Harry Vardigans, Head of Insurance: Fathom: Will it make the boat go faster? (409)

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Harry, great to have you. This is part of a occasional theme on the uninsured and uninsurable with a, in this case a happy ending. So we'll come to that later on. You're head of insurance at flood modelling company Fathom, owned, um, by Swiss Re. I'm going to be talking more about that in a minute but, uh, the reason I thought it'd be great to talk to you just now is you mentioned in a few months you can be wearing across the Atlantic with three other people in a nine meter boat. And I thought, well, that's pretty extraordinary, so let's have a chat about it. What's that all about?

Speaker A: Myself and three of my friends from school and university decided that now was the time for us to go and do a big adventure before families and kids start coming along. So it's something that me and my best friend who's part of the crew have always wanted to do since we were kids and we came up with an idea in a pub and then put the deposit down to enter the race and here we are. So we set off pretty soon in about six months time.

Speaker B: Well, now it's about your age, I did the same thing, but I ran the London Marathon and that was pretty painful for a few hours. So I've got great admiration. I think it takes about 40 days, doesn't it, all being, well, 30 to

Speaker A: 40 days, yeah, depending on the conditions. But it's one of those heavily dependent weather and you gather tailwind or headwind or is there no wind at all. So it can vary by at least 10, maybe even 20 days in terms of the length of time it will take us.

Speaker B: Well, lots of sort of allegories and relevance, uh, to the world of insurance and flood we're going to be talking about a little bit. So you leave from the Canary Islands and then what happens next?

Speaker A: We leave on the 12th of December in La Gomera, which is a smaller island just about 40 minutes outside of Tenerife. We head west and we row the 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to Antigua. And so in between that it will be shift patterns of two hours on, two hours off. So that's two hours rowing and then two hours where you get time to eat, sleep and do boat maintenance at the same time. And you just continuously do that cycle for the 30 to 40 days until you get to the other side.

Speaker B: It's a race, isn't it? So you've got the people you're competing against.

Speaker A: It is. And we're all pretty competitive souls as well, we will be racing it and there's probably about another 40 boats, so ranging from five people boats to the real crazy people that are doing it, uh, single handedly. That sounds pretty lonely.

Speaker B: Yeah, that is seriously hardcore. And insurance, of course, is all about managing risk. I mean, just the sheer physical effort of rowing, lack of sleep I can see is going to be one big challenge. But what else do you have to plan for and overcome when you're going across?

Speaker A: It's one of those ones where you can plan for as much as you like and have contingency plans for certain scenarios, but there are certain things that can happen that you just do not plan for. So I was reading the James Cracknell and Ben Fogle book when they rode the Atlantic and one of the crews there that they were racing against has put out their sea anchor, or it's called a drogue. So if there's a strong headwind, you put out this big underwater parachute that stops you from going backwards quite as fast. And it also pulls you alongside to be bow and stern onto waves. You have a little bit more control and less chance of capsizing. But when they threw that out at sea, a shark got caught in the underwater parachute and then the shark started attacking the boat. It is some of those scenarios which you think, right, we can prepare for big waves coming over and capsizing the boat or we can prepare for injuries. But a shark getting caught, an underwater parachute is just one of those completely out there scenarios that could happen. But how do you prepare for that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think if you're going to do one of these kind of trips, actually reading those books of other people's experiences, probably not always a good idea. It can scare you off. And what about shipping though? Because as I understand it, with the straightawarmuz closed, there's a lot more traffic now going through the Atlantic. Is that something else? You've got to watch out. You don't get hit by a ship, they can't see you. How do you manage for that?

Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah. We'll be crossing a couple of different shipping lanes. And you're absolutely right in saying that the increased traffic boats now going down around the Cape of Good Hope and over to the US that is something that we're going to have to keep an eye out for, particularly in the dark. These ships will be lit up and we will also be lit up and we'll have a device called a seame, which, uh, sends out a signal whenever you're in range of another seemee. And all boats have them fitted. But the problem is These large tankers, 300 meter wide going at about 30 knots are often not actually controlled or have someone in the cabin, um, driving it or being aware of other things around them. So it's on us to get out of the way of those ships during the night. And when you're sleep deprived and you're hungry and you're tired, it's very easy just to zone out and just focus in your own little bubble. So we will need to be very aware and it's an increased risk.

