Best in class: the new chair of BILTIR

Bermuda:Re+ILS spoke with Scotland Courcy, who succeeds Sylvia Oliveira, BILTIR’s first chair, about how she views her new role.

I always tout the fact that I’m an island girl; I’m originally from Trinidad. I had an exemplary education. A highly competitive high school and a highly competitive university experience. And then I was taught at law school by the premier academics in my field, including judges. I want people to understand how proud I am of the educational system that I came from.

Being in international business (IB), I’m dealing with people from many different jurisdictions who may make assumptions around what the educational system where I’m from is like. They might not know that it’s a UK-based educational system that is highly competitive. But it’s that foundation that really set me up in a profound and strong way to be able to move into IB and progress in the way that I have.

On my professional achievements, being able to move to different jurisdictions as I have and being able to advance in a space that is not necessarily known for being the most diverse, means that I’m extremely proud to have been able to have a seat at the table. I feel quite strongly that my role, in addition to my day-to-day, is to encourage and spark conversations around diversity and to ask, when I look around a room, why am I still the only black woman who is a part of this conversation?

That work, to be frank, is what I’m actually extremely proud of now. I think it’s my purpose to continue to inspire and spark those conversations and to motivate those who are coming behind me as well.

Leaders don’t close doors behind them. And the work I get to do as part of Athene in the community around education and our collaboration with the Bermuda College is all part of this conversation. By offering scholarships to Bermuda college students to pursue their academic careers and by helping to build the Athene Career Development Center at the Bermuda College, I believe those will be drivers for opportunity and progression for young Bermudian students to also make their mark in IB. I’m supremely proud of that.

I’ve been practising for almost 20 years now and I can say that the law has never been stagnant. There have constantly been changes to legislation, regulatory developments, and what’s going on internationally impacts all of that. But it’s so much more fast-paced now. In our industry, in particular, that means attorneys have to be so much more nimble. You have to keep abreast of not just what’s just happening in your space, but also of issues that could impact the industry from outside of your space, because the world is so much smaller.

For example, climate risk will bring legislative changes that are going to impact our space as well. Climate is broader than what you would typically think about with hurricanes and wind, and all the covers that P&Cs provide. It’s requiring us to have a broader lens because you can’t just stay in what you view as your lane and your area of expertise. We’re so interconnected and I think it’s an exciting time because, if you are eager to learn, if you are eager to face those types of challenges which are global, then this is a great space for you. We get to be analytical, we get to be thoughtful, and we get to move outside of our general block. It’s not linear any more.

My first foray into serving Bermuda International Long Term Insurers and Reinsurers (BILTIR) was as chair of its legal and regulatory committee. From there, I moved to becoming vice chair of BILTIR and now chair. All of my years served in the industry have prepared me for this role. I’m also the chief operating officer of Athene, so I’m used to engaging with different teams in different areas. As a lawyer, I can’t just sit in my box, but have to deal with the risk management function, with the accountants, with the actuaries. That experience of supporting these different areas has given me a broad perspective of the issues that are impacting our members.

I had the regulatory lens already and I continue to interact very closely with the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The regulatory relationship is important for any insurer in Bermuda. I also used to be on the P&C side and in private legal practice, and regulatory engagement was part of my day-to-day work.

So, interconnectivity as a lawyer, having to present in multiple forums, including to my boards of directors, means I feel well-positioned to be able to speak on behalf of our membership. I understand what’s happening, I understand the issues, and I like to collaborate.

We’re seeing a lot of innovative and unique solutions being provided by our members for the needs of our clients. The use of innovative structures, like the first sidecar we did a couple years ago, has permeated through the industry.

The focus for us is no longer just growth; it’s about all of the things that come with growth. That means making sure our ultimate policyholders have what they need, that we have strong capital behind our books of business, that we have strong reserving practices because we’re talking about long-term liabilities on our balance sheets.

Growth is fuelling competition and so I would say the current state of play is that what was an emerging sector of the Bermuda market has grown tremendously and continues to mature.

BILTIR was set up in 2011 and it’s still relatively young. We started with five members and now have 73, and we employ more than 600 people on the Island. My predecessor Sylvia Oliveira supported that growth and I would like to focus on maturing the organisation. We’ve had strategic sessions as a board and my goal in the next couple of years is to focus on our pillars of learning and networking to support professional development, corporate social responsibility, and community engagement. We have a social impact and want our contribution to environmental and sustainability issues to go well beyond the regulatory lens.

I want to continue to focus on advocacy because that’s a critical piece of our role as an association. We’ve just started our global advocacy committee and it will play a key role in this. What was previously more internal facing from an advocacy standpoint in terms of the issues we were facing as an industry has evolved into an international focus for us. The world is evolving and there are broader international issues that we need to address and so, part of being a mature organisation, is to shift our lens as needed and adapt to those changes accordingly.

I’ll measure my success by BILTIR being able to actively engage with our key stakeholders for good outcomes for our members. We’ll be attending the Global Federation of Insurance Associations in Chile in November for instance and are continuing to assess the ways in which we need to represent our members and our industry.

As a reminder, the life sector has long-term liabilities and the contracts that we write are supporting all types of long-term policies written by life carriers to protect their pensions, life policies and annuities. They are on our books for a long time. It’s a very competitive market in the long-term space right now. Unique structures for transactions and continued use of sidecars will help facilitate deals to be written. Insurers need capital to help support their books of business and so the market need is there for the innovative solutions we’re providing.

Macroprudential trends such as ageing populations globally will continue to drive the demand for retirement solutions and the services of our members. I think we’re going to continue to see new entrants into the market, more licences being applied for and more deals being done as a result.