Marsh McLennan’s Climate Director Shares How the Insurance Sector Can Drive Innovation and Partnership in a Warming World
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Show Notes:
In this episode of Mission Matters, Adam Torres speaks with Francis Bouchard, Managing Director of Climate at Marsh McLennan, live from the Milken Global Conference 2025. Francis shares how the insurance industry can go beyond claims to drive real impact in disaster preparedness and climate adaptation. From data-driven wildfire recovery efforts in Los Angeles to the need for radical collaboration, Francis outlines how insurance professionals can become unexpected leaders in climate resilience.
About Francis Bouchard
Francis Bouchard is an accomplished global public affairs professional who has served as an advisor, catalyst and contributor to a series of climate resilience and insurance initiatives. He is currently the Managing Director for Climate at Marsh McLennan, and earlier served as the Group Head of Public Affairs & Sustainability for Zurich Insurance Group, where he focused on aligning the Group’s government affairs, sustainability and Foundation activities. He originally joined the insurance sector in 1989, and since has held a series of industry-focused advocacy, communications, sales, citizenship and public affairs roles, both in the U.S. and in Switzerland.
Francis also chairs the board of directors of SBP, a national non-profit focused on disaster resilience and recovery, serves on the board of the climate-focused insurtech incubator InnSure, and is a member of the Advisory Council of Syracuse University’s Dynamic Sustainability Lab.
About Marsh McLennan
Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC) is a global leader in risk, strategy and people, advising clients in 130 countries across four businesses: Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer and Oliver Wyman. With annual revenue of $23 billion and more than 85,000 colleagues, Marsh McLennan helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on BR Guest to apply. All right, so did I have on the show Francis Bouchard and he is managing Director of Climate over at Marsh McLennan.
Welcome to the show, Francis. Adam, it’s great to be here. Thanks. All right, so for everybody listening, this is part of our MilkenGlobal Conference coverage, where we bring on guests that attended the conference and, also attendees and participants, and really just talk about the conference, we’ll get into the work that, in this case, that Francis is doing and really have some fun.
So, first thing, first this was your first year heading to the conference, is that right? Francis? It was it was quite an experience. It was a, really impressive group of speakers, but there was as much dialogue happening in the hallways and the social events surrounding the, meeting.
So, you know, I took a lot away from, those discussions and I was really glad I was able to participate. I’ve attended the, meeting in Davos, the World Economic Forum many times, and it’s. on a grander scale, but you still seem to have the same top level of business leaders and government leaders coming to, really have a dialogue with people that are trying to do the same thing a lot of ways, and in some ways just need to, hash it out and have a conversation.
So it was a really good meeting and I was glad I was there. Now I understand you’re working with Milken on a climate project. maybe talk a little bit more about that. We’re, still in the tinkering stages, but we are hoping to take a collective look at some of the innovative approaches that seem to be emerging in surrounding the Los Angeles, the wildfire recovery.
And I’ve been part of post-disaster dialogues for a long time. I not only have this role at Marsh, but I used to chair the board of a nonprofit called SBP that did a lot of post-disaster recovery work as well. And I gotta say, there’s, there’s. Something to be said perhaps for a, a post FEMA recovery, or at least the expectation for one ’cause the amount of energy and innovation that’s going into some of the early thinking around the recovery is, really phenomenal and it, it’s really groundbreaking in some cases.
So what we want to do is capture as much of that. Energy and capture as much of that innovation as we can so that maybe we can develop a framework or a roadmap of some sort, Adam, that, will help the next community that’s hits, that’s hit by a disaster so they don’t have to start from scratch. So we’re, we’re really looking to almost build a best practice playbook from what we hope will be a, wildly effective, resilient rebuild from the wildfires and share those with other communities going forward.
Talk a little bit more about your history. Like how did you originally get into climate issues and really going full time and putting your, you know, your heart into this? Where’d that all begin for you? Yeah, I guess it began actually in the mid nineties. I was, A lobbyist in Washington working for the Reinsurance Association of America.
