Senior Communications Business Partner

Job Type:

Permanent

Build a brilliant future with Hiscox
 

Introducing Hiscox:

Hiscox holds a unique history in the insurance industry, growing from its roots as a UK family business to become a recognised and respected global brand. Today, Hiscox is a global specialty insurer with three key areas of business: Hiscox Retail, Hiscox London Market and Hiscox Re & ILS.

This role is responsible for communications for Re & ILS, reporting to the CEO of the Re & ILS business unit, with a matrixed reporting line into Group Communications and a close partnership with Group Marketing to ensure the delivery of aligned and consistent activity.

About Hiscox Re & ILS:

Re & ILS is one of Hiscox’s two Big Ticket business units, being our reinsurance offering (insurance for insurance companies) and ILS (insurance-linked strategies), which are financial instruments that are sold to investors and whose value then goes up or down depending on whether there is a big insurance event like a hurricane or an earthquake. Both areas hold significant opportunity for topical and timely industry positioning and thought leadership, and have rich seams of insight to mine.

The role:

The Senior Communications Business Partner is responsible for brand, marketing and communications for Re & ILS. You’ll hold direct relationships with key international reinsurance news outlets, be responsible for our presence at key events such as the annual Monte Carlo reinsurance event, Rendez-Vous de Septembre (RVS), and lead the strategy and content for our internal communications and employee engagement programme.

The ideal candidate is a self-starter, a newshound and a superb writer. A background in insurance is ideal but not essential. You’ll need experience building and maintaining industry media relationships; a broad understanding of the different roles and uses of paid, earned, owned and shared media channels; and you’ll need to be accustomed to working in a matrix organisation with multiple partners and stakeholders.

Success in this role means bringing enthusiasm and energy to everything you do. Your day-to-day activities will be diverse, working with people from every part of the business (including underwriters, business development teams and senior leaders) as well as external agencies and third parties, so you’ll be comfortable adapting your style and skills to suit the task at hand. You’ll be confident making decisions and driving activity at an individual level and regularly bringing new ideas and a fresh perspective to the table.

What you’ll do:

The role’s core responsibility is the development and execution of the Re & ILS marketing and communications strategy, providing the Hiscox Re & ILS leadership team with strategic advice and tactical activity in support of our ambitious growth plans. Key areas of focus include:

External communications

• Work with the Re & ILS leadership team to develop a thought leadership plan to drive ongoing coverage of and opinions on key industry topics and events
• Develop a wide range of content including press releases, blogs, features, Q&A articles as needed
• Provide a press office function for reinsurance-specific media enquiries, including briefing spokespeople and interview preparation

Internal communications

• Develop a Re & ILS internal communications plan and support key stakeholders with development of appropriate content, working closely with the Re & ILS People Director in support of key functional goals
• Lead delivery of the annual Re & ILS “launch” event in January, working closely with the CEO and leadership team to develop the narrative, format and content

Marketing

• Maximise opportunities around sponsorship activities that are undertaken, supporting on execution as required
• Day to day management of the Hiscox Re & ILS and Hiscox ILS websites, ensuring content is kept up to date and reflects the latest products and perspectives from the team
• Manage the production of all marketing materials (internally/externally), work with Underwriting and Business Development teams and external design resource to identify and deliver value-add marketing to help communicate product messages (i.e. risk appetite) to our key external audiences (brokers, carriers, investors)
• Identify insurance sector insights and conduct relevant studies with the Group Marketing team on an ad-hoc basis

Candidate requirements:

• 8-10 years of communications experience, gained either in an agency or in-house
• Exceptional communications skills with experience building relationships at all levels across all of our Hiscox Re & ILS locations (currently London and Bermuda), including our Leadership Team, and to ask the right questions so you can get your job done
• Experience developing sponsored content (both video and written) and negotiating costs with media outlets
• Expert writing and editing ability, with attention to detail
• Evidenced ability to produce high quality work when under pressure
• Comfortable getting to grips with complex terms, insurance speak and jargon and communicating tricky concepts clearly – previous insurance experience is desirable but not essential

Diversity and flexible working at Hiscox

At Hiscox we care about our people. We hire the best people for the job and we’re committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success. We also understand that working life doesn’t always have to be ‘nine to five’ and we support flexible working wherever we can. No promises, but please chat to our resourcing team about the flexibility we could offer for this role.

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