DANIELLA GRANATA | Age: 44 Vice president, underwriting-media liability, specialty insurance

QBE North America

New York

Daniella Granata joined QBE in July 2013 as a senior underwriter and served as assistant vice president prior to taking her current role in April 2022. She began her career in banking, working first for U.S. Trust — now Bank of America Private Bank — and later for Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital before moving to insurance with QBE.

What’s your advice on navigating the current insurance market?

Maintain strong relationships and stay on top of the trends and emerging risks. We always have to put ourselves in our clients’ shoes to understand what they need.

How are technological advances affecting your job?

On the media liability side, the development of new technology and software changes the way we look at our book of business and makes us look at risk differently.

What do you wish more people knew about insurance?

How important it is to the client and how interesting it is. Insurance can give businesses the ability to take risks and grow. Media in particular is one of the most interesting lines — working with a documentary filmmaker or learning about something you’ve never known about before.

What’s something about you that would surprise people?

I started in banking, and it was kind of a happy accident that I ended up in insurance after a former colleague in banking who worked at QBE got me an interview. I had always been interested in film and in an offhanded way backed into something in which I’d always been interested.

Favorite hobby or pastime?

Binge watching TV shows. I love what I do and always joke it’s part of my job. I thoroughly enjoy it and always have, but I look at it differently now. I look at shows and think, “I wonder if they got clearance on this.”