Instinctive leadership

Few corporate interviews begin with big game hunting and feng shui – but Robert Hiscox is an unusual man. Just back from holiday in South Africa, he is keen to discuss the plethora of buffalo in the country.

Minutes later, we are in full swing on the ancient Chinese art of placement and arrangement, after he comments that I have chosen the ‘best’ seat at the round table in his City office. He is passionate about the benefits of feng shui – likes its combination of intense practicality and common sense.

“If anybody argues about it, I say, ‘go and sit down’ – and they always choose that seat,” he smiles.

"I’m a wartime general. I take no prisoners. But I’m hopeless in peacetime"

Robert Hiscox, CEO and chairman, Hiscox

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Art collector, business-man and father of five sons, Robert Hiscox is known, he says, as a ‘difficult’ man. “I am critical – I see faults and how we can improve things,” he says. “I’m a driven man. I like everything to be done well – and I am never satisfied.”
At his 30th anniversary with the company last year, affectionate speeches were made about Hiscox, but the word ‘difficult’ kept coming up. When it was his turn to speak, Hiscox pointed out that a number of his senior management team had been with the company for many years – some for decades. “What keeps you hanging around?” he asked them. Querulous he may be, but he clearly commands loyalty.

Father’s legacy

Robert Hiscox was destined for the world of insurance. His father, Ralph, joined the Roberts agency at Lloyd’s in 1938 and started Syndicate 33, writing non-marine insurance. In 1946, Ralph Hiscox and the Roberts family formed the Roberts & Hiscox partnership, as member’s agent and managing agent.

On his graduation from Cambridge University in 1964, Hiscox joined a small insurance broker as a trainee underwriter. A year later, aged 22, he joined Roberts & Hiscox, as an underwriter for Syndicate 33, specialising in fine art and personal accident insurance. “I joined my father thinking the business could be run a lot better – and we clashed,” says Hiscox. “He said it would take years to learn: I thought it would take six weeks. I was deemed arrogant but I think I was just confident.” Hiscox’s first day at Lloyd’s was his best moment. “I was stepping into life,” he says. It also coloured his business career: he realised the most important thing in business is who you employ. “I wasn’t thinking about external competition that day – I was thinking of the other syndicates I was up against,” he explains. “I thought, ‘there’s a lot of business here – and I’m going to get it’. I realised, immediately, I would do that if I employed the best people.”

In 1965, Ralph Hiscox was elected chairman of Lloyd’s. “He was a good man, an honest man,” says Hiscox. “He was not commercial but he loved committees – completely the opposite of me.” He has inherited his father’s guiding principle. “I would want honesty as a reputation to leave,” he says. “I like the fact that we pay claims fairly.”

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