The Intelligent Quarterly from the publishers of The Insurance Insider

Spring 2012

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Vicky Carter When "big three" reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter announced in March 2010 that it had lured the high-profile London market broker Vicky Carter to the new role of vice-chairman of European operations, the firm made it clear that hers was no ordinary appointment.

Carter would be given free rein to bring in new business without having to focus on trifling management tasks. Carter cracks a smile when it's suggested that many of her fellow brokers would envy this brief. "It's all lunching and dining," she jokes.

More seriously, says Carter, she wanted to avoid the route other talented brokers take of getting "sucked into management", and ending up bound to their desks as their career progresses, only emerging at the quarterly renewal rounds. She sees this as a crucial flaw in a business that is very much relationship driven.

"I'm constantly in the market," she says. "I didn't want to lose that [market-facing role] and that's where I could bring the most value to this company."

At any rate, it would be difficult to mistake Carter for a lady who lunches - her drive to achieve is quickly apparent. She is a rare example of a woman who has risen to the top ranks of an industry that even by City standards seems heavily male-dominated.

Carter admits that broking is a difficult career for a woman. "It's a 24/7 job," she says. "It would be impossible to operate on a part-time basis in the role I currently have."

But Carter says the demanding hours worked for her "all or nothing" personality, as she committed to having a 100 percent focus on her career. "If I do anything, I have to win."

Still, she says, the industry is now far more female-friendly than when she started out in insurance 30-odd years ago. She recounts that she only headed towards broking after being turned away by a Lloyd's underwriter with a blanket "no girls on the box" attitude; but she wasn't one to be daunted by breaking new ground: "In my view, that creates opportunities," she says.

Although, at the same time she felt that she had to work hard to prove that she was as worthy as her male colleagues. "You use being a female and don't abuse it."

Coming from a male-dominated family, Carter came to feel at home in the reinsurance sector, but always maintained her feminine side. "No-one's ever asked me to behave a certain way," she says. She became the first woman to set up a business in Lloyd's when she co-founded Dunn & Carter in 1992, which was sold to EW Blanch in 1997.

"I had nothing to lose," she said of her decision to set up her own firm at a young age. "That's the time to do it."

In fact, Carter has spent most of her career in smaller shops, also working at medium-sized Towers Watson before moving to her current role at Guy Carpenter.

"I've always had to focus on developing and creating business on the back of my own capability, rather than having huge depths of intellectual capital to draw on as I do now," she says.

Having a full analytical toolkit at your disposal is crucial to a broker these days. Over the past 30 years the industry has changed from one where underwriters would buy reinsurance ad-hoc, to one where programmes are carefully built at group levels to juggle pricing, regulatory, credit rating and modelling demands.

But Carter insists that smaller broking firms still have the ability to compete against the behemoth "big three" and all their technical resources, saying that being competitive isn't necessarily about size.

"It's being able to bring the right solutions to your client," she says. "Although you've got the technology, you've still got to apply that technology in a sales pitch - and the business is still built on trust and a relationship."

In the past couple of years, the international markets that are Carter's focus have travelled a rockier road than the peak US market, with earthquakes in Chile, Japan and New Zealand racking up sizeable industry losses.

Ironically though, Carter will be on hurricane watch as much as any US-focused broker in the coming storm season, with as many as 10 hurricanes, including six major ones predicted (see table). She notes that international prices have stabilised from their downward trend after adjusting to the loss experience, with future price increases resting on the fate of the US wind segment.

"There will be opportunities in the international arena, there's no question. The extent of that may depend on what happens in the rest of the year," she says.

The current hard market has been the most challenging period she's ever worked through - with investment constraints, rising model risk and catastrophe losses combining to create almost the "perfect storm" for clients struggling to drive profit.

But a course through the storm won't be plotted by brokers coming up with whizz-bang new products, she suggests. Rather, it's about how well they apply existing facilities and how well they understand a client's business.

Every company's primary objective at this point is to protect capital, Carter says.

As the market looks set to turn, it will become even more important for brokers to stay close to their clients, to understand their goals and know the things that keep them awake at night.

"The whole point is to make the [clients] more profitable," she says, which forces brokers to get more creative with the solutions they come up with.

With a strong career behind her, Carter is clearly still focused on testing herself. When she talks about the approaching hard market it is with a broker's competitive relish.

"Anybody can do anything in a soft market," she says. "You prove your value in a hard market, that's where you gain your reputation. So I thrive on it."

It is this challenge of moving with the reinsurance industry that keeps Carter's interest in the sector. "I couldn't stand a boring nine to five job," she says. "I love dealing with people and changing your approach to suit the person. There's not one day the same as the next."