Speaking to a packed audience at the Insurance Insider’s Pre-Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous Executive Briefing, Martin Sullivan, Deputy Chairman of Willis Group and CEO of Willis Global Solutions said: “The insurance industry is fundamental to creating prosperity out of poverty, transforming simple prosperity into wealth, and protecting that hard-earned wealth from chance and lawlessness.”
In his speech entitled “Insurance: The Underwriter of Progress”, Sullivan outlined the opportunities for the insurance industry that are being generated from challenges facing the developed world and the booming global middle class in developing markets.
Sullivan emphasised the integral importance of traditional underwriting in this rapidly changing environment and told delegates that “Underwriters, especially in times of emerging uncertainty, are the heart and soul of any risk-taking venture.”
In an age of austerity, Sullivan said that as governments scale back, they will have to partner with the insurance industry on finding ways to spread the costs for injury compensation and rebuilding. “It is in the interest of individual insurers to participate at the local and national levels to find solutions for perils that have previously been ‘insured’ by taxpayers,” he said. Sullivan added that products will need to be found for previously “uninsurable” risks like global warming, public health, food supply and water scarcity.