1097: The Mutual Advantage in a Cyclical Market | Kevin Ingram, CFO, FM

For nearly ten years, Kevin Ingram knocked on S&P’s door, arguing that FM’s A‑plus rating undervalued its balance sheet. Other agencies, such as Fitch, already had the mutual insurer at AA. Each visit, Ingram presented fresh data; each time, the agency hesitated, wary of revising a long‑standing mark. Last summer, six months after FM dropped “Global” from its name, S&P finally moved, lifting the company to AA‑minus—a hard‑won validation.

Throughout the campaign, Ingram stressed a core belief: “capital is our product.” By capital, he means policyholders’ surplus—the net assets that back every policy. That surplus, he tells us, doubled from $12 billion in 2014 to $26 billion today, even as insured exposure expanded far more modestly. The widening cushion lets FM keep more risk on its own books, ride out catastrophe swings, and focus on clients committed to engineering‑led resilience instead of chasing marginal premium growth.

That discipline took shape after the 2017‑18 catastrophe losses, when Ingram led a rigorous re‑underwriting that bolstered profitability and reserves. Drawing on decades of loss data and hundreds of engineer‑captured risk points, his team now deploys AI models to rank mitigation projects for FM’s 1,600 core policyholders. Those accounts generate over $8 billion of the company’s $11.2 billion (gross operating) revenue.