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A NICHE SUCCESS STORY Tokio Marine HCC’s Bill Hubbard looks back on his career in specialty insurance – the challenging times and some extraordinary risk-transfer solutions
BILL HUBBARD entered the insurance industry in 1989, working for American Sports Underwriters, a specialist MGU writing disability for entertainers and athletes. There, Hubbard established a contingency division providing coverage for event cancellation, film, weather and prize indemnity. To reflect the diversification, the company changed its name to American Specialty Underwriters [ASU] and was subsequently acquired by the HCC Group in 2001. Asked about his career highlights, Hubbard recalls one particular event with ASU in 1998. “The 1998 Winter Olympics were in Nagano, Japan, and a sarin gas attack on a Japanese subway [a few years earlier] had created quite a panic,” he says. “As a result, the broadcaster of the Olympics wanted as much event cancellation insurance as they could get, and they came to us based on some difficult, high-limit disability placements we had done for them on a couple of unique television personalities. This was the first major international event ASU had done, so there was a lot of pressure on us to deliver. Obviously, when you attempt to put a mega-placement together after a terrorist event like that happens, there’s a great deal of noise and hysteria surrounding it. Pulling that off was a big one for us.” Hubbard also played an integral role at ASU in starting the first Lloyd’s consortium to be set up by a non-Lloyd’s entity. “In 1994, we launched The Enterprise Consortium for contingency and disability business, and that was a big game-changer for us as well, because up until then, we
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had pretty much been doing mostly North American-based work,” he says. “Once we established an on-the-ground presence in the London marketplace, our reach and influence rapidly grew.” But that London operation was also the source of one of the most challenging times of Hubbard’s career, when, in 2004, its contingency team jumped ship en masse. “We were left with really no one to run the operation, and the departing team was anticipating all of our business to follow them,” he says. “We were determined to keep the operation going. So, for nine months, I worked
acquisition of HCC Insurance Holdings. Today, the combined entity is one of the world’s leading specialty insurance groups, although Hubbard points out that TMHCC is not driven by premium. “We are 100% driven by our operating profit,” he says. “Premium growth is not a statistic we are concerned with. Because of our expertise in the sports and entertainment markets, we are able to be involved in a number of ways on risk-transfer situations. Our contribution … isn’t limited to putting TMHCC’s capital at risk. Having a diverse toolbox gives us options to deal with complex,
“Because of our expertise, we are able to be involved in a number of ways on risk-transfer situations. Our contribution isn’t limited to putting TMHCC’s capital at risk” in London Monday to Friday. I’d fly back to Boston Friday night and go back Sunday night. I did that until we could find the right person to come in and lead it. That was pretty challenging and could not have been accomplished without tremendous support and understanding from my family.”
Specialist solutions Hubbard now heads the specialty division of the recently created Tokio Marine HCC [TMHCC], which formed last year following the completion of Tokio Marine’s $7.5 billion
high-risk situations in a variety of ways and has been key to our long track record of success.” Over his years in the specialty insurance business, Hubbard has been involved in a range of truly interesting risk-transfer solutions. “We have an eight-figure book of prize indemnity insurance, and it is the source of some of our more quirky writings,” he says. “For Nabisco, we insured a promotion where if someone could break the world record for stacking Oreo cookies – currently at 48 – they would win a million dollars.” He also recalls insuring a promotion for Red
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