The 1% pursuit: culture at the core

Reflecting on SiriusPoint’s transformative journey, Scott Egan, CEO, emphasises the power of culture and marginal gains in steering performance enhancement, encapsulated in his philosophy of “chasing the 1%”.

Hanging on the wall of an otherwise-typical executive office befitting a re/insurance CEO on Waterloo Lane, Hamilton, hangs an item that does not, at first, seem incongruous. It is a hurley, a wooden stick used in the Gaelic (Irish) sports of hurling and camogie. It has also been signed.

It might, at first, seem out of place. But the object, in fact, carries a sentiment and ethos that has driven Egan’s leadership strategy for decades. And the best example of the success of that has been the turnaround of SiriusPoint, which Egan presided over, to the company it is today. It is about “chasing the 1%” he says, somewhat cryptically.

Since stepping into the role of chief executive officer at SiriusPoint in September 2022, Egan – who has extensive experience across leading insurers, including roles with RSA Group, Aviva, Zurich Financial Services, Brit Insurance and Towergate Broking – has steered the Bermuda-based reinsurer’s turnaround into a phase of disciplined, culture-driven performance improvement.

Under his leadership, the company rebounded from significant underwriting losses in 2022, executing tough strategies, including exiting volatile segments and streamlining its portfolio and distribution partnerships.

Today, SiriusPoint is out of crisis mode and in refinement mode, with a newfound emphasis on incremental progress – “chasing the 1%”, as Egan puts it, that differentiates best-in-class firms, driven by people power as “companies are nothing without the people, the culture”.

Chasing the 1%

He begins to explain the meaning of the 1% – and the hurley – starting with a look back. Speaking exclusively to Bermuda:Re+ILS in the lead-up to conference season, Egan, when considering the past 12 months, said: “The truth is, nothing’s changed and everything’s changed.”

While the past year has seen SiriusPoint improve in performance again, seeing an ROE above target at 15% for H1 2025 and an increased share price to $19 (which started at $4 back in September 2022), what hasn’t changed for Egan is the consistency of his leadership approach.

“Chasing the 1% is a mindset. First, we had to get ourselves out of the tight spot the company was in. Then our ambition turned towards being a best-in-class underwriter. We certainly weren't there then, and we're not there yet, but ultimately, you have to have an ambition,” Egan said.

Digging down into his fixation with marginal gains, Egan explained that: “If everyone can approach the day with the intention of making even a tiny improvement, that x500 employees adds up exponentially. That’s what we're pushing for. Chasing the 1% is not necessarily about big things. It's about attention; it's the aggregation of all the little things that ultimately drive best-in-class performance.

And finally the explanation of the stick. “The history behind the phrase came from sharing the stage with an Irish sports manager of a hurling team in Ireland. We had both, in very different ways, described exactly the same thing, which was marginal gains. He later sent me a hurley on which he’d written ‘keep chasing the 1%er’s’, and that hangs in my office in Bermuda.”

The people behind the power

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and Egan stepped into CEO shoes following the turbulent merger of Third Point Re and Sirius Group. Faced with a mountain to climb, Egan explained he could see the potential right from the beginning:

“My job coming into the company was to work with the brilliant people we have here and unlock what I believed was huge potential.

“That belief has manifested itself now in terms of our improved performance, but it’s about more than that. It’s about people, our culture. Without the nucleus of good people, good attitudes, good engagement, good culture, nothing else happens.”

The pivotal role of culture

Workplace culture is the invisible framework that shapes how people think, behave and collaborate – it influences everything from employee engagement and retention to innovation and customer satisfaction.

Building such a culture requires more than posters of values or one-off team events; it takes consistent leadership behaviour, open and honest communication, recognition of contributions and a willingness to act on feedback.

It’s also about modelling desired values at every level, reinforcing them through everyday decisions and creating an environment where people feel respected, supported and challenged to grow. When done well, culture becomes a competitive advantage that’s hard for rivals to replicate.

Egan is focused on creating a culture that results in strength, but morale was low at the point of his joining: “I’ve been watching our culture transform over the last three years, people believe in themselves again. I think people had lost a bit of self-confidence, because obviously, the company's results weren’t particularly good. This comes back to chasing the 1%; we revisited every aspect of the company.

“We revisited our strategy. We had to make some really hard decisions in terms of markets and locations, and it feels like a long time ago now, but those were really tough moments in our journey because they impacted people.”

“The brilliant thing, and the thing I’m proudest of, is that every single person here took up the challenge of metaphorically joining hands. One SiriusPoint: let’s do it together. And I promise you, none of our improvements would have happened had we not done that. Seeing what people can actually do has been fantastic, a real leadership memory for me.”

