executive of Markel Insurance, has set out a vision for a leaner specialty insurer built around empowered underwriters, data-driven decision making and closer alignment to customers.

The London market carrier has undergone significant restructuring in the past year, he told the Voice of Insurance podcast, hosted by Mark Geoghegan, produced in association with AdvantageGo.

Wilson said the resulting specialty-focused insurance business had moved “from what was a matrix structure” into distinct P&Ls “with clear leaders on top of each unit”.

He described that newly simplified structure and clarity as essential to restoring accountability and speeding up decision making.

Previously the firm was trying to do too many things at once, he suggested, lacking the scale to succeed at them all – hence the decision to exit the reinsurance stage.

“We had to make the difficult decision to sell the renewal rights of Global Re,” he said, referring to its global reinsurance book, with renewal rights sold to Nationwide and Ryan Specialty, announced in August.

“If I look back on it now, have we become a leaner, more focused organization on the back of these changes?” Wilson said. “One hundred percent, yes,” he added.

There is still plenty to do, he acknowledged, such as to realign its claims teams, technology and operations staff directly into the new business units.

However, the “vast majority” of the transformation is already done, he revealed.

Empowerment over committees

Wilson was candid about the problems created by the previous matrix.

“Everyone was in charge, but no one was responsible,” he said, suggesting most large corporates can fall into similar traps.

He wants decisions instead pushed as close to the customer as possible and believes the new structure at Markel Insurance supports that.

The new-look insurer gives underwriters and other leaders more delegated responsibility and accountability within the business, he stressed.

“We are going to trust you a little bit more than maybe you had done in that matrix structure that got in the way,” he said.

He also linked structural clarity to culture, motivation and performance, which can decline over time if good work is overlooked within a bureaucracy.

“If no one can see you are doing a good job, what is the point, and the whole organization becomes a little bit apathetic,” he warned.

He described the need to regain what management consultant Bain & Company calls the founder’s mentality.

“You lose that as you get middle-aged as an organization. Committees and structures creep in, and the edge ebbs away,” he emphasised.

AI and real-time underwriting

Wilson sees technology as central to restoring that edge. Markel already gave every employee access to Microsoft Copilot to encourage daily AI use.

 He called this “table stakes” for 2025, but said it was already improving efficiency.

The next step is automation of data ingestion, he explained, with the most transformative opportunity in underwriting.

He pointed to the business of insuring legal risks associated with mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and specifically the insurer’s the warranty and indemnity (W&I) team in the London market, as a place where big gains are being made.

Here, Markel has deployed Harvey, an AI system capable of reading through what previously meant sifting through the mountains of legal paperwork that come with any M&A deal.

“What might take a week for an underwriter, Harvey can read in less than 10 minutes,” Wilson said.

“It means we can make a better decision and clearly a lot quicker,” he continued.

He added he believes this will improve risk selection, widen the universe of deals Markel can quote and free specialists to focus on judgement rather than paperwork.

For instance, he suggested some smaller M&A deals would be more profitable to underwrite, but the workload had led underwriters to previously prioritise mega-deals, meaning lucrative underwriting growth opportunities were being lost.

Specialty growth

Markel’s ambition is straightforward, he suggested.

“We want to be known as the preeminent specialty insurance company on the planet,” Wilson said.

He believes the opportunity is huge, given the firm’s small market share outside the US, with much now depending on performance and momentum for the slimmed-down insurer.

“The one biggest thing that carries you through is results. If we can start putting some runs on the board, people will say this thing is working, and they will want to be part of it,” he said.

This rediscovered competitiveness is part of the founder mentality referred to throughout the conversation.

“I view this as becoming competitive again, being out there and trying to beat the next guy. It gets the juices flowing,” Wilson added.