In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - HIGHLIGHTS: Dame Amanda Blanc - CEO of Aviva

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

We've curated a special 10-minute version of the podcast for those in a hurry.   Here you can listen to the full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/aviva-ceo-transforming-insurance-navigating-climate/id1614211565?i=1000733980682&l=nbIn this episode of In Good Company, Nicolai Tangen sits down with Dame Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva, Britain's largest insurer, to unpack a remarkable corporate turnaround. Since becoming CEO during the pandemic, Amanda has refocused Aviva's portfolio, sold off non-core businesses, and made the landmark acquisition of Direct Line. She explains how AI is reshaping insurance, why climate change is a defining challenge for the industry, and what it takes to restore investor confidence after years of challenges. Beyond business, Amanda shares her views on leadership, execution, and building resilience, as well as her advocacy for gender balance in finance. From growing up in the Rhondda Valley of South Wales to being appointed a Dame and leading Britain's largest insurer, her story is one of decisive leadership and determination. Tune in for an insightful conversation! In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.  The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Une Solheim. Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, everybody. Tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday for the long version. Tune in on Wednesdays. Hi, everybody. I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. And today, we are in really good company with Amanda Blanc, the CEO of Britain's leading insurance company, Aviva. Now, this is the kind of company that insures your home, your car, and helps you save for retirement. They serve 25 million people globally and 21 million people in the UK alone. Amanda took over in July 2020 and has led what is described as a complete transformation, and we're going to hear all about it.

So Amanda, wonderful to have you on the podcast. Now, thanks, Nicola. It's really, really great to see you. Just briefly before we start, what does Aviva actually do in short? Oh, right, in short. Well, I mean, basically it protects people. It protects businesses from bad things that can happen. And also, it looks after people in their hour of need

and when they want to do things like retire. So, you know, we say with you today for a better tomorrow, that's our purpose. And I suppose that encapsulates everything that we do. Now, you're both an insurer and a major investor. How can you explain that dual role? Yeah. So obviously, as an insurer, we have a big balance sheet,

so over 400 billion pounds. And so we need to put those assets to really, really good use. And we do that via investing. We're a big investor in the UK. So, you know, we're a big believer in the UK. So we invest in UK infrastructure and UK guilt. I mean, also in private assets. But we also invest in corporate debt and in other things. So I think it's about getting the best return over a very long period for our shareholders and obviously also for our customers. Now, you and I, we've been in the jobs for pretty much exactly the same time, five years. Now, you've totally transformed Aviva.

What are the key decisions that you have made? So I think the key decisions came with actually within the first month. So I was in a fortunate position of being on the board for six months before I became the CEO. And really, the big decision was around focus in the portfolio. If I looked at Aviva and, you know, we had positions all across the world, but we didn't have scale positions. And coming from the background of working at ACSA for much of my career working with Henri de Kast, you know, one of his big mantras was you need to be top three in the market that you're in,

in order to be able to influence and to get the benefits of scale in that market. So we took decisions very early on about focusing the portfolio. We sold eight businesses for $8 billion within the first sort of 12 to 24 months. And by doing that, we were able to meet our second objective, which is about de-levering the organisation, also returning some money to shareholders. And actually what was good was by selling off those businesses where we didn't have scale positions, we basically showed the strength of the core business

in the UK, Ireland and Canada and all the real benefits of being scale players in our market really started to shine through. How do you get people to save them all for retirement? Well, I think there's a number of things. I think first of all, understanding in schools, people need to understand that. You know, today, if you are going to retire, you're not going to have a defined benefit pension.

You're only going to have a defined contribution pension. And in the UK, 15 million people will not be able to retire well. So I think getting that education, it needs to start young. And then I think it needs to carry on through their working life. I think the government can help with that, Nicolai. If I think about, you know, things like auto-enrollment age, bring the age down from 22 to 18, where you start saving, and increase the contribution from what it is today at 8% to 12%. These are things that we know will make a difference.

So I think it's a combination of taking individual responsibility. Employers can help with education. Definitely, you know, the government can help with policy. So I think it's a combination of all of those things. And then I think encouraging investors to think about not just sort of taking the default pension fund and just investing in the safest assets, But thinking about investing in things like private assets that over the longer term will give a better return. Moving on to some of the changes we're seeing just now, how is AI changing the insurance business?

