Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. You’re host, Jamie Gassmann, here with the Workplace MVP podcast and we are broadcasting from the Riskworld 2022 Expo Hall in R3 Continuum’s booth. And with me is Paul Jenkins from Lockton Companies. Welcome to the show.

Paul Jenkins: [00:00:37] Hello, y’all.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:40] Playing off of our producers, y’all. I love it. If you learned anything at RIMS, it was y’all.

Paul Jenkins: [00:00:46] Absolutely.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:47] Well, welcome to the show. We’re happy to have you.

Paul Jenkins: [00:00:49] Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:50] Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about what Lockton does and your background.

Paul Jenkins: [00:00:53] Yeah. So, Lockton Companies is an insurance broker and they are a broker for all lines of business, looking to provide solutions from an insurance perspective for their clients.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:04] And, you’ve been in the industry quite a while.

Paul Jenkins: [00:01:06] Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:07] I think you shared with me you started as an underwriter. So, tell me a little bit about your background.

Paul Jenkins: [00:01:10] Yeah. Okay. So, I left school. I wanted to be an architect. And, in London – in the London market, you don’t have to study to get into insurance. You tend to get into insurance by accident. So that’s what happened to me. I started my career as a cat modeller. So, I was doing RMS scheduling and running some analysis from that. And from there really, it just sort of happened by osmosis. I got into underwriting, as a result working in the Lloyd’s market, always doing property insurance. And I’m now a broker at Lockton.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:43] Wonderful. And, what has the last few years looked like in the broker kind of world going through the pandemic and some of the changes that have happened in the business world?

Paul Jenkins: [00:01:54] Yeah. A real challenge for us in London on the basis that, you know, in the Lloyd’s mMarket, it’s the oldest insurance market in the world, you know, and that it’s a marketplace. It’s been going for about 350 years. And most businesses still transacted face-to-face, so person-to-person in one place in a market, and lockdown prevented us from doing that because we didn’t have a marketplace. So, we adapted ever so quickly with Zoom, WebEx, iMessage, however you’re doing this stuff.

Paul Jenkins: [00:02:27] But, yeah, it’s been difficult because you’ve essentially been working in isolation and you would normally have your team around you. And we do work as a team. We’re a close-knit team and the youngsters learn from being in-situ and, you know, listening and taking on board what’s going on around them. So, it’s been a challenge for a number of reasons. You know, from a trade perspective, it’s been difficult. From a coaching perspective and a learning perspective, it’s been a challenge. But we’ve managed to do it and we’ve managed to grow our book. So, you know, we’ve got more clients now than we had prior to the lockdown and we’ve got high revenues than we had prior to the lockdown. So, I suppose on reflection, it’s really quite incredible that we’ve been able to do what we did.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:10] Yeah, I bet. And so, your clients that you have that you’re speaking of, are they mostly in just London or is it kind of a global kind of clientele or?

Paul Jenkins: [00:03:20] My clients will be North American clients.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:23] Okay.

Paul Jenkins: [00:03:23] So, they’ll be in America or in Canada.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:26] Great. And then, I’m sure Lockton is kind of a global, anywhere that they might be located, and broadly you guys can support them.

Paul Jenkins: [00:03:32] Yeah. We’ve got a big network and a really successful network in the U.S.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:37] Yeah.

Paul Jenkins: [00:03:37] And, we’re growing our footprint globally. So, we’ve just opened offices in South America and in the Caribbean and in Australia and New Zealand. So, you know, we’re growing the footprint so that we can look after our clients as they expand and grow because many of our clients, you know, are growing internationally as well.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:55] Wonderful. And I know this is not your first room, so it’s not – you’ve been here before, but what is one of your most exciting, you know, or what are you most excited, I guess I should say, about being here at the show this year?

Paul Jenkins: [00:04:08] Yeah. It’s great to be able to travel again. Again, you know, we would often see our clients. Our clients come to London to meet with us and our underwriters, or we come to America to come and meet with our clients. So, it’s really wonderful to be able to meet people again. And many of these people are people I’ve met for the first time. So, they’re new clients. As I said, you know, we’ve been able to grow the portfolio of business that we have. We’ve done that successfully by providing amazing service, you know, to our clients to give them the best possible outcomes. And it’s nice just to, you know, make friends with new people and –

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:42] Yeah, totally.

Paul Jenkins: [00:04:43] And to be here together.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:44] Yeah. And the clientele that you have, just question, is there anything from a risk perspective or an insurance perspective that’s changed or shifted in terms of the types of things that they need support with?

Paul Jenkins: [00:04:56] It’s ever-evolving. So, take for example the current global environment with regards to supply chain. Supply chains are disrupted all over the place, and for some clients, they have coverage for this, and for others that they don’t. But just trying to identify how they are running their business and continuing to operate with all this challenge, you know, with their business, it’s something that you can only really understand once you’re talking to people and once you get, you know, underneath the – you can’t present this stuff in an email or in an Excel spreadsheet. So, you need to listen to the clients as to what their challenges are, understand the business need. And that allows us to provide them the best possible policy and the best possible coverage at the best possible terms so that, you know, they’ve got the cover that they need in the event of a disruption or loss.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:51] Yeah. And like kind of keeping like a pulse almost on what might be potentially a risk for them, too, as things continue to evolve. Because as I always say, you know, the complexities and challenges we’ve experienced over the last few years have required businesses to think of things differently.

Paul Jenkins: [00:06:06] Yeah. Absolutely.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:07] Because they’re faced with more.

Paul Jenkins: [00:06:08] Yeah. Absolutely.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:09] So, interesting.

Paul Jenkins: [00:06:09] And not just that many businesses had to either close or reduce, you know, their capacity or their ability to produce things, which meant that they might have laid staff off. And then, now having to challenge to try and –

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:23] Hire them.

Paul Jenkins: [00:06:23] Hire people. You know, there’s a real war on talent at the moment with regards to being able to get good people who know what they’re doing. And that in itself, you know, that might not be an insurable thing, but that in itself is a business problem that I think many people are at the moment trying to get their arms around.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:39] Yeah. Absolutely. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure to hear from you.

Paul Jenkins: [00:06:42] Yeah. Thank you.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:42] Yeah. So if people wanted to get a hold of you or to reach out to you about the services that Lockton Companies offers, how would they be able to do that?

Paul Jenkins: [00:06:50] Well, I suppose you could look on social media. There’s LinkedIn and others if I’m plugging, you know those platforms, or likewise, you can go on the website and we’ve got all the contact details that you need to be able to contact us.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:05] Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a pleasure.

Paul Jenkins: [00:07:08] Yeah. Thanks very much.

Outro: [00:07:14] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.