IUA boss reveals strategic priority to boost ‘engagement with the chief risk officer community’

Chris Jones, chief executive at London-centric trade body the International Underwriting Association (IUA), plans to build greater “engagement with the chief risk officer (CRO) community” as part of his three pronged “vision for the IUA”.

Previously director of the IUA’s underwriting and claims function, Jones formally took up the helm at the association in May 2025 after long-standing IUA boss Dave Matcham retired in March.

As part of this appointment process, Jones was required “to present my vision for the IUA” to the trade association’s board, building on the organisation’s key tenets of improving underwriting and claims technical skills, supporting the legal and regulatory landscape surrounding the insurance industry and contributing to market modernisation and digitisation.

Jones’ proposed priorities consist of three focus areas, which Jones said reflect his learnings from his 20-year IUA service to date, as well as the “increasing importance” of certain topics to the IUA’s 80 business members.

One of Jones’ outlined priorities will be music to the ears of CROs, as he strives to steer the IUA to look “at risk a bit more holistically”, eliminate the association’s past “siloed approaches” to risk discussions – which saw risks evaluated on a line-by-line basis – and build greater “engagement with the chief risk officer community”.

“We need to look at it a little more holistically and to have people within IUA who can look at how we treat risk across the board.”

He told Strategic Risk: “We’ve tended to look at things that are class of business specific issues. But the way we see risk at the moment is – in particular [around] some emerging risks and systemic risks – they just overarch lots of different business lines. For example, artificial intelligence] or cyber risk.

“Each market will have a slightly different approach to these risks. But is there something we can do to look at it a little more holistically? How do we look at cyber across multiple [lines]? Are there any trends we can take from that? What are the products that members are putting together to meet new demands for these cross-class issues?

“You also look at the different products, different ways of distribution that insurers are putting together now – you’ve got parametric cover, you’ve got smart follow, all of those good things – and it feels that we need to look at it a little more holistically and to have people within IUA who can look at how we treat risk across the board.

“It’s more of a chief risk officer interaction, rather than a siloed class of business specific interaction.”

UNDERWRITING AND CLAIMS EXPERTISE

Another of Jones’ priority pillars is to build on the IUA’s existing underwriting and claims focus, seeking to provide greater thought leadership to the London market – this could be delivered through authored or co-authored research reports, for example.

A prime element of this pillar, Jones believes, will be close collaboration across the 40 to 50 odd underwriting and claims groups that sit within the IUA. Around 1,500 insurance professionals are currently involved in these groups.

Jones wants these single business line focused committees – covering products such as aviation, marine, professional indemnity and directors’ and officers’ (D&O), for example – to debate in more detail emerging and systemic risk approaches, whether products are fit for purpose and if claims processes meet customer expectations.

He said: “A lot of the discussion is conditioned by where the market is. So, we’re seeing in some areas softening market conditions [and] insurers really striving to maintain growth.

“Where we can add value is where we think about improving risk management and some of those techniques looking at where the emerging risks are, having that technical discussion with underwriters and claims people.”

To help deliver this priority, Jones has split up his old job role, creating distinct director of underwriting and director of claims positions – rather than keeping the post with a combined oversight.

In June 2025, the IUA announced two internal promotions to fulfil these roles, seeing Tom Hughes step into the director of underwriting position, while Joe Shaw took on the director of claims post. Both were previously senior underwriting and claims executives.

TALKING TALENT

The third of Jones’ priority pillars is centred “on attracting, training and retaining talent” into insurance careers – an ambition he hopes to action using the trade association’s newly created IUA Futures programme, which launched in June 2025.

The scheme, which is led by underwriting and claims executive Ela Metalia, targets IUA members’ staff that have “got zero to two or zero to five years’ experience” and explores how this demographic seeks to “interact with their peers and what opportunities they have for technical evolution”.

Jones noted that the IUA already undertakes a number of ad hoc talent focused initiatives.

This includes networking and technical skills-based events, operating next generation committees as almost a shadow committee to senior groups, hosting soft skills sessions on subjects such as jargon busting, for example, providing ‘show and tell’ type learning opportunities between senior and junior practitioners, as well as collaborating with groups such as the Lloyd’s Marine and Energy Under 35s Insurance Group – a committee of 15 young professionals operating in this class – and online platform Forage, which develops virtual job simulations.

“We need to do more on targeting people to get in the industry in the first place.”

To date, these undertakings have operated in a disparate, unscheduled way, Jones acknowledged. The IUA Futures scheme, therefore, will strive to create a more coherent and coordinated programme that can boost the impact of the trade association’s talent-centric activity.

Metalia is currently plotting out the scope of her new role – Jones wants IUA Futures to be fully implemented by the end of 2025, ready to make a market splash come 2026.

“We’re seeing [a] real need to attract more people into the market,” Jones added. “Unless you have got a family member working insurance, you fall into it. I fell into it. Our experience is once you’re into it, you see the variety of the work, the impact that it has societally and then also – being a people industry – that it’s a good environment to be in.

“We need to do more on targeting people to get in the industry in the first place. We’re not trying to necessarily reinvent the wheel or anything like that. This is something everyone should be engaged in in the market.”

Jones’ “grand plan” for the IUA since becoming chief executive has given a fresh lick of paint to its perspective on risk. With global political and economic environments creating an ever more intertwined risk web, Jones’ focus on insurance products tackling risk management in a more holistic way should be beneficial for the CRO community.