The Big Interview: Xl Catlin

Paul Thomas, global product head of Sport & Leisure at XL Catlin, speaks to Sport Industry Group about the challenges of operating in multiple territories, the importance of strong governance for the industry, and supporting the BT Sport Industry Awards…

Can you tell us a bit about XL Catlin’s offering in sport?

We’re pretty unique in that we have a dedicated sport and leisure team. For most insurance companies who underwrite sport-type business, it falls very much within their general underwriting teams. We are different because we have a dedicated sport team that does this 24/7.

We are very much about sport participation; our focus is not on manufacturing or retailing or equipment or apparatus, for example. That essentially means taking on the risk of the actual activity and wherever that is hosted – perhaps in stadiums, clubs, roads, or general sports facilities.

We also have a great deal of experience across multiple activities. In fact, depending on your definition of a sport or activity, we potentially insure more than 500 different variations of sports – 574 to be precise. Naturally, our portfolio is dominated by the major sports – football being number one pretty much universally – and we are now a leading player with golf as well. However, we do have a variety of other sports that share a little less of the limelight, such as martial arts, which we are incredibly active in on a global scale.

A lot of our programmes, particularly our overseas programme, will cater for levels from grassroots to elite. To give an example, we insure all the members of a sports association for their injury and accidents and then that association may then have four weeks of the year where their international players come into a training camp. While the activity is of course similar, the impact of any injury can have more far-reaching consequences.

Typically, your clients are predominantly made up of governing bodies and rights holders. How has that changed?

Yes absolutely, but I think the governing body world is changing a little bit. To give you an example, in the UK there are several sporting groups now that are not under direct control of a national governing body, and I think that is being born from the education sector now using third parties to provide after-school clubs to come in and take over the PE Curriculum, which is becoming more and more prominent. We have clients that five years ago would turnover less than 20% of what they do now. Once they are embedded in an authority or a group, their profile and their offering expands quickly and certain local authorities are quite keen to bring in third-parties to run that particular area for them. We embed ourselves in these new entities and support them in establishing their governance and determining how they should operate. This could cover issues like risk assessments and using our knowledge of what we have seen or experienced from a claims perspective, to help guide them in how they manage their risks and what they should be looking out for. We have a strong knowledge share that we provide to make sure that entities don’t fall over some of the hurdles they may not see coming their way.

On that knowledge share, how does your team’s knowledge, background and expertise differ to that of your competitors in the market?

The fact that we do this day in day out. Most of our competitors will write a handful of sport and leisure businesses as part of their overall risk portfolio. So, for example, they could be underwriting a chemicals factory in the morning, and then something may come across their desks later in the day which has a sports bias towards it. We have an embedded claims team here that we actually sit with as well, so the knowledge share that we get from our claims team into the underwriting team is second to none.

Paul Thomas, global product head of Sport & Leisure at XL Catlin, pictured above right alongside England Hockey, last year’s winners of the Governing Body of the Year Award in association with XL Catlin

In terms of your international growth at the moment, you have recently expanded into new markets, what territories in particular have you identified for growth and what was the thinking behind it?

As of today, we underwrite in 21 different countries and that will expand quite significantly this year. We are just about to move into Asia and we will shortly be hiring within Australia and expanding our capabilities there. We have some presence there already but not as a dedicated resource.

XL Catlin once again supported the Governing Body of the Year Award at last week’s BT Sport Industry Awards, what made you want to be involved again?

We believe that strong and responsible governance is crucial in any sport, from the grassroots to elite level, which is why this is the second year running that we have sponsored the Governing Body of the Year Award. We work very closely with several governing bodies across a range of different sports, and so we’re very aware of the important work they do to safeguard and develop a healthy sports industry.

The good work of governing bodies filters down to their members, and from there to the coaching and instruction programmes they lead, on to the accredited coaches within their organisation, and then consequently the events they either sponsor or hold themselves.

Governance has been under the microscope a lot in recent years, do you believe there has been an improvement as a result?

Personally, I believe the governance has vastly improved, and in fact I would go even further than that and say that it has never been better. Today, there is a much greater focus on governance in sport and ensuring that funds are directed in the right areas and towards initiatives where they can have the greatest impact. And we continue to work with organisations to provide innovative insurance solutions that help them manage their risk.

XL Catlin supports the Governing Body of the Year Award in association with XL Catlin. To learn more, visit xlcatlin.com.