Chris Moore, Head of the Apollo ibott 1971 syndicate on the Lloyd’s market, is possibly an anomaly within the world of insurance. Few kids dream of growing up into a life of underwriting or risk, but Moore says he knew he wanted to get into insurance since going off to university.
“I studied mathematics at Bath University,” he tells us. “A lot of people talk about falling into insurance or just somehow ending up in insurance; I may be one of the few that actually wanted to be in insurance. That's something I'm quite proud of.”
After graduating from university, Moore pursued a career as a broker in London, spending two years at Catlin before joining Apollo a decade ago. It’s no surprise that he has stayed; the company sits at the vanguard of new technologies, creating insurance solutions for emerging businesses that will be household names in a few years’ time.
“I love insurance,” Moore effuses. “We should be advertising the amazing things about the insurance industry and trying to recruit the freshest talent from university.”
Accelerating towards an autonomous future
One of the nascent technologies that excites Moore the most is autonomous vehicles. This rapidly emerging frontier has the potential to increase convenience for consumers and unlock new opportunities for mobility in our daily lives.
“I would absolutely get in an autonomous vehicle today,” Moore proclaims, putting his money where his mouth is. He believes that mistrust in autonomous vehicles is often misplaced, especially given most people are happy to fly in a plane or travel on a ferry whilst it’s in autopilot mode. “We trust autonomy in so many areas of our lives, including aviation and marine, but as soon as you start talking about autonomous vehicles, people recoil,” he says.
Moore continues: “I think in the next five years, we’ll see rapid expansion of use cases around autonomy in lots of different circles – whether that's agriculture, trucking and long-haul driving, industrial manufacturing, or construction. I think all of those industries will see much more autonomy.
“From an insurance perspective, we will see those autonomous vehicle providers embedding insurance within their product, because it will take too long for traditional insurance companies that are currently insuring those verticals to build products that adequately cover autonomous-type operations. That'll be a huge market shift. Some people will say ‘I don’t write motor insurance, so why should I care about autonomous vehicles?’ However, I think it disrupts every insurance vertical that we have today. Autonomy will be just another insurance vertical, because it needs a brand new insurance solution.
Embracing technology that changes lives
Moore says that, although he’s not the first adopter of new technologies that come to market, if something helps improve his quality of life then he’s fully on board. “I love embracing technology when it makes my life easy. If something frees up my time and makes it a better experience so that I can spend more time with my family and young kids, then that is so precious to me. When I do have that free time to really kick back and enjoy myself, I want to maximise that.”
So what about the all-important question? At work, he’s busy advocating for broader adoption of autonomous driving technology, so would he hop into an automated rideshare in his own time if one became available around the streets of London tomorrow? “I absolutely would,” he says, putting his money where his mouth is. “I might even feel a lot safer in it.”
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