Interview
PRACTICE
Moral Imperatives Ecclesiastical sees itself as an ethical insurer with a moral obligation to its customers to help manage risk. Group Chief Executive Jacinta Whyte explains why BY ARTHUR PIPER
T
he previous evening, Jacinta Whyte had landed in London on a late-night flight from Canada for one of her regular trips to the UK head office of Ecclesiastical, where she works as its Deputy Group Chief Executive with responsibility for the Group’s General Insurance business. The next morning, when we meet, she is bright and focused, despite what must be some lack of sleep. The rain is beating on the upper storey office windows of Monument Place, where the views take in St. Magnus the Martyr Church and a sultry, brown Thames: landmarks that bookend both the insurer’s past and some of its concerns about the future.
There is a huge need to protect our customers and community – and that’s what we call the greater good
Climate change “Cyber is an emerging risk, however, I think the biggest issue for the insurance industry revolves primarily around climate change,” she says. Flooding affects the property space most obviously, but the effects of climate change reach into other aspects of the insurer’s portfolio, such as liability risk, and they also cross over into broader social issues around corporate behaviour. It’s a trend that Ecclesiastical takes seriously. The business has invested heavily in producing “huge, comprehensive documents,” she says, about the repercussions of climate change – but the exercise is far from academic.
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Enterprise Risk