Oh my gosh, massively. I mean, if I think about Aviva, you know, we've got about 150 use cases on AI. I mean, look, we are very big users of AI. So if we think about our motor pricing, we've been using AI for over 10 years, machine learning. and like 98% of our retail products are priced using AI. So for instance, if I'm 18 years old and I'll buy a new Ferrari, I pay a high price, right? Yeah, I mean, you probably would struggle to ensure that, I think an 18-year-old driving a Ferrari. I mean, is that really responsible?

I don't know, you know. But yeah, I mean, we've been using all of data and machinery for a very, very long time. If you think about how competitive and dynamic the UK market is, Everybody's sort of constantly using different models to get to your best pricing point. But if I think about some of the more exciting things, you know, in our claims world, for example, previously a customer would have been on calling us to check where a claim is in the process. They'd have got through to a handler. A handler would have taken details from them, looked through all the screens of all the different systems. Today, we've basically used AI models to predict the likely reason why the customer is calling.

so that when the customer gets through on the call, they're basically speaking to a handler who can say, I can see where you are in the claims process. They've done all the fraud checks using AI models, and they can basically help the customer with the claim, rather than spending the first five, ten minutes of the call, taking all of the details. So I think that that use case can apply to very many products.

And so that combination, I think insurance is perfectly set to take real advantage of AI. Moving on to leadership, What is good leadership to you? Well, first of all, I think listening as much as talking, being able to communicate really well, quick and decisive decision-making, but really importantly, good follow-through on that decision-making.

And what's the best way to follow through? Because you have been... Some people call you the execution queen. What is good follow-up and good execution imply? How do you get there? So many times you see, I don't know about you, you must see it all the time. You hear leadership presentations and you hear strategies.

And people say, I've got this great strategy. And you look at the slides and you think, oh, yeah, that sounds really, really good. And then, you know, you sort of look back five years later and go, I wonder what happened with that, you know. And I think strategy is great. execution is better. So, you know, I think you can, if you execute well on a sort of 80% their strategy, you would probably do better than you have a 100% brilliant strategy and don't

follow through on the execution. What does it mean? It means, you know, having very clear objectives for absolutely everybody in the business, from me to the, you know, to every single person in the contact centre so that there's a real flow through. Just can everybody connect with what the principle and focus objectives of the business are? Regular. monitoring of the performance. So, you know, with my CFO, Charlotte Jones, I mean, she's phenomenal. You know, we have great performance management meetings with the business, regular reviews. Are you doing what you said you were going to do? If not, why? What has changed? What do we need to do differently to get to a better outcome?

Some personal reflections. You are one of the CEOs who are the most vocal about gender balance. Why is that important for you? Well, I mean, so first of all, I would say I was asked by the government to be the women in finance champion in 2020. And we are part of that moving in nowhere, by the way, and we are. Now, as far as the women in finance was concerned, what was clear was that, you know, there was a problem. There is a problem with women in financial services in the UK, which the government actually recognized about 10 years ago and set up the women in finance charter. And then, you know, obviously they have been trying to improve the number of women in financial services roles because the belief is, was that by having more diversity around the table, you get, you ultimately get better decisions. Now, I think about that in diversity in its broadest form, but certainly, you know, it will also apply to gender. And so we've been working really, really hard with the government, with other financial services firms to broaden the accessibility of insurance, of banking, of investment. banking to women.

And it is by broadening that accessibility. I think that we can bring a more diverse workforce in. Partly because of this work, you were appointed at Dame in January 24. What and for the listeners who don't know, it's the, it's kind of the equivalent of being knighted, right? That's right. And it's a huge thing, right? in the English society. What did it mean for you personally?

Well, first of all, you know, I was born in the Ronda Valley in South Wales in the UK. Both of my grandparents were minors. I went to a comprehensive school, and I started at Commercial Union as a graduate trainee, not knowing even really what insurance was or thinking about it. So to end up with a damehood, which actually was for contributions to business, for contributions to climate and for contributions to gender for those three things. I mean, it meant the world to me, obviously. It was a really phenomenal day for me and my family.

And, you know, my mom and my, you know, my dad had passed away at that point. And I just know he would have been so proud of that. But to just think that you can come from where I came from, you know, to that was just amazing. Oh.