Jose Núñez has studies of Philology & an Executive Direction Programme Degree (IESE Business School). José is the current CEO of Lloyd’s Iberia and is based in Madrid. He brings more than 30 years of experience and a deep understanding of the Iberian (re)insurance markets, having worked in several management roles at Commercial Union, Gerling & Catlin. He is also chairman of ASASEL (the Spanish Association of Lloyd’s Coverholders). Most recently he held the position of National Commercial Director at Asegrup S.A. in Spain. He is fluent in English and German.
No one could have predicted the complexity, scale and severity of COVID-19. Over the course of 2020, we have seen first-hand the expected and unexpected ways in which a pandemic can impact upon systems globally. As the world’s specialist insurance and reinsurance market, risk is at the heart of everything we do at Lloyd’s, and our deep understanding of risk, coupled with technology-led products means we have a key role to play in supporting the supply of the Covid-19 vaccines to developing countries.
The Lloyd’s market has a strong track record of delivering innovative products that evolve with societal and business needs. In order to catalyse our drive for innovation, Lloyd’s launched the Lloyd’s Lab as a platform for diverse and exciting start-ups to bring new ways of thinking to the market and combine this with the underwriting expertise that the market is so well-known for. In October 2018, the Lloyd’s Lab welcomed its first cohort of start-ups. Amongst these fresh faces was Parsyl, a supply chain data platform which developed an IoT solution to better harness data analytics to help shippers understand, mitigate and insure risks to perishable goods as they move through the supply chain.
Fast forward to 2020, and a global pandemic where developing markets have been disproportionately impacted and doubly challenged by the complexity of getting vaccines that require transport in extreme cold to the places and people who need them. That complexity, driven by poor infrastructure, challenging access to tracking data and limited risk management knowledge, brings the added difficulty of high premiums and unfavourable terms and conditions. The consequence might be critical shipments moving through the supply chain with inadequate coverage or even no coverage at all.
To tackle this, Lloyd’s has been working with Parsyl and an alliance of insurance and technology partners to create the Global Health Risk Facility, a solution aimed at providing insurance coverage and risk mitigation services to support the effective distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. By applying and adapting Parsyl’s existing technology, this innovative solution enables underwriters to track shipment-level data and provides local health workers with temperature-related data and insights to help them not just minimise, but mitigate losses of valuable doses of vaccines. Without this facility, communities could face extra challenges in the distribution of potentially life-saving testing equipment, treatments and vaccines.
I am immensely proud of this cross-industry collaboration at such a critical time, a collaboration that strongly reflects the longstanding ingenuity and adaptability of the Lloyd’s market and all of our fantastic partners. In conversation with Ben Hubbard, Parsyl’s CEO, he told me that ‘Crises can accelerate progress, and this solution exemplifies how collaboration across the global insurance market can come together with technology and data to deliver an innovative new model that solves a complex global risk challenge,’ and I firmly agree.
The Global Health Risk Facility is an important landmark in demonstrating how the global insurance market can come together with data and supply chain experts to make a significant, long-lasting difference for our communities and our society, even in the face of a major catastrophe. It also demonstrates the pivotal role insurance can play in helping society to recover and rebuild in times of need. And it shows the role that Lloyd’s plays, as a hub of underwriting expertise, innovative thinking and technology, in bringing together the best of our industry to learn from the experts outside of insurance to collaborate so that the industry can react and deliver solutions quicker than ever before.
At Lloyd’s, we are driven by sharing risk to create a braver world. As risk continues to become increasingly complex, we will keep pushing ourselves to identify solutions that help make this vision a reality. And we believe that these steps demonstrate how our industry can help solve societal challenges to the benefit of communities around the world.