Dramatic change – and lots more to come

Airmic's retiring PR consultant Mark Baylis has watched the association from the inside since January 2003. He looks back on a period of rapid change - and predicts more to come.

In some ways Airmic has changed almost out of all recognition, in others it has remained the same as ever. The association has always in my experience been highly effective, but eleven and a half years ago it was by its own description a body that reacted to events rather than trying to set an agenda.

To be fair, it carried out its remit with extraordinary vigour and with success. In 2004, it launched a fierce assault on the FSA over new rules that threatened corporate insurance buyers with regulation, leading some members to contemplate a move of their risk management functions overseas. The then chairman Nick Chown gained extensive headlines for his annual conference speech in which he accused the FSA of not understanding its own rules. Executive director David Gamble obtained QC's opinion backing Airmic's position, which the FSA then accepted. The episode greatly enhanced the association's reputation - not least with the regulator itself.

A year later the big topic was broker remuneration. Eliot Spitzer dropped a bombshell in New York, when the Attorney-General declared many broker business models to be illegal. As other risk management associations sat on their hands, Airmic took the lead globally in demanding total transparency of what happens to policyholders' money. Whilst the situation is one that continues to demand close watching, the objective has been 99% achieved, at least as far as member companies are concerned.

For all these and other successes, Airmic was smaller and less ambitious than it is today. It had fewer resources and was consequently much less proactive than it has become. There was less emphasis on the softer and wider business skills required by risk managers, it could only afford to carry out a very limited amount of research and it was less well connected within the market. There was less appreciation of the continuum between insurance risk and enterprise risk, with some people wanting to confine them to separate silos. And there were fewer events of direct relevance to members.

You just have to look at the raw statistics to see the progress - membership up by about 40% during this time, well over half the membership attending at least one Airmic event every year (an exceptional level for any association) and participation at the annual conference and annual dinner up by over 100%.

A key step in this advance was the creation by Gamble, with Andrew Cornish as chair, of the partnership scheme, where leading companies agree to sponsor the association. Not only did this make a significant contribution to the finances, which became less dependent on membership subscriptions, it also greatly strengthened the association's ties with the market and the level of mutual understanding. The enormously successful Airmic Academy programme is one bi-product of this new relationship.

The extra money made possible the recruitment of Paul Hopkin as technical director, paving the way for the proliferation of research projects and technical publications that we have seen. More recently, Airmic has been able to further beef up its support for members with the appointment of R&D managers Georgina Wainwright and Katie Moore.

The arrival of John Hurrell was another milestone. Airmic had always been good at identifying problems within the insurance market, but under him it is now also seen to be very much part of the solution. It has systematically identified weaknesses and found answers. Reservation of rights, claims best practice, contract certainty, disclosure, basis clauses, warranties, global compliance... All have received the Airmic treatment.  None of these issues are totally resolved, but members are much better equipped to deal with them, especially now that we have the Insurance Efficacy guide, a massive piece of work that pulls together all the main aspects of good practice. The association is looking next at promoting insurance products for reputational loss - an enormous challenge if ever there was one.

A key to success has been what Hurrell described at the annual conference as 'triangulation' - the co-operation of buyers, brokers and underwriters to solve problems that would otherwise be too difficult. The recently-launched database of insurance regulations is a great example of how this can be beneficial, but the crowning glory has to be the Insurance Bill, which is expected to become law in 2016 (click here for full story). Airmic has been reticent about claiming credit for this massive modernisation of the legal framework for insurance. Be in no doubt, however, that its patient and persistent work in winning over the market was essential to making this legislation possible.

Away from insurance, Airmic has achieved unprecedented credibility and developed productive relationships with all sorts of organisations, most notably the IoD, ICSA, CIMA and Tomorrow's Company, following the publication of Roads to Ruin and then, earlier this year, Roads to Resilience.

Wider enterprise risk management will always be a difficult area. As Airmic frequently points out, risk is a board issue, yet the vast majority of its members do not sit at this level. Many, frankly, do not know how to make their skills strategically relevant within their organisations. This remains the biggest single challenge facing the association, and its services will have to evolve rapidly to meet them.

The young people I have met from fastTrack are aware that the role and skills required of the risk manager will have to develop. They are keen to learn from more experienced colleagues, but also to take things forward. They have the enticing prospect of wielding real strategic influence within their companies as they become more senior, but they will need a wider skill set. It will be interesting and hopefully exciting to watch this initiative grow.

What has not changed, thank goodness, is the type of person Airmic attracts. Apart from Nicholas Hughes (who embodies both the association's heritage and its capacity to look forward), all the board members in place when I arrived have moved on. The governing body (previously known as Council) now feels much more like a company board, with long-term planning and a consistent framework for its activities.

However, a strong sense of teamwork and absence of in-fighting are still among its hallmarks, and Airmic operates in a market where people really do honour their word. These qualities are something we take for granted, but are glaringly absent from many (probably most) other areas of public life. Wherever the association goes in the future, these intangible assets will be of incalculable value.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author

Mark Baylis