Ep316 Waleed Jabsheh CEO IGI: Don't tie your hands

Mark Geoghegan (0:02)

I'm Mark Geoghegan, and you're listening to The Voice of Insurance podcast, produced in association with AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens. Pick and choose your own best of breed in shore tech and data providers with the Sapiens AdvantageGo ecosystem.

There's a lot of received wisdom in our industry. You know, the sorts of things that we tell each other often enough that we all begin to accept them as true without really questioning the assumptions behind them with any rigor.

Here are three common ones. You have to have meaningful scale if you want to get involved in re-insurance or open up operations in the London market or the US. This podcast is with the leader of a business that is a repudiation of most of the canons contained in the book of received insurance wisdom.

He leads a business that has grown to write around $700 million in gross premiums across a broad base, diversified by Lion and Geography in both insurance and reinsurance, while maintaining a very healthy profitability throughout the cycle. Waleed Jabsheh is the CEO of IGI, and this podcast highlights the very singular path that IGI has trodden on its way to success. What emerges in this detailed discussion is in many ways a picture of a bold and ambitious company with representation in all the major global insurance jurisdictions. But it's also a company that is at its core relatively conservative, looking to play in areas it knows and understands well, and leaving the unknown territories of the bleeding edge for others to explore and map out before it takes a view. IGI is still very much a family firm, but it's also one that is publicly traded and listed in the US. Any apparent contradiction in the above is explained by Waleed in this broad and deep interview in which we are treated to a very strong, common sense analysis of the opportunities and threats facing the global insurance and reinsurance market of today. Waleed is very calm and unambiguous in his style and makes for an excellent interviewee. I can highly recommend a listen. Enjoy the podcast. Waleed, welcome back to The Voice of Insurance.

Waleed Jabsheh (2:06)

Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Always great to talk to you and be back on the podcast.

Mark Geoghegan (2:11)

I was just looking back through the archive and it's just over four years since we last spoke.

Back then, I don't think I used to get people to do this, and I think it's a nice thing to do. Before I would just go straight into the questions. But before I do that, I'd like you to quickly introduce yourself to the audience and run us through your career today. And I'll ask you that question that we all ask each other in insurance. We ask each other how we got into insurance. It's often a good icebreaker.

Waleed Jabsheh (2:33)

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, for me, it's a fairly relatively straightforward story, right? I mean, I've been in the business now since 1998 So coming up on 30 years, I spent the vast majority of my career with IGI. I've been involved with the company since inception, which was back at the beginning of 2002

For the first four years of my career, I was working in the US for a reinsurance MGA in Massachusetts, doing reinsurance lines that we don't touch here at IGI.

Mark Geoghegan (3:04)

Yeah, what was that? Was it all facultative and...

Waleed Jabsheh (3:07)

No, it was all reinsurance program business related to workers' compensation and employers'...

Mark Geoghegan (3:13)

Well, it sounds like that was a very good schooling in perhaps some of the lines not to do, yes.

Waleed Jabsheh (3:18)

Some of the lines not to do, but I believe that all lines if done correctly will do well out.

Mark Geoghegan (3:22)

I suppose it sometimes is, late 90s workers' comp reinsurance. You think some of that wasn't being done correctly at that point, was it?

Waleed Jabsheh (3:29)

That's what you truly call long-tail business, right? Which is not really what falls within the IGI appetite per se, and purely US liability in long-tail business, which is something that we at IGI don't do. So yes, I've spent the majority of my career now coming on 25 years at IGI, and it's been a wonderful experience, wonderful ride, wonderful journey, and looking forward to the next, hopefully, 25 years.

Mark Geoghegan (3:55)

You're up to date, yes. What's the progress since we last spoke? Obviously, that has been a fantastic journey. You've been on all that time.

If you can bring us up to date on where IGI is now.

Waleed Jabsheh (4:05)

Yeah. Since we spoke, which has been a few years, a lot's happened at IGI. Obviously, the market back then when we last spoke was a lot more positive than it is today, but we took advantage of that hard market and our diversification has played well for us. We went public also in 2020 So when we last spoke, we were public for a couple of years. Now it's been six years and we've made great strides. As a business, we've grown. The last hard market has really benefited us significantly, writing almost 25 different lines and sub-lines, global footprint. We've grown our portfolio to just under $700 million.