Marcus Tollerby · Chief Strategy Officer · United States
I would bring a practical understanding of how weather becomes a balance-sheet problem. Many boards receive a modelled catastrophe figure, a reinsurance summary and a capital ratio, and treat each as settled. I can help directors ask what lies beneath them: how much of the exposure data was observed rather than assumed, which losses fall below the protection the company buys, and how long a corrective rate or deductible change will take to show in results. That applies beyond insurers. An agricultural cooperative, a farm lender or a company with storm-exposed plants faces the same questions in different language. I am also used to presenting options that disappoint someone. A board serving members, customers or a community needs to see who bears the cost of a choice before it is made, and I have learnt to put that cost on the first page rather than in an appendix. I have not yet served as a director. I would therefore start as a committee member, contribute where my experience is directly relevant, and rely on colleagues with legal, audit and operating experience that I lack.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Risk committee · Audit committee · Finance or capital committee |
I am seeking a non-executive seat on a risk or audit committee where my experience of catastrophe exposure, reinsurance and mutual capital would be directly useful. The best fit would be a mutual or reciprocal insurer outside our states, an agricultural cooperative, a lender with farm exposure or a smaller listed company with storm-exposed assets. I would want the chair to explain why the board is adding a director and what gap I am expected to fill. I am not looking for an honorary title or a consulting relationship described as a directorship. A first appointment should let me contribute from the start in a defined area and learn the wider responsibilities of a director alongside experienced colleagues.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors and its finance and risk committee
2017–present
Presents catastrophe exposure, reinsurance options, state portfolio reviews and capital proposals; not a director.
Member of a committee
Endowment investment committee
2019–present
Volunteer alumnus member of a seven-person committee overseeing an endowment of about US$140 million; no executive role.
When we dropped the aggregate cover in 2023, the most useful step was not the modelling but the risk committee chair's request that we fix in advance the surplus level that would reopen the decision. It turned a judgement that could later be defended or attacked on hindsight into a commitment with a stated boundary. On a board I would ask for that kind of pre-agreed trigger whenever management proposes to retain more risk. I would also want the paper to show the seasons in which the rejected alternative would have performed better. Our own season was one of them, and saying so openly preserved the board's trust in the next recommendation. A director's job is to ensure that the decision was reasonable on the evidence available, and that its failure conditions were understood by everyone who approved it.
The 2024 capital discussion showed how easily a short-term need can be used to justify a long-term structural change. An affiliation and a reorganisation both had merits, but neither was needed to restore surplus within two years. As a director I would ask management to state the problem first and the solution second: how much capital, for how long and against which risk. Only then would I want to compare instruments. I would also ask who had prepared the analysis of each option. In our case management's preference formed before an independent review, and directors who disagreed had reason to feel the comparison was not neutral. I would press for outside advice early when a proposal changes who controls the organisation or how its members are represented.
My first months would go to understanding how risk reaches the board. I would read the last three years of committee papers, then ask the chair and the chief risk officer, or their equivalent, which questions they wish directors asked more often. I would want to see one complete planning cycle, including how exposure, pricing and capital assumptions are agreed and who can change them. Where the company has physical assets or insured locations, I would ask to visit one operation in its busy season rather than in a quiet month. I would keep my contributions to the matters where my experience applies and say so when it does not. By the end of the year I would ask the chair for direct feedback on whether my questions helped the committee reach better decisions or simply added length to its meetings. I would also tell the chair which parts of the business I still did not understand well enough to challenge, and agree how I would close those gaps during the second year.
My conflicts are mainly commercial and easy to list. Ostervale competes with other property insurers in six states, buys reinsurance through intermediaries and from reinsurers, and depends on about 1,050 independent agencies, many of which also represent competitors. I would not join the board of an insurer writing property business in those states while I remain employed. For any other company I would disclose Ostervale's reinsurers, intermediaries and major agency relationships, and my former employment at Wrexholm, and would ask the company secretary or counsel to check them against its own counterparties. If a recurring matter required me to step out, I would discuss with the chair whether the seat still made sense. Ostervale's own written consent is a condition of any appointment, and I would keep its confidential exposure, pricing and reinsurance information entirely separate from any board I join.
I would not call myself independent of any insurer, reinsurer, intermediary or agency with which Ostervale or I have a material relationship. Before any appointment I would set those relationships out for the nominating committee and accept its judgement, and its counsel's, on whether the applicable independence standard is met.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian requirement and does not apply to the United States appointments I am pursuing, so I have not registered. For a listed company here, independence is assessed under the applicable exchange listing standards and the company's own guidelines; for a mutual or cooperative, state law and the bylaws set the rules, and I would take advice on each.