When it comes to protecting your care business, is the cost of insurance taking priority over what your policy actually covers?

With rising employment costs, funding pressures and changing regulatory requirements, care providers face difficult decisions about where to focus their resources. But ensuring insurance remains fit for purpose is an important part of protecting the long-term resilience of their organisations.

In this episode of Fortune Favours the Brave, Richard Lawson, Senior Corporate Account Executive at Howden, is joined by Professor Martin Green, Chief Executive of Care England, and Jonathan Taylor, Divisional Director, Head of Corporate Risks, Health & Care at Howden, to discuss why insurance should be more than an annual renewal exercise.

Together, they explore some of the common gaps in insurance cover, from underinsured buildings and inadequate liability limits to the implications of delegated healthcare tasks. They also discuss the importance of understanding commissioner requirements, demonstrating effective risk management and keeping insurers informed as care services evolve.

A central theme is the value of ongoing conversations with insurance brokers and insurers, not just when policies are due for renewal, but whenever a business is changing or planning for the future.

For care providers and business leaders navigating an increasingly complex operating environment, this conversation offers practical insights into reviewing insurance arrangements, managing risk and building greater resilience.

One Phase 3 readout can add years to a company’s future or erase it in a morning and that swing is exactly where D&O insurance, securities litigation and leadership decisions collide.

Patricia Ramos, Director, North America Commercial D&O at Howden, sits down with life science D&O underwriters, Millie Refalo, Senior D&O Underwriter at Indigo, and Marshall Burns, Senior Underwriter, Management Liability at Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, to unpack what truly raises concern when a biotech is public, pre-revenue, and living milestone to milestone.

We walk through the underwriting basics that set the tone quickly: market capitalisation, where the lead programme sits in the clinical trial journey, and how long the company has been trading publicly (including IPOs and reverse mergers). From there, we get specific about concentration and catalyst risk, why a single asset story can be so fragile, and how “priced for perfection” valuations make even small delays or slightly weaker data feel like a breach of trust to investors.

The FDA and the shifting regulatory landscape come up repeatedly, but not as a simple “approval risk” narrative. The sharper point is disclosure: how management builds flexibility into timelines and funding, what gets said on earnings calls, and when a hypothetical risk becomes a real one that needs updating. We also dig into the funding reality for clinical-stage life sciences after the post-2021 market tightening, including cash runway assumptions, access to follow-on capital, and why debt can look like a trap.

Finally, we tackle AI-driven drug discovery and the growing fear of AI washing, plus practical renewal advice: be prepared to explain the downside with the same clarity as the upside and aim for wording and carrier continuity through pivotal development stages. If you found this useful, subscribe, share it with your team, and leave a review with the risk question you want us to tackle next.

A single FDA question, a missed clinical endpoint, or a manufacturing snag can wipe billions off a market cap in minutes, and in life sciences that kind of volatility often comes with a second hit: a securities class action. We sit down with Kevin McRoy, Executive Vice President at RT Pro Exec and author of The D&O Diary, and John Connolly, Executive Managing Director at Howden USA, leading our North American life sciences practice, to unpack why biotech, pharma, and medical device companies remain such frequent targets, and why courts still dismiss these claims at a higher rate than in many other sectors.

We dig into what the numbers really mean for leadership teams, investors, and D&O insurance buyers: the difference between a speculative developmental stage business and an actual fraud narrative, how the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act shapes pleading standards, and why scienter is often the hill plaintiffs struggle to climb. We also explore why more filings are landing in the Third Circuit and what makes that forum distinctive, from its familiarity with FDA-related complexity to its intolerance for selective or weak disclosure.

If you work in life sciences, risk, legal, finance, or insurance, this is a clear-eyed guide to how these lawsuits form and how to reduce avoidable exposure.