In recent conversations with leaders across the insurance sector, one theme kept resurfacing and not as an HR topic, not as a wellbeing initiative, but as a governance concern: Psychological safety. Psychological safety is now firmly on the regulatory horizon. With the FCA placing non-financial misconduct at the centre of conduct expectations, the environment in which people speak, challenge, report and raise concerns has become a matter of oversight, accountability and risk.

As the financial sector reflects on the FCA’s latest policy statement, PS25/23 Tackling Non-Financial Misconduct in Financial Services, one theme is becoming impossible to ignore: culture is no longer a “soft concept” or an HR side initiative. It is now a regulatory imperative.

There is a new driver behind talent strategy, productivity and long-term value. It is not on the balance sheet, but it is already impacting it. That driver is culture.