About me

About me

My name is Tim Jaggs.  ‘You should get out more’ is advice that has been thrown at me so often, I finally decided to take the hint…  

First, I use it as my blogging home.  

Second, I have just moved to Canada – from the UK.  I used to work in the Lloyd’s of London insurance market – for nearly 30 years; I now work for Integro in Vancouver.

I have set this blog up so you can see all that I witter about or just the bits you find interesting.

In Live I talk about things people who know us might be interested in.  For example, we moved here for many, mainly family related reasons.  We all love it.  When I say “we” though, I mean those of us who have made the move.  Some have had to stay behind and I hope the thoughts and observations I share here will let them know of our doings and let others see how we fare as we settle into our new home.  Go here for stuff about our daily lives here in Canada.

In Work I talk about the differences between working in London and Canada.  I worked in the Lloyd’s of London insurance market for 30 years.  I have always worked on unusual and hard to place, unusual or distressed business and I would like to continue to do so now I have come to Canada.  The only problem is, I’m not sure how much of this kind of business there currently is in Canada. My specialties are: 

Distribution – insurance, reinsurance and programs; assessment, design and placement

exposures – professional liability, directors and officers liability, financial institutions, employment practices liability, sexual misconduct liability, information and cyber risks, general liability and crime

If this sounds like a lot, it is and it reflects 30 years experience operating in a marketplace that demanded constant reinvention and re-education to remain competitive.

In this section I will comment on what I see as the differences between operating in London in a wholesale market and operating here in Canada in what, I suspect, will be a much more retail focused environment.

I am not sure if the advice that ‘I should get out more’ was offered because I work in insurance and people feel sorry about that or because I tell people that I find the confluence of risk, insurance and social technology fascinating and so scare people.  As I use the ‘Insurance 2.0′ part of this blog to think through and share some of my thoughts about the future of insurance, you can decide for yourself.

Go here for stuff about working in Canada.

Insurance user manual is all about helping people make better insurance decisions by explaining some of the choices that are available in different areas of coverage.  I put this together for two reasons.

First, I hope people will trust what I say and ask me to help them with insurance consulting.

Second, nn my day job, I tend to broke unusual and hard to place casualty risks - maybe because the coverage is new, the structure unusual or the class distressed.  Doing this kind of work, I have found that too many insurance buyers are confused about either core insurance concepts or about the choices that are usually available to them – and which their insurer or broker often decide for them – not always to the buyers advantage.   

Now, it is fair to say that every profession – at least as far as I’ve been able to tell – uses its own particular jargon.  Some admit they use it to confuse others, some concede jargon gives a better impression of competence and some are quite clear jargon protects their particular specialty with high learning barriers to entry.

I’m not sure if this behaviour is really acceptable in any professional and, to be fair I should acknowledge that the best professionals I have worked with have always sought to ensure their customers clearly understand the advice they are being given. That said however, I think it is of particular importance in insurance, that buyers have a very clear understanding of the nature of the product they are or are not buying. There is absolutely no point in buying a promise from a third party – the essence of the insurance contract – if the buyer is uncertain about the promise they have bought or worse, if the buyer’s lack of knowledge leads to genuine uncertainty over whether the promise can be met.

The purpose of this user manual is therefore to try to inform buyers about what they are being offered, what some of their options might be and which questions they might want to think about asking, to see what makes sense in their specific situations.  Clearly, I can’t possibly know what each reader’s specific situation is. The advice here is therefore necessarily extremely general; you must seek the advice of an insurance broker to pick through what is and is not relevant to you. Naturally, if you would like to call me, I should be delighted to try to assist…!

The user manual takes two forms;

1) there is a lexicon of insurance terms.

2) there are blog posts, where I will discuss examples of the choices my customers have made in different situations in the past, in the hope that any similarities are helpful to new buyers.

Go here for up-dates to the insurance user manual.

Insurance 2.0 is why I really need to get out more.  Let me start by saying this is very much ‘work in progress’.

I developed the idea for the user manual because I thought buyers should be better informed about their options; I also realised they were making mistakes that were costing them coverage which, for those with claims, could cost $millions.  I also realised it wasn’t just those for claims that were paying for these mistakes; the mistakes are so common and the possibility of avoiding claims so significant, that every insurer verifies whether the mistakes have been made or not, in every claim they investigate   This adds to the premiums every buyer pays – whether they have claims or not – because this additional cost has to be borne from the overall premium pot.   

This is a potty situation.  In this part of the blog, I will ponder how I think the industry will change to eliminate these costs.  You will see that I have already got to the point where I believe that, far beyond simply eliminating some of the cost of the insurance process, I think far more significant benefits are potentially possible.

Please note that all the comments, opinions and whatever else I post on this site are mine and my responsibility alone, not those of my employer.

Thanks for stopping by. 

Please feel free to contact me through the form below.