Speaker B: It reminds me of cycling in London. You have to sort of have defensive cycling and assume everything's out to kill you. Similar when you're across the Atlantic. And of course the weather's a big part of this weather and the currents. We talk a lot about AI and what's happening in insurance, but there must be big sort of advances in weather forecasting and currency you can presumably tap into. I imagine part of this skill obviously got the brute force of rowing, but is actually how you use the external conditions to your best advantage.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Speaking to industry partners the likes of Rias and also talking to the chief science officer uh, at Fav and Molly Wing. This year is an El Nino year which will increase the sea surface temperatures and therefore increase the number of storms that we all experience. And so that point of forecasting is going to be really important. And so we set off from the Canary Islands, which is just a bit further north than the trade winds and the currents that you get in the Atlantic. So there's a choice that we have of the shorter route, which is 3,000 miles straight across to Antigua, or do we take the slightly longer route, adding a couple extra 100 miles, but initially going down south first to then pick up the trade winds and the currents earlier, so giving us a faster end and uh, middle to the race. So that's something we will be taking into consideration and we'll be getting weather forecasters lined up to guide us and I guess route plot us across the Atlantic. I have also been trying to hit up RIAs to give us a couple of long term forecasts and seasonal forecasts from that AI models just to see are we going to experience some really fast conditions because I believe last time it was an EL NINO Year, 2017, that was the year that all of the world records got broken for the Atlantic crossing. So I can't promise anything, but that would be quite nice.

Speaker B: Set the bar high. We actually just talk about 2017. I think that was the year we actually had working with Us, Lauren, who actually rode across the Atlantic at that particular time, actually two of them. And I do remember it was a pretty fast crossing. The challenges she had was they couldn't at that point get insurance because there were no insurers willing to cover people doing the race. So they were allowed to do it. I know that's changed now. So there is now insurance, isn't there? In fact, I believe you actually have to have insurance now if you're going to take part.

Speaker A: Uh, we do. In fact, there's two types of insurance that are required. So you have your standard marine hull insurance, and that's something we bought through Noble Marine. There's only a few specialized insurers that will really do it. So that insurance covers on land transport. So trailing between places within the UK, it then covers 12 nautical miles out to sea whilst we're training in the uk. But uh, more specifically it also covers the passage between La Gomera and Antigua. So should we be hit by a heavy storm or we come into troubles. And one of the key things is marlin strikes. So you can have blue marlin that essentially ram the boat with their, uh, big long sword noses and punch of holes in the boat. And so getting repair costs for those as well are, uh, key to a successful crossing and are mandatory. But then the Spanish government this year actually has just implemented a mandatory marine travel insurance and that is to cover for any medical evacs that are within their territorial waters, as well as repatriation costs back to your home country. And that's really been highlighted to them because a lot of small vessels that have been in trouble, people that perhaps don't have the experience that they need to use them, as well as a lot of the small boat crossings that they get in the meds and the Spanish authorities have to deal with. It's something they're now m mandating for any vessels that are going to be in their territorial waters.

Speaker B: Yeah, it seems like there's parallels between the world you and I live in in our daily lives. Uh, I've often felt that regulation drives innovation and often it's not until companies have to do something, they do it. It's an interesting parallel here that it's moved from no insurance being available because no company is willing to offer it. But the race went ahead then, as you said, no, um, more marine came in, probably got some data in, had enough of these races to see. Actually we can understand it, we can model it, we can price it. Insurance comes in and then the kind of circle completes itself. Then the Organizers say, well, because insurance is not available, you've got to have it. I guess it's a virtual circle all around, isn't it, in that sense?

Speaker A: I think so. I think that's a good way of looking at it. And it's particularly whilst we're in this softer market at the moment as well, with larger or smaller MGA's coming to play and creating those innovative products and being able to offer insurance that otherwise wouldn't be able to be offered. And that regulation piece is key to highlighting an opportunity because insuring ocean rowing boats is a pretty small market opportunity for a large international global insurer. But if you're a, uh, more niche, smaller marine, uh, mga, it's an opportunity that you can capitalize on and why not offer that as a product, particularly if the data points are there in terms of the race safety rules that they put in. So our race organizers, the world Toughest Row Atlantic campaigns, they are very stringent in terms of the qualifications you need, the certificates you need in terms of marine structural safety and the standard of boats are very much up to scratch now. The risk has probably been reduced quite a lot over the past few years. Our boat is carbon fiber, but when I was reading the book for James Cracknell and Ben Fogel, they were in a plywood boat and it blows my mind that they crossed the Atlantic and something that's just uh, such a small wooden vessel and that they trusted that. So fair enough. But I think the technology, the regulation, that's what's opened up this market to then insurers and MGA's offering.

