Company Profile
Company Overview
About Hiscox
Who are we?
Hiscox is an international specialist insurer and reinsurer. We provide market leading products and excellent service to individuals and businesses with unusual and often complicated insurance needs. A FTSE 250 company, we can trace our roots to the Lloyd’s market in 1901. We employ over 1,700 highly professional staff, have offices in 11 countries and customers all over the world.
In 2014 the Hiscox Group grew by 8.8% to £1,756.3 million gross written premium and our second biggest profit of £231.1 million, delivering a return on equity of 17.1%.
We cover reinsurance and insurance risks that range from marine, terrorism, aerospace, technology, media and professional indemnity through to high value personal insurance, such as homes and contents, fine art, luxury motor, and kidnap and ransom, and are market leaders in many of our chosen areas.
We are not a mass producer of insurance policies but focus on key areas of expertise and strength and we do business according to our core values of courage, quality, integrity, excellence and human.
The Hiscox Group is made up of the following business units:-
• Hiscox London Market underwrites mainly internationally traded business in the London Market – generally large or complex business which needs to be shared with other insurers or needs the international licences of Lloyd’s.
• Hiscox Re our combined reinsurance teams in London, Bermuda and Paris, provide market leading expertise and a wide range of reinsurance products to high-quality insurers around the world.
• Hiscox Special Risks provides specialist insurance and expertise for global risks including fine art, kidnap and ransom and terrorism
• Hiscox US operating since 2006 from six locations offering professional liability, specialty and property insurance. Hiscox US also provides small business insurance direct to consumers.
• Hiscox UK and Hiscox Europe offers a range of specialist insurance for professionals and business customers, as well as high net worth individuals and also provides home and small business insurance directly to consumers.
• Hiscox Group is the umbrella function that supports all areas of the organisation, home to our operations, IT, Finance, HR, Marketing, Communications and Modelling teams.
Our business philosophy
The best people
Any business is only as good as the people it employs, and we employ the best in the business. We empower our people to provide the type of insurance solutions which are often too complex for other insurance companies, and aim to provide our customers with a level of personal attention that standard insurers might not be able to.
We are committed to developing our staff through our graduate programme, mentoring, in-house and external training, and our professional approach to setting standards is best practice. We are also members of the Chartered Insurance Institute, which has a long history of championing professional standards within the industry, and many of our people have become – or are in the process of becoming – CII accredited.
The best clients
Hiscox has three vital questions for every risk - "Who is the insured? Who is the insured? Who is the insured?". Who we insure is as important as what we insure. Whatever the business, be it a global oil company or a one man professional practice, we are interested in the management and how the business is run. Our belief is that the good insured always pays too much, and the bad insured too little. By seeking out the good insures and avoiding the bad, we are able to offer wide cover at reasonable premiums.
Innovation
All of our products have been designed with our customers’ specific needs in mind. Creative use of technology has also improved distribution and enabled us to respond even more quickly and effectively to our customers. Unlike many of our competitors, Hiscox really is an organisation that thrives on change.