{"id":9949,"date":"2025-04-10T11:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T11:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"httpss:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/?p=9949"},"modified":"2025-04-10T11:19:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T11:19:03","slug":"voi-podcast-with-andrew-horton-group-ceo-qbe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/content\/voi-podcast-with-andrew-horton-group-ceo-qbe\/","title":{"rendered":"QBE&#8217;s Horton: &#8216;We&#8217;ve moved from remediation to growth&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe title=\"Ep248 Andrew Horton QBE: Growth from a position of strength\" 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=dseb7-1873bc0-pb&#038;from=pb6admin&#038;share=1&#038;download=1&#038;rtl=0&#038;fonts=Tahoma&#038;skin=3267a3&#038;font-color=&#038;logo_link=episode_page&#038;btn-skin=3267a3 loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>Three and a half years into his tenure as group CEO of QBE, Andrew Horton exudes calm confidence. After a period of reshaping the business and resolving legacy issues, Horton says the group is now poised for broad-based expansion, from QBE Re, to mid-market Australian business, to cyber around the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to see growth in almost every area in 2025,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at growing QBE Re, growing our facilities\u2014portfolio solutions in London\u2014expanding our accident and health business in the US, and growing our cyber business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That breadth reflects QBE\u2019s global footprint and diverse offering. \u201cThe beauty about the company being in 26 countries and the diverse product set\u2014there are opportunities in quite a lot of places,\u201d Horton adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cyber stands out as a fast-developing area. \u201cQBE, when I joined, had a cyber book that was working pretty well, but we are looking to grow it, join it up more from a global perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A similar strategy applies to the group\u2019s reinsurance arm. \u201cQBE Re has been about 10% of our premiums. I\u2019d like it to be slightly larger than that\u2014growing it in a balanced way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>QBE\u2019s US operations, once a focus of remediation, are also ready to pivot. \u201cOur US business has been in heavy remediation for a year or two or three. Now we have the US in a good place. We have this opportunity looking at things we can grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The heavy lifting appears to be paying off. Horton says: \u201c2024 was an excellent year for the company. It was a relatively highly catastrophic year, and we came under our catastrophe allowance, despite bearing a reasonable-sized loss in New Caledonia\u2026It was the first time the company had hit its plan since 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Balance and opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Horton is keenly aware of the need to manage growth without compromising QBE\u2019s balance sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been doing is trying to dampen down the volatility of old,\u201d he says. \u201cOnce you&#8217;ve got the portfolio in good balance, then you can look at how you grow it without putting it out of balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On pricing, he is pragmatic. \u201cAlmost everything we&#8217;ve got is rate adequacy at this point in time. It looks as though, in certain areas, it\u2019s going to dial back, but there are a number of areas that aren&#8217;t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Asked about the prospect of M&amp;A, Horton is clear that organic growth is preferable, and benefits from the kind of stable platform he wants to continue to build out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBuying companies is tough to do, especially on the underwriting side. We\u2019d rather grow organically,\u201d says Horton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His confidence is underpinned by QBE\u2019s geographical mix. \u201cWe\u2019ve got about 25\u201330% of our business in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands; about 35\u201340% international, based out of London; and about 35% in North America\u2026We have a better geographic balance than almost any other insurer in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Horton also highlights progress on bringing the organisation closer together, something that matters for a product such as cyber insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s an initiative called Bring the Enterprise Together, which I\u2019ve personally sponsored,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He lists several initiatives, including portfolio transfers that have helped focus efforts on the future. \u201cWe\u2019ve set up product committees, and knowledge sharing has been a major breakthrough,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The role of AI and facilitation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>QBE is also investing cautiously in artificial intelligence (AI), Horton explains, harnessing the insurers riches of data. He\u2019s keen to learn more about AI\u2019s opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAI is really good at summarising, looking for things within unstructured data,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve launched a cyber co-pilot, which is looking at submissions coming in and assessing whether they are in line with what we would like to underwrite. That\u2019s increased the productivity of our cyber team\u2014and now we want to scale it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Horton is mindful of the hype. \u201cAI is something I need to continue to learn about. I was likening it to being in the fog. Someone tells me something exciting, and then throws me back into the fog,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keeping with the focus on scalability, Horton is optimistic about the potential for facilitation and algorithmic underwriting in the London market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe write just over a billion dollars in facilities. Some have been around for more than a decade. Generally, they\u2019ve worked out well. Our costs are lower to run the facilities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, he sees limits. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine [facilities] being more than 25-30% of the market. There\u2019s got to be a balance between the facilitation and the open market underwriting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for Lloyd\u2019s, with change at the top in 2025 \u2013 including a new chair, CEO and chief financial officer \u2013 Horton supports a steady hand on the tiller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve done a good job\u2014focused on performance, on making the market more efficient, and on bringing more people into the market to make it more substantial. It\u2019s more of the same, with an opportunity to build on what\u2019s gone before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three and a half years into his tenure as group CEO of QBE, Andrew Horton exudes calm confidence. After a period of reshaping the business and resolving legacy issues, Horton says the group is now poised for broad-based expansion, from QBE Re, to mid-market Australian business, to cyber around the globe. \u201cI\u2019d like to see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26],"tags":[35,10,39,14],"line-of-business":[24,28,20],"class_list":["post-9949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts","category-latest-insights","tag-exact-max","tag-exposure","tag-reinsurance","tag-underwriting-workbench","line-of-business-cyber","line-of-business-general-liability","line-of-business-property"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9949","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=9949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9949"},{"taxonomy":"line-of-business","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/line-of-business?post=9949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}