Insurance firm chair to leave after 47 years
ROBERT Hiscox is an art collector, father of five sons and the businessman who turned a small Lloyd’s of London underwriter into a FTSE 250 company.
But after 47 years at the firm that bears his name, he says he will step down as chairman in a year’s time.
He told City A.M. that he feels like “a schoolboy about to leave school” as he faces the prospect of a life without diary constraints where “I can actually go to Paris, have lunch with my wife and travel”.
The business is vastly different to the solitary syndicate that the Cambridge graduate took over when his father died in 1970.
“Lloyd’s was rampantly amateur and it was uncomfortable that your competitors were so foolish. I enjoyed it immensely because there were a lot of stupid people and I could make a lot of money.
“But I had unlimited liability and soon realised that I would go down with the rest of them – it’s fun having foolish competitors but it’s no fun if you have to bail them out.”
As deputy chairman of Lloyd’s in the early 1990s he helped modernise the market and improve the level of regulation: “I do not believe in completely free markets. Human beings are incompetent and corrupt when left on their own for too long. Regulation is necessary, as long as its sensible.”
Hiscox will assist his successor when requested, continue to be involved with the firm’s charity work and will maintain its famous corporate art collection – he’s a “big fan of Freud and Picasso”.
“Now I’ll be able to go to more exhibitions and spend more time at my house near Marlborough. I’ve been a slave to this business for 47 years and I look forward to only being here when they need me.”