{"id":9766,"date":"2025-02-20T06:59:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T06:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"httpss:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/?p=9766"},"modified":"2025-03-07T06:53:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T06:53:29","slug":"voi-podcast-with-martin-burke-cuo-of-ms-amlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/content\/voi-podcast-with-martin-burke-cuo-of-ms-amlin\/","title":{"rendered":"From Countdown to Casualty (insurance) \u2013 MS Amlin\u2019s Martin Burke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe title=\"Ep242 Martin Burke CUO MS Amlin: Walking a squiggly career path through the market\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);height:150px;\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=5rkxs-180696a-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Tahoma&amp;skin=3267a3&amp;font-color=&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=3267a3\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>MS Amlin CUO Martin Burke has had \u201ca squiggly career path\u201d but he is a rare thing \u2013 someone who meant to become an actuary and work in insurance from the get-go.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Origin stories on Mark Geoghegan\u2019s Voice of Insurance podcast usually share something in common: the guest never intended to get into the insurance industry. Sure, they\u2019ve risen to prominence and success, but it was by accident at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not so MS Amlin\u2019s chief underwriting officer (CUO), Martin Burke, who actually studied and wanted to get into actuarial mathematics \u2013 the quantitative side of insurance \u2013 from the get-go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI always knew I wanted to be an actuary, so when I went to university, I studied actuarial mathematics,\u201d he says, prompting a double-take from the host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prompted to go a level deeper, he suggests \u201cit came with a fascination with the numbers game on Countdown\u201d, the long-running UK daytime TV show UK based around words and numbers games. The numbers game being \u201cthe bit I liked best\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt just naturally flowed into a tendency to like more mathematical subjects. I did science and maths, and then I sort of naturally flowed into being an actuary,\u201d Burke continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy sister was an accountant, my brother was an architect, so I started at \u2018A\u2019 on the careers list at the back of the [university applications] form, and I only got as far as actuary before I thought, \u2018that sounds like the right thing for me\u2019,\u201d he adds, more or less seriously, prompting howls of laugher from the host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was tempted to work in life insurance as much as property and casualty business, he suggests, but was soon corrected about which was the way to go. \u201cEveryone I met that summer said, \u2018You do not want to work in life insurance. You really want to go and work in general insurance,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No regrets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Burke\u2019s well rounded career spans reserving actuary, pricing, finance, risk, portfolio management and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/products\/underwriting\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/products\/underwriting\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">underwriting<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeople think of career paths. As like a straight Roman road, but often you can veer off the road because you have to experiment and try different things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By being \u201cdown in the engine room\u201d, he thinks those broader insights have helped. \u201cI realised I want to be involved in the story of the business \u2013 that&#8217;s the critical thing,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starting on the general insurance side of Commercial Union, his career took him on to Wellington Underwriting, bought by Catlin six years later, moving into pricing and finance, and taking him into the Lloyd\u2019s and London market, something about which he evidently has no regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat was about the year 2000 and I haven&#8217;t looked back since. Lloyd\u2019s and the London market: that&#8217;s the space I now realise I was lucky enough to join and get into,\u201d Burke says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His next move took him to Mitsui Sumitomo\u2019s Lloyd\u2019s syndicate, where he was a chief risk officer, joining \u201ca small syndicate\u2026at a really nice time for the business\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAn actuarial background seemed to push me in that direction. And I really enjoyed working in risk, because I&#8217;m a nosy individual by inclination, and I enjoyed getting involved in all the different parts of the business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Four years later, to 2016, the integration with Amlin occurred, bringing him to his current organization, working within <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/products\/exposure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">portfolio management<\/a>, working with analytics for which he said the risk and actuarial background came in handy. And in 2023, he was ready to step up the CUO role for MS Amlin, responsible for profitably growing a \u00a32bn ($2.5bn) book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s been really pleasing to move into a role where, I&#8217;m now responsible for the P&amp;L [profit and loss reporting], but I&#8217;ve been responsible for constructive criticism of the P&amp;L for quite a while. It\u2019s good to wear a different hat and take a different level of responsibility,\u201d Burke says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Casualty growth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Actuarial training and a focus on reserving are helpful for dealing with one of the industry\u2019s thornier issues at present for CUOs: casualty business. A strategy process undertaken in 2023 led to a focus on three specific areas of business. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/lines-of-business\/property\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/lines-of-business\/property\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Property<\/a> is a historical strength but not a growth area, because balance is needed elsewhere, he suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of this will come in the specialty part of the book \u2013 including things like crisis management and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/lines-of-business\/marine\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/lines-of-business\/marine\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">marine re\/insurance business<\/a> \u2013 but it is on the casualty side where MS Amlin has appetite for growth, he suggests, something that may work well for the firm as others hesitate or withdraw from this space amid reserving concerns, particularly in North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFundamentally, we were underweight in casualty business, both casualty insurance business and casualty treaty [reinsurance]. During 2024 and in 2025 we&#8217;re absolutely making steps in both those spaces. We intend to grow more than proportionately. We have an overarching aim to grow modestly over the period from $2bn towards $2.5bn [premium] over a three-to-five-year period,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After cautious optimism in discussions at Monte Carlo last year, he is upbeat about casualty performance in 2025 for the firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can take the opportunity here to put a shout out to our casualty and casualty treaty teams, because in terms of how things are performed in 2025 renewals, it&#8217;s been a fantastic start to the year, really pleasing\u2026and there&#8217;s a good pipeline of opportunities in both of those teams,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the primary side, MS Amlin\u2019s casualty emphasis is through managing general agents (MGAs), for which he emphasizes actively management of the coverholders involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Much of this business is insuring small to medium sized enterprises, and industries such as healthcare and low hazard occupancies, with US and international business, but avoiding large corporate casualty insurance. \u201cIn sticking with those niches, that really helps us to understand the risk to the best of our abilities,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MS Amlin CUO Martin Burke has had \u201ca squiggly career path\u201d but he is a rare thing \u2013 someone who meant to become an actuary and work in insurance from the get-go. Origin stories on Mark Geoghegan\u2019s Voice of Insurance podcast usually share something in common: the guest never intended to get into the insurance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26],"tags":[10,34],"line-of-business":[20,29],"class_list":["post-9766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts","category-latest-insights","tag-exposure","tag-exact","line-of-business-property","line-of-business-marine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9766"},{"taxonomy":"line-of-business","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/line-of-business?post=9766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}