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“Insurance is a three hundred, four hundred, year old industry,” Richard Wheeler, Aon’s co-leader of Global Re Specialty reflects. “But the opportunities ahead still significantly outweigh the journey that the market has been on. Because everything requires insurance.”

Wheeler would know. In his role he ranges across global challenges, in the world’s richest and poorest countries. 

He advises global reinsurance companies and syndicates on how to manage their exposure to catastrophic incidents, from floods to wildfires and everything in between. Fundamentally his job is to offer solutions that bring risk exposure down to acceptable levels. And that, he tells me, is becoming more of an issue as the world becomes a more volatile place, at least when it comes to natural disasters. 

“Our clients need to be profitable enterprises whilst managing the volatility of catastrophe risk. And catastrophe risk is both a severity and a frequency problem. 

“We’re obviously in a period of climate change with heighted dialogue around the severity of hurricanes, the impact of earthquakes and floods, and secondary perils: floods, hailstorms, freezes, wildfire. That’s created a significant amount of loss in the marketplace,” he tells me. Wheeler has seen the reinsurance market react as it always does – by resetting. “The whole market took a reset at the start of this year, both on the level of coverage and the price.” 

That’s the adaptability that has been a hallmark of the industry since it first emerged in the alleyways of London centuries ago. Insurance and reinsurance are fundamentally about managing risk at both ends – and these risks have been around since the dawn of the industry. But with more of these events occurring, the importance of managing the risk – and of being able to model that risk – has increased. But it’s not just frequency – Wheeler tells me there’s a raft of factors pushing up the need for reinsurance solutions. More people live in urban areas, for instance, pushing up the potential for loss if natural catastrophes strike cities. The cost of rebuilding has also increased, with supply chains challenged post-pandemic. Wheeler is rightly evangelical about the industry’s complexity – and the reward of taking on the challenge. 

“Insurance is a mystery to most people. There’s a whole ecosystem behind it,” he tells me, and that ecosystem is the “lubricant” of economic development across the world. 

“There is an enormous amount of investment in science, analytics, stochastic modelling, and we invest in a ton of really smart people: engineers, actuaries, mathematicians, geologists, everything you can possibly imagine to understand these risks and projects.”

Wheeler, who is still some way from veteran status, has nonetheless seen plenty of change in the industry.

“It used to be about school badges and football badges, but it’s changed completely,” he says.

Those projects can range broadly. Wheeler says what gets him excited is the knowledge that the industry is constantly evolving to ensure that the challenges of the 21st century come with 21st century solutions, whether looking at flood defences in the Thames or projects to prevent disastrous drought or flooding in Africa. 

“It’s probably not spoken of enough how much investment the insurance industry has made to safeguard the ordinary man on the street in every location across the world, whether it’s building a dam or a bridge and the employment that comes from all the supporting sectors and industries. 

“I’ve been very privileged to work with big complex global firms, and the challenges they face are big and complex. That allows you to get really stuck into the depths of it, but also see the strategy of how they deal with risk, at both 10,000 feet and ground level at 10 feet,” he tells me.