This was something Egan humbly highlighted when congratulated about his Outstanding Contributor of the Year Award, saying: “The award is not about me. I picked it up on behalf of the company, and I’ve never been prouder because it was recognition of how far we’ve come in the last two to three years. For me, it wasn't about my contribution; it was about the outstanding contribution of every single person here. It sits in the sunlight in my office in Bermuda, and every single day I look at it and I’m never prouder because that was a group of people who made that happen. And the great news is we're not finished yet.”

Committing to action over words

Egan reflected on the transformative journey SiriusPoint has been on since his appointment, noting that the process has required a series of tough, but necessary, choices. These decisions, he said, were all made with a single, unifying ambition: to position SiriusPoint as a leading specialist re/insurer. “That means we can't be all things to all people,” he remarked, making it clear that focus, not breadth, is the guiding principle.

Outlining this approach, Egan added: “On one level, our strategy is to be ruthlessly focused on the areas where we think we’ll get expertise that we can bring to our customers. That marriage between our areas of expertise and our customers’ needs is where the magic happens. We won Program Insurer of the Year this year, which is proof that what we’re doing for our customers matters and makes a difference.” The recognition, he suggested, was evidence that the company’s sharper focus was already paying off in tangible ways.

He described SiriusPoint’s specialisms as targeted strengths that define both its offerings and the way it goes to market. “Our specialisms are areas in which we bring real focus and capability to the table, whether that be lines of business or distribution channels. For example, we’re very aligned with the MGA distribution channel. Ultimately, the thesis behind this strategy is that focused companies with the right culture and behaviours can be market leading.”

Egan was equally clear that execution is now embedded in the company’s identity. “Delivery is fast becoming the DNA of SiriusPoint, and I’m grateful to say we are gaining respect for that. We say that ‘talk is cheap’, if you’re going to do something, do it. But if you need help, ask. The key thing for us is making sure that we keep our commitments and promises.” This emphasis on action over rhetoric has become a hallmark of the company’s culture.

Looking beyond strategy, he highlighted the firm’s unique positioning in the market. “On the other level, we have an incredibly strong business that blends insurance and reinsurance capabilities in a way I’ve not often seen in the industry. Quite often, these two functions operate as separate machines, but we work collaboratively together across these sectors to offer creative solutions to our clients. This comes back to… you guessed it… the mindset and culture at SiriusPoint.”

The shift towards focused partnerships

Egan recalled that when he first joined SiriusPoint, the company’s involvement in the managing general agent (MGA) sector was far from straightforward. “When I came here, the company had lots of investments in MGAs, some of them large investments, we own them 100%, and others were much smaller,” he said.

The challenge, he explained, was that these varied stakes sometimes blurred the lines between being a true distribution partner and acting as an owner or investor. “On the distribution side, we absolutely want to be a programme MGA partner of choice. But what we don’t want is lots of equity stakes in MGAs. We don’t believe we need them to be a successful distribution partner, and ultimately, that's why we've been divesting over the past few years.”

This decision, he stressed, wasn’t born from dissatisfaction with the businesses SiriusPoint had invested in, but from a belief that clarity and focus drive performance. “Do we invest in MGAs every single day in terms of hearts, minds, effort, blood, sweat, tears? 100% we do, in every single MGA relationship we have, but we don’t take new equity stakes in them. We are happy owners of those we have, but focused companies tend to perform better. When you’ve got lots of investments right across the industry, those take time and attention that we believe, ultimately, can be redirected so we can concentrate on being a fantastic distribution partner.”

That sharper focus has already shown results. “A large majority of our double-digit premium growth over the last five quarters has come from either existing development of MGA partnerships or new MGA partnerships. I think that’s because partners are attracted to our people, our creativity, and our capability in specialisms.” For Egan, it’s a clear signal that the market responds positively when a company knows exactly what it wants to be – and sticks to it.

Culture: the foundation of change

As the conversation drew to a close, Egan reflected on the values that underpin SiriusPoint’s transformation. “We have valued behaviours that we try to use every single day, and that doesn’t mean we get them right every day,” he admitted. “Everyone can have a bad day, but there’s still a set of beliefs that if we operate by and hold ourselves to account, will create the right environment.” For him, culture is less about perfection and more about consistency – showing up with intent, even when things aren’t easy.

That mindset has driven a noticeable shift inside the organisation. “If we look at SiriusPoint, the collaboration across the company wasn’t where it needed to be when I first came here. Now, there's huge collaboration and respect across the company for what everyone is doing.” It’s a change that, in his view, has not only improved day-to-day working relationships but has also strengthened the company’s ability to deliver results.

“One of the things I think sits behind the DNA of execution is a steely determination to never give up, stick your chin out and make sure that we deliver,” he said, his tone suggesting this is as much a life philosophy as a business one. “That’s a really precious ingredient in any company, in fact, in any walk of life.”

In Egan’s eyes, SiriusPoint’s revival is as much about culture as strategy. “We're often judged on financial performances, but to be a best-in-class company, it’s about making sure you operate at high levels of performance year after year. This ultimately requires you to have a place where people want to come to work and help play a part in that journey.”

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