​Former Beazley head joins McLarens for newly created leadership position

Global insurance services provider McLarens has appointed Beazley’s head of data management Jennifer Barclay in the newly created leadership role of global head of data and analytics strategy.

She will be based in London and report to Adam Weiner, McLarens’ senior vice-president for technology strategy and operations.

Barclay will oversee a team of data professionals and take the lead on the development and implementation of McLarens’ strategy on data capture, processing and delivery, as well as championing a data driven decision culture across the global business.

Graham Smart, McLarens’ chief commercial officer, said: “Barclay is a true leader in her field and is highly experienced in cutting edge technologies, as well as all aspects of regulatory compliance. Her experience of working with brokers and insurers in this regard will be hugely beneficial.”

Better data, better decisions

Barclay has 13 years’ experience within the insurance sector, having worked at both national and international businesses - including Crawford and Company and NFU Mutual.

Most recently, she was insurer Beazley’s global head of data management.

Barclay said: “Tech and innovation are clearly key pillars of McLarens’ growth strategy and I’m delighted to take on this important role in supporting the business to [become] a truly data driven organisation.”

Her new role will focus on data governance and quality, through to analysis and visualisation.

She will also have oversight of the development of McLarens’ predictive analytics modelling capabilities.

Working with McLarens One, which is the firm’s end-to-end global claims platform, Barclay’s team will aim to drive innovation and deliver global data sets and dashboarding.

To do this, they will use data mining - the process of extracting large data sets - predictive modelling to hypothesise future outcomes using data and machine learning.

This approach seeks to provide proactive insights to support the firm’s insurer and broker clients in modelling around indemnity spend, emerging risk and claims handling.

Smart continued: “Better data drives better decisions and outcomes for all stakeholders and this vital role demonstrates our commitment both to client delivery and to our wider digital strategy, in which we are making significant investment.

“The way that we collect and distribute information to clients is rapidly evolving, improving the speed and quality of our client response and allowing for better loss estimates, reducing indemnity spend and facilitating a quicker resolution of claims.”