Crisis Management

James Hannan

Head of Crisis Management

The chance to join Convex as Stephen and Paul create something genuinely different was unmissable. This is the most exciting new company build in the 20 years I have worked in the London Market.

From a crisis management perspective, we have high-calibre people who are very well respected in the industry. I’m excited about bringing all that diverse experience together to build a winning team, and proud to be leading the build-out of this business unit.

I’m also determined that while our specialists are experts in their own field, they will have a good working knowledge of all the products in our diverse suite. For example, I’ve got 15 years’ experience in terrorism and political violence. But if I pick up the phone to a client or broker, I need to be able to talk about everything we offer.

We use our lack of legacy processes and liabilities to take a proactive, data-driven approach to developing the right cover, for the right clients.

This means we actively look for gaps in cover between sub-classes, and offer products or wording to sit across them. We remove those gaps and transfer the risk, rather than it sitting with you, the client or broker.

We’re also on the front foot with our clients, brokers and the wider market. For example, just because the market ascribes a certain value to a risk, doesn’t mean that’s its value.

We use Convex’s unique data and analytics platform to test what our 50 years of combined experience tells us. By comparing the risk with other, similar ones, we can develop our own view, backed by relevant data. As a result, we can be price givers, not price takers – and our clients and brokers can trust we’ve arrived at the right number.

Our focus is on building long-term partnerships with clients and brokers who are as serious about risk management as we are. We don’t exclude particular types of business; we cover clients globally against war, terrorism, political violence and other crisis management lines, including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism.

Thanks to the data, knowledge and experience on our team, we aren’t afraid of writing business in challenging territories. So while we’ll write market leading lines on risks with a benign frequency/severity balance, we’ll also support clients with operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. This both keeps us relevant for brokers and keeps our underwriters challenged and interested.