Diary of an Insurer: RSA’s Kate Coutts

Monday 

Monday is my morning to take the dog out before the children wake up.

I hop on my mountain bike and head into the woods for a quick spin.

I aim for 40 minutes and a few hill climbs before returning to get everyone ready and off to school. The fresh air and a bit of exercise sets me up for a productive day. 
 
My role is working in the Line 2 Enterprise Risk Management and Ops team. That means we set the framework and practices for how the whole organisation manages risk: through clear governance processes for setting the appetite for key risk categories and having policies that guide operational management of these categories and registers, which track key risks and compliance to the policies. We also provide support for all areas on operational risk matters.    
 
Today, after a quick team call to agree our priorities for the week ahead, I start reviewing our risk and control mandatory learning module.

Last year, we gave it a massive overhaul, with inputs from various teams across the business, so this year we’re reviewing the feedback from how it landed and making sure the content is still fresh and to the point.
 
Tuesday

Early start for a day in London.

Our ERM and Ops team are spread across the UK, so we make sure to create time to be together every few weeks to collaborate on various topics.  

Today, we’re finalising the design work on our risk management system, which will simplify the processes and connect the three core elements of how we manage risk: appetite, policies and risk registers.  

This has involved extensive discussions and engagement with our stakeholders across all functions in the UK, as well as teams in Ireland and Europe, to understand what’s happening today and how we can create greater value for the business.  

It’s great to be at the conclusion of all this work and agreeing our implementation approach with our chief risk officer and executive team.  

The biggest change this introduces is a mindset shift from risk people doing risk to everyone thinking about the risks relating to their objectives.
 
Wednesday 

In 2020, RSA was acquired by Intact Group, and today we’re working on concluding an exercise to align on our risk taxonomy between our Intact Group team and the UK&I risk team.  

The risk taxonomy is the backbone of how we’ll bring information together into risk categories and enables us to drive more data-led risk conversations in our business discussions.  

The benefit of aligning between the Intact team and RSA is that we’ll be able to compare and consolidate a much greater amount risk information and use this to inform our business decision making. It’s been a really fascinating project that has required a lot of negotiation with our key stakeholders.
 
It is a prompt finish for me today, as I’m off to a school governor meeting at my youngest’s school.  

I really enjoy supporting the school and find my risk skills come in handy for my role as parent governor.

That’s because it’s about understanding the strategy of the school and identifying and mitigating the risks that could prevent its delivery, which is a lot like the risk reviews that our team do for work.  
 
Thursday

Today’s priority was working with a colleague and the chief people office to develop their functional risk register.  

We’ve been working with the HR leadership team and HR risk lead to challenge and assess their key risks, making sure that the top ones have actions in place to ensure a reduction.  

To do this, we’ve designed a workshop and tooling process and are facilitating building the capability and the risk register output.  

It’s been a great opportunity for us to grow our working relationships and gain a greater understanding of the challenges that the chief people office is facing.  These sessions are really effective at promoting a risk culture and risk awareness that is central to our strategy.
 
Given the days are getting longer, in the evening I get out for a walk in the woods with the kids and our dog, a young Labrador. As part of her training, we play hide and seek, which everyone enjoys. 

 
Friday

I closed the week out with a simplification session.

Policies are a key component of the risk management system and we’re working with the Intact Group compliance team on harmonising our approach as part of the acquisition work previously mentioned.

We’re driving a simplification agenda across the policies to make sure they’re relevant, fit for purpose, and avoiding technical jargon, so that the relevant people know what they need to do. 
 
At the end of the day I’m off to a circuit training class with a friend. There isn’t a lot of time or a lot of breath for chatting, but I find this a great way to decompress at the end of the week.