From listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1996 and securing our first A+ rating the following year, to joining the Tokio Marine family in 2015 and becoming the leading specialty insurer we are today, Tokio Marine HCC’s (TMHCC) history has been one characterised by landmarks.
2024 is another landmark year – for both Tokio Marine HCC and our Professional Risks team.
It was 50 years ago, in July 1974, that Stephen L Way set up the Houston Casualty Company (the HCC in our name today) as an aviation insurance specialist. While we still write aviation risks today, our appetite and our expertise has grown exponentially over the last 50 years, and we now operate in over 100 classes of specialty insurance in more than 180 countries across the globe.
20 years ago, TMHCC, first established a presence in the UK Professional Indemnity (PI). What started off as a relatively small team and appetite, is now formed of 40+ underwriters spread across various locations with over 400 years of combined underwriting experience to over 360 professions throughout the UK.
Our philosophy back then was straightforward and remains unchanged two decades later. Some of the finest Professional Risks underwriting in the world is conducted at Lloyd’s but all too often, access to that expertise is limited to the select few. We wanted to bring that to the rest of the UK where the engine rooms of the professions lie.
Our aim was, and still is, to provide our service and expertise to as many professions as we could, in as many parts of the UK as possible. Thanks to the support and belief of brokers up and down the country, Tokio Marine HCC is now one of the most influential and consistent players in the UK PI market.
It has taken decades of consistently delivering excellence to get where we are today, and this continues to be our focus going forward. We want to deliver many more decades of excellence to professionals across the UK and we continue to invest in our proposition, both in terms of people and technology.
Just last year we moved to larger, permanent premises in Manchester, and we secured some excellent talent to add to our growing teams in London, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. While we have our online portal where brokers can quote, bind and adjust policies completely online, we will always invest heavily in the expertise that sits behind the technology – our people.
We are proud of the fact that we respond to 75% of broker submissions within 24 hours, 85% in two days and while it might sometimes take a little longer for those risks that require more underwriting attention, we never keep brokers waiting and guessing. Our team has expanded year on year therefore we are confident that those service levels will continue to improve.
So, whether we are long standing partners, an occasional market or you are a new broker to us, we look forward to bringing more certainty, consistency and clarity to you and your clients throughout 2024.
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