Last week I read one of the most engaging articles I have ever seen about general insurance in the UK (Letters, 12 May).
I have read it three times and still can't decide if it's the best thing I've ever laid eyes on or something slightly more tongue-in-cheek. It goes under the headline: "Our new Insurance Czar sets out his agenda. "
Fair enough - a good place for Robert Hiscox to lay out a few thoughts on what he might do in this exotic new role - but page 12?
Once you're a few paragraphs in, you start thinking that this should have been written in letters of fire a mile high, not on the Letters page of Insurance Times.
Hiscox starts by thanking those who voted him into the Insurance Czar role, and then says he assumes the role will give him "absolute authority without being neutered by councils or committees" - fair enough if slightly optimistic.
But then Hiscox sets out a staggering four-item agenda of what he wants to do. And wow, he's not cooking on any back burners.
First off, "an underwriting monitor to oversee the underwriting of the whole general insurance market in the UK". Not exactly a paper round. If you saw that in a job advert, it would be alongside 'blade of grass monitor to oversee lawn heights throughout the EU'.
The monitor's objective is to try to "stem the ghastly downward cycle". Again, wow. And its powers would allow it to haul any companies with silly prices and "stop them underwriting immediately". Double wow. After this, you start to expect the world and he doesn't disappoint.
Next up, a separate general insurance lobby headed by a Lord Levene-esque figure to "stop regulators strangling us".
Third, a command to Lloyd's to have one single capital supplier for each syndicate (no problems there, then).
Finally, on the sixth day, Mr Hiscox will persuade the government to "reduce taxation on insurance reserves to counter the attraction of Bermuda".
The beauty of this piece is that mixed in with the staggering ambition is so much good sense.
If Mr Hiscox can do all these things, he will lift himself to near god-like status.
Should we wish him luck or ask him to go into a dark room with a wet flannel on his head?
Personally, I would go for the former but I can't help but lack his optimism.
Adrian Webb
Head of corporate communications
esure