And my boss at the time, Frank Nutter, who’s still at the RA and still an industry leader was being quoted by Al Gore on the campaign trail 96 about the importance, for the insurance sector to really understand the science of climate because, you know, there, there were changes happening and eventually they were gonna start to result in additional losses.
And we really need to get ahead of this. So this was, this was 1996, right? You know, fast forward a decade or so. I’d gone in-house with Zurich Insurance Group and was working at the corporate offices in Switzerland, and there was a lot of talk about climate there. Probably 2007 we established a climate and an internal climate group that would start to look at, the strategic implications of the transition side of the climate and what risk issues may emerge from there.
And from there it just kind of took off Adam professionally, meaning, you know, we started to do a lot at that company around risk and, and flooding issues in particular. And I really started to deepen my understanding and appreciation for the role that the insurance sector plays, not just in the modern economy, but what it’s done in historical times of increased risk as well.
And when I was eventually leaving Zurich I had about. A year or two to, plan a transition. And it struck me that as I came back to the United States, you know, the insurance industry really needed to perhaps remind itself of, its role in society and remind itself of some of the major.
Initiatives and, and institutions. It’s created in the past to address risk issues. So, so I jumped in full time. Marsh was great to, hire me and put me kind of on the playing field with their brand and with their immense capabilities across risk. Health, wealth issues, strategy and analytics.
It’s really an amazing company with amazing people. and it’s really helped me when I engage either at a community level or with other NGOs or philanthropies, you know, to really try to find a common ground. So, it really, I guess, started early kind of took off a little bit accelerated.
In oh seven to 20, and then when I left Zurich in 2021, it was, alright, let’s do this full time. And I think that kind of tracks as well the engagement of the insurance sector in a lot of ways I. Hmm. What what do you hope to accomplish? I mean, in this field, let’s talk some big goals here.
Like what do you hope to accomplish? Yeah. When I think about something like climate change, I’m like, man I’m, I’m trying to get another interview done. Like, it’s just big and, and we need people like you that, focus on the big, big things. Right? So like what do you hope to accomplish? Well, like I said, in some ways, Adam, it’s, it’s to remind my peers.
We work for a sector that has deep, noble purpose. And you know, and it’s not just, writing a check after you get a car accident or maybe not writing the check, or it’s not writing the check you want to see or, a life insurance benefit or whatnot. I mean, we, really, and we’re starting to see it in California, unfortunately, you know, the insurance sector is integral to, social interaction in a lot of ways and, de-risking.
Almost the basics of economic transactions that we undertake. You know, owning a house without insurance is really difficult to do. You need massive resources to be able to self-insure. So this is a sector that has not just a noble purpose, but a, an incredibly proud legacy of finding ways to help society through times of, of new risks.
And, the stories, there are plenty of them, but the few that I really love to tell Adam is. You know, with the advent of electricity in the 1890s. There were a lot of concerns about the safety of of this new experiment, even though it was, you know, very quickly becoming, almost that have to have technology, but there were a lot of fire issues and it was rolled out at the.
World’s Fair in 1892 in Chicago, 22 years after the Great Chicago Fire. So there’s a lot of sensitivity to the safety issues around fire, and you can imagine what would’ve happened if the insurance industry had said, Hey, we’re not gonna insure any factories or homes that have electricity because it’s an underwriting factor that’s just too hard to get our arms around.
They didn’t do that. What they did in 1893 is say, look, we need, this is a, societal benefit, so we need to find a way to reduce the risk. So they ended up creating an organization that today is called Underwriters Laboratory or UL Solutions to $3 billion public company nowadays. And what they did is essentially make the world safe for electricity.
Now that’s a pretty grand statement, Adam, but mm-hmm. I think we can, do something like that again for climate change. And I don’t know what exactly what form it takes, but I know the insurance sector has better information than just about anybody else. We have, the skill sets, we have the knowledge base, we have experience to perhaps find some way to help communities truly appreciate and understand their risk, truly appreciate and understand their options, and then have the, financing and the.
Access to capital and, expertise and the infrastructure providers and architects and engineers, what to actually then implement these ideas? Right? So I really think we have a role to play to, maybe present information in a way that hasn’t been presented before. in, outside of the risk transfer.
