Tom Bolt looks forward to new role at Lloyd's

On January 1, Tom Bolt took over as Director of Performance Management at Lloyd’s. He told lloyds.com that he jumped at the chance to take on the unique role. “There’s not another job like it on the planet,” said the 53-year-old American, who has done virtually every job there is in insurance during his long career.

“This is the ideal job for me,” he said. “You get to see every different line of business and work with 51 managing agents each trying to make money in a different way. To be able to help them with their issues is a welcome challenge. This role has the right combination of pressure and problems to solve for a guy like me.”

He is known in the insurance market for his incisive intelligence, keen business sense and easygoing charm. During his 25 years in the business Bolt has done everything from trading insurance derivatives to underwriting both life and property-casualty reinsurance. He built up a run-off operation with a portfolio worth £6.6bn and also managed a Lloyd’s agency for nearly a decade. 

His wealth of experience put him at the top of Lloyd’s shortlist of candidates to replace Rolf Tolle when he retired. Speaking about Bolt, Richard Ward, Lloyd’s Chief Executive, said: “He has a great reputation and track record, and the perfect mix of technical knowledge and commercial experience that will enable him to work in partnership with the market."

Extensive Career

Bolt started off as a banker before being hired by Berkshire Hathaway, where he worked for nearly 20 years, working his way up to become one of Warren Buffett’s trusted lieutenants.

In the early 1990s he was lured away by Bankers Trust, where he created a highly successful insurance division, before returning to Berkshire Hathaway to set up and run the European arm of its reinsurance operation based in London.

Working for Buffett taught him to concentrate on “doing what makes sense”, he said. “At Berkshire they wanted you to have a sense of urgency, worried about what it was you were doing to make money each day. They had very little regard for corporate hierarchy and they tended to take people as a package.”

The various businesses in the Berkshire group enjoy a lot of autonomy to find their own way to make money, just like those in the Lloyd’s market. “The saying was they would give you the canvas and it was up to you to paint whatever you wanted on it.”

Similarly, he aims to oversee the Lloyd’s market without dictating how it should operate. He views his role as Director of Performance Management as being like a good football referee. “In a great game you don’t notice the ref. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t helping to shape the game, that he didn’t run up and down the field keeping an eye on the play and have quiet words with players to let them know they would get a card if they didn’t shape up. That’s my goal in life here.”

Valuable Lloyd's insight

Bolt spent nine years as Chief Executive of the Marlborough managing agency, which gave him a valuable insight into the Lloyd’s market and how its franchise system works.

He has set as his first task to make the business planning process more interactive, so that his team can give syndicates the green light earlier on their plans for the coming year.

That should ensure a smoother process and improve the experience for syndicates, said Bolt. “At the end of the day, the business planning process isn’t just about regulation.  It’s meant to help syndicates think about their own businesses.”

He also wants his team to keep improving the data that it provides to those in the market so they can manage their businesses better. “Lloyd’s has great data, but we’ve tried to collect it in a more granular way, so we can give people better feedback on rate rises and performance according to class of business or risk. It’s a way to enable them to better pick their spots in the market.”

Bolt aims to make having access to this data as much a benefit of being a member of Lloyd’s as are its host of operating licences.

“Over time it should be one of the key virtues of being a member of this club, because there is no better library of risk taking history available in the world.”