Speaker B: It's also quite a nice link back to Lloyd's roots because I don't think they use it quite so much these days. But up until recent years Lloyds would be one class of business was marine and then everything else was classified as non marine. So yeah, it's very much as a link back into the roots. But let's just use that as a chance just to talk a little bit about what you're doing with Fathom and then your parent Swiss Re. So back in your day job and what you're doing. I know one of the areas you're looking at now is helping Swiss Re to replatform their Catnat application. Can you just talk a little bit about what's happening there?

Speaker A: Absolutely. And I'll, uh, put it on the reverse as well in Swiss Re helping us with our products and it's very much combining two expertise together to be able to service our clients in the best possible way. So everyone knows catnet, it's such a widely used particularly in the London market tool and Fathom, we are actually uh, a data have a platform, we have APIs that you can hook up into but our uh, hazard data, uh, our catastrophe models that is reliant on third party platforms for customers to consume them. And so one of those big platforms that we obviously knew before the acquisition is Catnet, which we never had an M4 and Swiss Re are trying to go through this push in terms of externalizing a lot of their IP and monetizing that to create a data as a service company and a SaaS company. And so that's the unit that Fathom got acquired by the risk Data solutions unit. And it's actually been really successful acquisition for both companies. Our data fits very well within all of those applications that Swiss Re provide and the CatNet tool. On the flip side for Fathom, we're also now building the new suite of flood catastrophe models for Swiss Re's own internal view of risk. We're combining the Fathom expertise within this hazard modeling world specifically for flood, with the expertise that Swiss Re have in the 170 years of claims data they have in terms of building vulnerability models and building catastrophe models and combining those together to then not only feed the internal view of risk for Swiss Re, but also then allow the FATHM customers and Swiss RE customers to benefit from the catastrophe models and hazard data that we build at Fathom. And so it's been a really successful partnership.

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Speaker B: building on that, the core offering of the flood model that is moving on fast. I'm not quite sure if it's as dramatic as the plywood to fiberglass analogy. How do you think about advising people of the date of origin or the sell by date for their flood models

Speaker A: compared to some of the more established perils like North American Hurricane or US Hurricane, where you probably have a little bit more of a convergence of views of risk. The flood modeling space is still very new, very innovative and that's probably highlighted by the number of companies that are now offering Flood data solutions. And I think it's really important to highlight that the frequency of updates of floods data is perhaps needed more so than most other perils. You could probably throw wildfire into this category as well. It's still a very early science and you need that frequency of updates. But compared to five years ago, what we're able to do in the flood modeling space is hugely different. And you can get a much better, much more defined view of risk than you previously would have. So anyone that's using a model that's even five years old, I really recommend them to have a look and review their view of risk because they can get a very detailed, very, very granular view on a global scale as well. And so that's really important.

Speaker B: The links to a theme is coming back to our boat analogy or reality, actually. I'm sure you're familiar with the term will it make the boat go faster? Which came out around the 2000 Olympics. The concept, which originated in Rome, but it can be used for lots of things, is basically the kind of incremental gains you can make. And as part of the British rowing team that got a goal in Sydney, as I'm sure you know. But it's also quite a useful way of thinking about what you do for scale ups. And other parallels you can see in your experience in your years are fathom between how the company has grown and that real focus on what actually is going to make a difference.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And that's a fantastic book for anyone that hasn't read it. But will it make the boat go fast? Or will this particular product, or us producing a new roadmap make what we're doing, make us move towards, I guess, our company goal, our company value, our company aim, that's a really important thing. And fathom that something we certainly held to heart when we were in the early days five years ago. Even more so in terms of having a tunnel vision of developing a global flood model and incrementally improving that. Every time new data sets become available or every time a scientific methodology is released, we go through and we apply that on a global scale. And what we didn't want to do, which I think can easily happen, is we start modeling in the areas that are, uh, perhaps easier to model or you have more available data. So let's take the uk, which has a huge amount of open source data sets to model for flooding. We could have really focused in and built a really detailed, really good model for the uk, but that would have taken all of our development time that would have been huge amounts of sales efforts for a, uh, relatively small market compared to the global market and targeting global insurers. So what we decided to do very early on was to continue to progress the science, progress what we're able to do on a global scale. So applying global methodologies to all of our models and then utilizing the best available localized data. And so that then allowed us to I guess create a step change compared to our competitors on that global scale. But then it also meant all we have to do is update one model. We don't need to update the UK model, then the US model, then the Australia model, the France model. We don't have this sort of mosaic of different models scattered around. We have one model that we apply to all of our customers.

