Specialty Podcast: RISKWORLD Recap – Key Takeaways for Mergers & Acquisitions

Intro (00:00):
You're listening to the Alliant Specialty Podcast dedicated to insurance and risk management solutions and trends shaping the market today.

Lora Yordanova (00:08):
Welcome back to another Alliant Specialty Podcast. I'm your host, Lora Yordanova and with me today is Jon Gilbert, Managing Director of Alliant Mergers and Acquisitions. Today we're going to be discussing the key takeaways from RISKWORLD 2023. John, thank you so much for joining me.

Jon Gilbert (00:24):
Thank you for having me. Excited to talk about RISKWORLD and what a great attendance it was overall, excited to be here.

Lora Yordanova (00:31):
Absolutely. So, a big thing that happened for us at RISKWORLD this year was we launched our data analytics platform. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Jon Gilbert (00:40):
Absolutely, well it was pretty exciting to see the aligned room and the number of people that were excited to see what we have to offer from a loss analytics standpoint. And I think what was interesting to hear from those that went to the demo and used the demo was their feedback on how easy it was to analyze their potential risk exposure in various ways. And it was amazing to see and hear from users, whether it's CFOs or risk managers or even general counsel team members on the legal side, how easy it was for them to analyze or understand what risk tolerance a company could actually absorb and how that translates into designing the insurance program. For instance, if someone's looking at take an insurance deductible of a hundred thousand versus a million, what's the aggregate amount of loss that they could incur in one year based on a number of financial metrics coupled with both industry and jurisdictional data that's relevant to them. It really gives someone the right tools that are needed to make those buying decisions when it comes to buying insurance, especially in today's market. It's very challenging in certain areas and having those decision tools is imperative and it was exciting to see a constant crowd around the analytic demo machine where with a fingertip you can get to a very intuitive analysis by the user on how they can analyze and manage risk.

Lora Yordanova (02:07):
Absolutely, it was very exciting for everyone. So, another really big topic this year at RIMS was cyber. So, can you tell us a little bit about what you heard while you were there?

Jon Gilbert (02:17):
Yeah, that too was also something that just got a lot of talk and certainly was around the water cooler areas and the events afterwards. It was exciting to see the buzz around what Alliant is bringing to the market from a cyber solution standpoint. And as I was talking to a lot of CFOs, risk managers, others from an industry standpoint and clients, is that there really is now a focus on cybersecurity and there's becoming a greater understanding of what that risk really is to companies and how no company is immune to a potential cyber incident, whether it's ransomware or otherwise. And the awareness has gone up so fast, the tools that Alliant can offer, not just from a design in the insurance program with incredible brokers, but also coming up with how should someone look at buying the right levels of coverage?

What are the vulnerabilities? Do I have endpoint detection, do I have multifactor authentication? And if I don't, what does that mean and translate from an exposure standpoint, but also what does it mean from a number standpoint, quantifying the potential loss. Then getting to that cyber insurability piece as well is how do I make my company and the network and the security programs the best that it can be so that I'm as insurable as I can be and viewed in the best light by the insurance markets. So, really exciting to hear risk managers and people that may not be cyber experts start to understand what the risk is and how Alliant can help them protect both on the insurance procurement side but most importantly on the security side and how they shore up their security protocols and procedures, training manuals, all the stuff that we sometimes take for granted. It was really showcasing how someone can easily understand how to take both the risk exposure and the risk buying and combine them together to get to the optimal solution.

Lora Yordanova (04:08):
Yeah, all great points. As managing director of mergers and acquisitions here at Alliant, can you tell us a little bit about what you were hearing from clients at RISKWORLD?

Jon Gilbert (04:17):
It's an interesting time for the M&A market because the M&A market's not immune from everything else that's going on in the world, both higher cost of debt, tightening of lenders and general uncertainty from an economic standpoint given several macro and geopolitical factors. And so, there was certainly a lot of talk around, what's the activity look like, what's on the horizon? And just given the nature of RIMS, there were certainly a lot of corporate strategic acquirers as well as some private equity firms, but mostly corporate acquirers and they seem like there will be activity. We've been very active this year from an M&A standpoint. Deals take on a different look for the most part; some are not as big as they were before in years past, although, we just worked on a deal that was $3.5 billion dollars in a corporate carve out.

That's a trend that we heard people are looking to divest and they're looking to acquire. And so, it was a kind of a tale of two worlds where some seem as though they're going to be very, very active this year and were very interested in things like cybersecurity diligence and how we can help them really understand what their target acquisition has from a cybersecurity protocol standpoint and how well-built their IT infrastructure is. And then certainly from a general reps & warranties insurance standpoint, there was a lot of talk around how can a buyer protect themselves against potential pitfalls that could arise because of a breach of a statement or representation that a seller made to the buyer in the agreement. And insurance has been such an important tool to protect against that. It was certainly a hot topic throughout RIMS.

Lora Yordanova (05:45):
Some great information Jon. Thank you. Any other big takeaways that you want to share with us from RISKWORLD?

Jon Gilbert (05:51):
Well, I will say it was a pretty exciting RIMS event this year. I mean it does feel like people have finally come out and are comfortable at an event like this and to see thousands of colleagues and insurance professionals and risk managers and CFOs and otherwise in that kind of setting we haven't seen for a few years - it was great to see. Certainly, given the size of the Alliant presence at RIMS and RISKWORLD was pretty exciting and really gained a lot of attention from those that came around to our booth, came to our rooms and certainly attended our events. It was just an exciting place. A lot of energy, a lot of fun, a lot of excitement, especially around the things that Alliant was showcasing. Cyber solutions is just so important for companies today and having that showcased at RIMS like no other was impressive and I think it resonated with the attendees.

And then on top of that, focusing on risk analytics. With the insurance market the way it is, it's hard to pick what retention I should have, what limit I should buy, because in some cases insurance is becoming more and more unavailable or available at a higher cost. And so, for the Alliant room to have such a presence from loss analytics and unveiling our incredible tools that are available to our clients and are very user friendly, almost like using an iPad, it was great to see the excitement that was built around those tools and generally just the buzz that was going on in the Alliant room was pretty exciting to see. It constantly filled with a lot of interest in what was going on. It was a great presence that we had at RISKWORLD, and it was exciting to see so many colleagues and clients and prospects while we were there.

Lora Yordanova (07:26):
Some really great information, Jon, thank you. And thank you all for joining us on the Alliant Specialty Podcast. Until next time.