Today’s insurance products are lacking and the “business does not do a great job on either product or service delivery,” the PwC Insurance Summit heard.

The claim came from a former longtime senior re/insurance executive during a keynote panel discussion designed to elucidate insights from industry trailblazers on why leadership matters now, more than ever before.

Stephen Catlin, founder and life president of Convex and Dan Glaser, operating partner at private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, also discussed in broad agreement that leadership today is more critical than ever before.

Moderator Fiona Luck, deputy chairwoman and senior independent director with the Council of Lloyd’s of London, led the panel.

Mr Glaser, who was previously the chief executive officer of Marsh & McLennan Companies for ten years and who also served at AIG, offered disappointment after reviewing his daughter’s homeowner's policy, which he said was 75 pages of legalese.

“Having been in the industry the amount of time I have,” he said, “I'm reading it and I can't figure it out.

“So how could that be the product that we're so emboldened to continue to support in an age where everybody wants plain talk? So I do think that it’s wrong.”

Mr Glaser said there was a need for less processing, particularly of smaller claims, when a standard evaluation of most of those below $20,000, “probably 90 per cent of all claims”, could survive on a broad evaluation of the facts, before the cutting of a cheque.

“And yet we have this whole hire and get an adjuster in there, adjudicate, go back and forth a little bit …”

Mr Catlin added that each line of legalese increases risk and the policy should simply say what is being covered and what the circumstances are that requires a claim to be paid.

He said: “I would believe that the public right is to pay genuine claims as quickly as possible. It's our shop window. That's why people come to us.”

When discussing leadership, Mr Glaser warned against the human tendency when listening to others to jump to conclusions, quickly cutting off alternative points of view.

He saw leadership needing an open-ness to alternative thinking, to avoid confirmation bias, but also eventually needing the courage to push through and make firm decisions.

He said: “I like the idea of having an open front. I also like the idea of having a strong back. Running businesses every day is mixed. No day is perfect. If you go home thinking the day was perfect, you didn’t look hard enough.”

A decisive but considered point of view, he said, might even differ from conventional wisdom, going against the grain.

He added: “Everybody views uncertainty as some unnatural state. Uncertainty is the state that we live in. It's a state that humans have always lived in. And the notion of stability and the quest for stability is mythmaking just to make you feel a little bit more comfortable in your own skin.

“The reality is there is no status quo, and there is no stability. Uncertainty will continue for the rest of your lives. So rather than fight it, embrace it.”

Mr Catlin agreed that to be a good leader, you have to be a good listener in today’s world, and that includes not just in business, but also in the military or politics.

“You have to have an open mind and listen,” he said. “And it's very important that if you agree with them, you say so. And if you disagree, say it in a fair, reasonable, understandable manner. Explain why. Don't just say you don’t agree.”

Arguing that leadership used to be much more prevalent and stronger than it is today, he said: “Leadership is something that people seem to shy away from and don’t talk about, and I think it’s a great shame.”

Ms Luck reflected on her career, identifying leadership strengths she observed that included adaptability, resilience and self-awareness.

She added: “I actually think in terms of what we’re all facing, having the ability to really reflect on where you are and being able to realise what that represents for your organisation, you have to work with it.”

Mr Glaser believes today’s executives require far more mental agility than those of the past. “Subject matter expertise is a foundation, but you can’t rest on that any more,” he said.

“Having an agile brain is recognising that the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know and you need to be a lifetime learner.

“If you’re an executive and you don’t have a view in terms of the operations of technology, let alone AI, then you're not doing your job properly. So I think that's the big change. You really have to keep learning now.”