How Beazley improved board effectiveness with better board papers

Beazley is a specialist insurance business focusing on difficult, risky, and non-commoditised risks. From small beginnings, it has grown into a major player in the specialty insurance market. Now a FTSE 100 business, Beazley employs more than 2,000 people across Europe, North America, and Asia.

The challenge

Before working with Board Intelligence, Beazley’s board and executive team were struggling with unwieldy board packs that were difficult to navigate.

This created two significant challenges. The first was the sheer time drain of reading lengthy papers. The second was more serious — ensuring directors could fulfil their oversight obligations.

The solution

Board Intelligence brought 20 years of board reporting expertise to the challenge. The team helped Beazley’s report writers rethink the purpose of their board papers and provided best practice guidance, templates, report writing training, and coaching to individual authors.

At the heart of the solution was the Question-Driven Insight (QDI) Principle — a methodology for high-quality thinking and writing that underpins effective board reporting.

The QDI Principle helps authors think through the questions they should be answering and the story behind their reports, enabling them to create papers with a logical flow that are easy for readers to engage with.

The approach proved easy to adopt. Authors quickly grasped how to apply the methodology, and the benefits became visible across committees and board papers.

The impact

The transformation has been significant and wide-reaching.

Board and committee papers are now much more concise, telling directors what they need to know — not everything the report writer knows.

The improved papers present risks and opportunities upfront, allowing the board to quickly get to the heart of the conversation. This has been particularly valuable in helping Beazley draw on the diverse experiences and perspectives around its board table.

The impact has extended well beyond the boardroom. The changes have helped the entire organisation think more clearly about communication and how to present information effectively.