Building a career in insurance as someone from an ethnic minority background

Sulaiman Deeks-Massaquoi recently wrote for ACIN (the African-Caribbean Insurance Network, who Brit partner with) on his experiences of building a career in insurance as someone from an ethnic minority background. We’re pleased to share this as a Brit Spotlight.

Hello Sulaiman, can you introduce yourself?

Hello, I’m Sulaiman Deeks-Massaquoi. I’m an Assistant Underwriter in the Private Client team and have been at Brit since July 2021.

How did you first get into insurance, and what was the experience like for someone from an underrepresented background?

I’m originally from Harrow in North West London and when I was around 11 years old we moved up north to Doncaster - at the time it was a predominantly Caucasian town. One of my earliest memories of noticing a difference was my first day of school, walking into the assembly hall and feeling as though every single eye in the room was on me, being the only Black person in the entire school. From there I went to University in Middlesbrough, once again I was in a less diverse area for another four years.

During my Masters year I had a part-time job working for AXA in their inbound Car Sales team, which sparked my interest in a career working to understand and underwrite different risks. After university, I moved to Australia to travel and play football for a team there. By coincidence, the owner of the football team worked for Chubb - Insurance was following me around!

I told him about my job during university, and my interest in the sector as a career. He arranged a six-month contract job for me, working as an Operations Support Officer in Chubb’s local Financial Lines unit. I was hooked - I wanted to work in finance, and I liked the idea of a wearing a suit in a fancy building. I was into the insurance industry.

How did you find that first role in insurance?

I found myself as one of very few Black people in the office. During my time in Australia, I met many people who had never met or even spoken to a Black person before. I almost felt I had to be the poster boy for Black people - a colleague and friend of mine from Singapore even took videos of me to show to her friends back home.

I felt like I had taken up this unofficial role to ‘represent’ Black people to all those who had no experience of us and felt an overwhelming responsibility to present Black people in contrast to what they may have seen on the television, news or social media. I did not want them to pre-judge me simply by the colour of my skin.

What was it like when you returned to the UK?

When I moved back home to England I got a job working for Azur High Net Worth (an MGA for AIG). After a year or so, I moved from Operations to Underwriting; by this time I was very accustomed to being a minority so going into the London Market was not a great change in this respect.

Can you describe some of the challenges you’ve found from the lack of ethnic representation?

I think it is natural for people to drift towards those who are visibly similar to them. I have always had a group of Black friends. I have a lot of White friends too, especially in football. In certain situations, I find that there is somewhat of a shift, a code-switch, between groups of White and Black friends. The conversation is different and the words or slang I would use varies between both groups. 

For example, there’s football changing room banter, where certain comments or jokes are made. They are often light-hearted in nature and not meant with malicious intent, but these sort of things you just learn to just tolerate. To be honest, I don’t know if that’s the right or wrong way of dealing with things. In the workplace, having an ethnic first and last name it’s no surprise seeing this misspelt in an email or mispronounced in conversation.

Having said all this, during my time working in insurance I’ve been fortunate enough to work alongside some brilliant colleagues from different backgrounds and walks of life, who have never made me feel out of place and taken the time and interest to learn and ask about my background and how to pronounce my name properly. Little things like this can make the biggest difference in creating a truly inclusive workforce.

Do you see evidence of positive change?

Yes, and I do believe the Market is becoming more diverse with companies now showing more initiative in pushing Inclusion & Diversity, such as the Lloyd’s 'Race Action Through Leadership' initiative.

Brit is also doing a huge amount, such as our Employee Resource Groups, Black History Month events, reverse mentoring scheme and our guest speakers. The partnership with ACIN is also important in helping to push diversity within recruitment in the insurance industry.

I strongly resonate with Brit’s cultural philosophy to bring your whole self to work. With anything in life, nothing is perfect, but I believe Brit and many other companies are working hard to build a supportive culture in which everyone feels valued and appreciated.