Category: Historical figures · Reviewed by Chrissie Anderson, Client Executive · Last reviewed 2026-06-05
Mike Crawshaw is a long-serving figure of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century London insurance broking, principally associated with the Sedgwick Group and its successor entities. He represents a generation of broker leadership that consolidated the UK broking industry through the Sedgwick / Marsh and other transatlantic mergers of the 1980s and 1990s.
Category: Historical figures Also known as: Mike Crawshaw, Michael Crawshaw Principal role: Senior executive, Sedgwick Group and successor firms; later broker management positions in London market Related concepts: Insurance broker, Lloyd’s of London
Mike Crawshaw’s career trajectory through the Sedgwick organisation — at one time the second-largest broker in the world by revenue — mirrors the broader consolidation of UK broking from a fragmented partnership market in the 1960s into the global broker model that emerged after the 1998 acquisition of Sedgwick by Marsh & McLennan. He held senior executive responsibility across multiple business lines and territories.
Like many of his contemporaries (David Rowland, Lord Forbes of Buchan, John Wallace), Crawshaw rose through the apprenticeship-driven structure that characterised the City broking firms before the introduction of formal qualifications and competence regimes. His career exemplifies the transition from relationship-based broking to the structured, regulated and globally integrated broking firm of the present day.
Crawshaw’s principal contributions are to the institutionalisation of broker management — the development of formal management committees, financial control, claims advocacy units, and risk-management consulting as distinct disciplines within the broking firm. The 1990s Sedgwick model of broking, which separated production, placement, claims and accounts as professional disciplines, influenced the structure of every successor major broker including Marsh, Aon, Willis Towers Watson (now WTW), Gallagher and Howden.
The contemporary UK and international broking market — characterised by integrated global accounts, dedicated claims advocacy, segregated client money handling under FCA CASS 5, and structured management oversight — owes much of its institutional form to the cohort of brokers active in Sedgwick and its peers in the 1980s and 1990s. Crawshaw is one of that cohort.
This entry is part of the Apex Insurance Wiki. Last reviewed by Matt Bartlett on 2026-06-05. Next review: 2026-12-05.
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