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David Sowrey, partner at Beach
22 October 2019 Insurance

Small is beautiful in the world of reinsurance broking, says Beach as it sizes up to the big three

Beach believes it is a great time to be a smaller broker, and is not daunted by the challenge of competing with the “big three”.

Beach distinguishes itself from its larger competitors in the reinsurance broking space by closely integrating its analytics teams with its underwriting function.
“We are very analytically driven. When our brokers go to a meeting they take actuaries with them,” said David Sowrey, partner at Beach.

This is a legacy of Beach’s background as a specialist in casualty reinsurance, said Sowrey, where highly complex situations had encouraged a reliance on its analytics capability.

Beach resists the temptation to create silos of specialisation, with all employees given opportunities to work across the full spectrum of business lines.
“This gives us an advantage when working on large, complex transactions, which do not necessarily fit neatly into the business silos that characterise the larger brokers,” said Sowrey.

“Any one of our brokers can work on any type of business; we all have a good understanding of the different businesses. It gives us a greater understanding of complex transactions.”

This is supported by Beach’s consultancy capability, which helps it better advise clients on what coverage they need.

“We are problem-solvers. We do not want our clients to tell us what cover they need, we want them to tell us what problems they have. We can then advise them and help find a solution that solves their problem,” he explained.
“What we have is hard for larger brokers to copy. I don’t blame them for being siloed, that is how big businesses have to be. But not operating in those silos is an advantage for us.”

Sowrey noted that mergers and acquisitions in the broker market, such as Marsh’s acquisition of JLT, created significant opportunities for smaller players such as Beach—in terms of picking up business and bringing in new talent.

Beach has been growing rapidly in recent years. It has around 80 people in London, and around 200 globally in offices in Bermuda, New York, Burlington, Chicago, Zurich and Toronto.

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