Speaker B: And what about the boat itself? I mean you've only got a certain amount of size. I'm sure some tough choices to make about what you take with you. Any examples of how you are literally hoping to make the boat go faster?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So weight's a huge thing if we're to look at speed and trying to get the crossing as quickly as possible. So for example, our food will all be freeze dried food so it'll be very lightweight, it'll be vacuum packed and then we'll have to apply, you know, add water to that to then eat it. There's other choices we need to make in terms of, you know, luxury items as well. We're on a nine meter boat and there's four of us. There isn't much space for storage so we will not have much room for luxuries. We'll have to have maybe a small Christmas present each because we will still be at sea during Christmas. Things like clothing as well. Perhaps all we'll be taking is a couple of pair of shorts and a couple of T shirts and some foul weather rain gear. That weight consideration is probably one of the most important pieces. If you want a fast row, well

Speaker B: put the pressure on your Secret Santa to get something not only useful but also not too heavy. You've mentioned will it make the boat go faster? I guess I'm not going to take any books with you but digital doesn't really wear anything. So are you going to be listening to podcasts on the way over and if so, any podcast recommendations or book recommendations on or off boats you've got

Speaker A: the book one would be absolutely. Will it make the boat go faster? I think it's a really good way of thinking about anything in life to be honest. Inside of applying we only have a certain amount of energy and time to apply to things we do. And so is this going to add to my overall goal? Whatever that goal be, whether it be business, personal, will that particular thing that you're going to do going to contribute to you getting to that goal? That's really the message that will it make the boat go faster? Tries to convey. There's lots of different podcasts I like to listen to. I listen to quite a few of the different political podcasts. So political currency. The rest is money and the rest is politics. But of course the only one that we could ever listen to is the Instec podcast. Right, good.

Speaker B: Well I hope you'll be listening to that as you go across M. Give you a shout out when we get to December and help you along your way. Get a couple of questions if you want to learn more about Fathom or talk to you directly. What's the best way to get hold of you?

Speaker A: Yeah, please contact me so you can reach me on LinkedIn or on email. So H. Vardigansavm Global. We also have a huge amount of available information on our website. Research papers, white papers, case studies. So that's Fathom Global. And then for the row, the best place for the most frequent updates will be Instagram. So we are uh, our ah, crew is called rogue wave. We're Roguewave 2026 on Instagram or we also have LinkedIn so rogue wave Atlantic 2026 you can find us on LinkedIn as well and we'll be doing sporadic updates on there. We also have charity pages. We're raising money for the Halo Trust and the Clock Tower foundation. So two really important charities doing amazing M work and we have links to those donations for charities on both the LinkedIn and the Instagram.

Speaker B: Excellent. Well we'll put those in the episode notes as well so people can get to those easily and definitely be following you as you go. And then before we wrap up, Harry, is there anything we haven't covered you just want to mention either work related or rowing related.

Speaker A: Yeah. For those that always think about if they want to go and do something or is now the right time? I think you should just go and do it, go to the pub, have a couple of pints and then build up the courage to put the deposit down like I did.

Speaker B: Yeah, that is my experience. If you're in doubt, uh, apply for something and then you're in the process as opposed to you're not. So we don't always have to commit fully. Sometimes you've got a chance to opt out but actually, once you've started that journey, you kind of tend to have the motivation to keep going. Well, that was fantastic. Really enjoyed that. Many thanks, Harry, and hope to see you in person again before too long.

Speaker A: Thank you very much, Matthew.

Speaker C: Well, if you've made it this far, then I'm pretty sure you found that as interesting as I did. The Instech Podcast comes out every Sunday morning where we spotlight the latest news, leading voices and freshest updates across insurance that you need to know about. If you would like to take part in these conversations, head to www.instec.co to find out how you can join our network and um, be a part of the insurance intelligence for the CUR.