Role that where we make our money is in the risk transfer side. But in this case, I think the answer is really gonna be in the risk information and the risk analytics side, similar to what we did with electricity, similar to what we did with automobiles when they came out, similar to other cases as well.
But those are the two big known ones. we often. Have trouble, I don’t just mean the insurance sector, but looking kind of beyond your core, beyond what actually drives your, your economic value. And in this case, I think the insurance industry is sitting on immense knowledge that can be utilized in different ways.
So what am I trying to accomplish? I’m trying to get people to kind of. Maybe look inward and realize that not only do we have a, social purpose that really puts us in a different place than many, but we also have the tools and capabilities to do something about it. If we can kind of repackage those perhaps in a way and make them available to the communities where, these tough decisions need to happen.
Yeah, that’s great. And I’m excited to follow the progress and also the partnership between what you’re doing and what, how you’re working with the Milken Institute. ’cause I, this is one of my favorite parts about doing this show is that you get to kind of see when things start and then, you know, we’ll be looking back at this a couple years later and like, man, friends, remember we were talking about that and now, like, what?
It was just an idea. It was just starting, it was conversations and that’s why I also like particularly covering the series because it brings a lot of people together. And it’s weird, and to me to think, ah, weird’s maybe the wrong word, but it’s interesting to think that con it still all starts with conversation and just two people and ideas and it goes from there, and then things happen, right?
Like, that’s the basics of it. But things happen. It sounds simple, but you’re spot on. You know, I, I think it was Steve Covey who said that progress moves at the speed of trust. And I think that’s what you’re getting at, Adam. And I would, I would, you know, fully endorse it because, for four years now I’ve been in rooms where I was the only insurance representative and people were, you know, looking at me like I was a.
You know, a draft dressed as a buffalo or something like that, right? Like, what, what is this person doing, in this room? We, you know, they’re not, you’re not one of us. And nowadays the conversation is so different. The conversation is how can you help? You know, what do you need from us?
To help us how can we partner, you know, can we do this, can we do that? I mean, it’s, we’re really, I think, on the cusp of, you know, that phrase radical collaboration that gets used. You know, I, do think we’re getting close to a moment where, the urgency. Is so great and the, desire to partner, and this is really what I’m seeing in LA and, I saw it firsthand at the, at the Milken conference, so it was really great to be there.
But I really do think we’re getting that point where we all realize that we wanna achieve the same thing. And we just need to, do things we haven’t done before. And that is partner in ways that are, you know, perhaps uncomfortable, perhaps, you know, extend, you know, where our traditional quote unquote allies have been.
But realize that this, this is a battle that’s bigger than all of us or any of us. And it really is gonna, partnership will be integral to, to any solution that’s, produced out there. Yeah. Well, I I think it’s a great conversation and it’s one that I want, honestly, like this is the way things change and this is the way things get done.
So that being said, if somebody wants to follow up and to continue the conversation, Francis, and also just learn more about the work and what you’re up to, how do they do that? Yeah, the best way is probably to go to my LinkedIn profile. You know, I, I, tend to write a lot. I tend to comment a lot on other people’s work particularly to put wind in the sails of anyone who’s doing I.
Is trying, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it, it’s like, it’s like men growing beards, right? We applaud anyone who tries any other male who tries. Right. Whether no matter, no matter how it looks, right. It’s, there’s almost that, sentiment here too, that people who are trying, you know, radical things, you know, I’ll stand up and applaud them on mm-hmm.
On LinkedIn as well, because I just think I just think we need to see more of that, and I, so that’s probably the. most centralized, you know, marsh McLennan has a, resilience hub as well, where a lot of the, Marsh McLennan work is posted. There’s a lot that’s being done there as well.
But those, are probably the two sources that are the easiest to find. Awesome. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes so you can just click on it and head right on over. And speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Francis, thanks again for coming on the show. Adam, thanks a lot and I look forward to, listening to others talk about mission and, maybe being on the show again someday and to be able to update you on everything we’ve accomplished.
So look forward to that.
