On the QT: More bite, less blah

Are you, like me, struck by the absolute blandness of the leadership of our industry, most notably it has to be said among the Insurers?

The leadership style adopted by most of our stalwart head honchos is to arrange for their PR assistants to have them appear on the front pages of esteemed organs such as this (will my editor even allow such a remark?) or to write columns such as 'View from my bunker' ( you know what I mean).

And what do we get? Blah blah blah!

For example: “we need to improve our reputation”; “we need to attract more talent into our industry”; “we need to increase rates”; “we need to maintain underwriting discipline”. And so on.

Tell me, why don’t they:

a) Do it instead of talking about doing it?

b) Get out into the market and meet some real brokers (and I don’t mean on cruise ships in the Med)?

c) Change the script?

Much the same could be said for the leaders of our institutions CII, Biba and ABI: more action, less spin. I do give top marks to the CII, it should be said, and I think it's a pity that Sandy Scott did not get to lead the ABI. The paradox of the ABI being that it says very little about general insurance distribution that has any meaning for insurance brokers – and who is it that leads the ABI GI committee? Any brokers out there know or care?

As you enjoy this year's Biba conference (I do not qualify to attend in my own right anymore), brokers should be asking what are our leaders doing to help them in the midst of economic hard times, a softer-than-soft market for commercial lines, and an ever-more intrusive regulator?

The way things are right now, I see it simply as the bland leading the bland leading the deaf.

Email Sid: sid@insurancetimes.co.uk.