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Yorkshire-based Marshall Wooldridge is back on the acquisition trail, today revealing that it completed a deal for Goldthorpe Insurance Brokers at the turn of the year.

Goldthorpe, based in Rotherham, is a family-owned business, led by Steven Garlick who founded the business more than 30 years ago.

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Costello, whose career to date has seen him take on roles with some of the biggest brokers in the UK, noted that hubb was founded on the view that the insurance market has changed, and not for the betterment of the client or the insurer. He believes that stress on the distribution value chain has created an opportunity for hubb to do something different to augment that distribution in a way that works for the insurers’ benefit as well as the clients’.

“We started right before the pandemic,” he said, “and what we support is the value chain from two different sides,” he said. “I’ve seen it from the business side and what I thought could be achieved there. And Ed has seen it as a vendor selling technology to insurance businesses and seen what actually is available in the technology world to make the whole value chain work better.”

Given its beginnings, a lot of what hubb has done and is doing ties into the wider market shifts being seen in light of COVID-19 – from using technology to make claims more efficient, to creating a work-from-home roadmap for staff. What the pandemic has done, Costello said, is validate the actions that he and Halsey believed would make the value chain work better and show that they are feasible.

Halsey, whose 15+ years in the industry have seen him work in various underwriting and tech-orientated roles for companies including some of the top insurers, highlighted that there is a fascinating curve occurring in insurance at the moment. Underpinning this, he said, is that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has repeatedly implied that firms need to do a better job of disclosing commissions and earnings or else be helped along the road to doing just that.

Read more: FCA and Consumer Intelligence reveal the meaning of fair value

He and Costello knew it was coming, he said, and the real question was what impact it would have on the clients that make up the insurance market when they knew the commissions they were paying. hubb did a study and 76% of the people the firm asked didn’t know what they were paying in commission.

“Now, that’s a damning indictment on our industry that we’re taking money and 76% of the people that we asked had no idea what they were paying,” he said. “If you don’t know what you’re paying, you can’t assess value and that’s a really important thing. And that’s what usage-based models do, they completely flip that on its head. They enable the customer to assess value, and then enable them to budget themselves in terms of [questioning] ‘is that something I want to do? Is that worth my while? Or is it not?’”

Conversations across the insurance sector have posed the question as to how to make insurance ‘loveable’ again, Halsey said, and the key to doing that is first and foremost about transparency. Insurance professionals need to start proactively declaring their commissions to customers and telling them about that. Another interesting element of the study that hubb conducted revealed that 90% of those surveyed – of the 76% who had no idea what they were paying – said they thought 5% or less was a reasonable commission for the service they were getting.

“Now most of those people will be paying 35 to 40% for the service that they’re actually receiving,” he said. “And when the FCA inevitably make that announcement, a lot of people are going to be upset. So, what Mark and I looked at was, how can we get ahead of that curve? How can we look at the impending storm that’s coming in and get ahead of it? What’s the model we can put in place that enables us to align value with the price that the customer is paying? And that’s ultimately how hubb was conceived.”

Last year saw remarkable success and growth for the firm, and proved the value of its offering within the industry as it was able to onboard esteemed insurance professionals and successfully apply its value proposition to the insurance marketplace. Its acquisition of DFP was another example of this, noted Costello, and hubb has seen that the client market is responding well to what it is offering.

“The insurance industry, for all its faults, is full of really talented people,” he said. “But I think we have lots of really talented people doing mundane tasks that are a waste of time. If we can get rid of all of that, I think the really interesting part for ourselves as we grow is we’ll be able to attract the most talented people because if you give the best talented people the tasks that they like to do, I think it makes their job much more interesting.”

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“[That success] has come because we’re surrounding ourselves with great people,” he said. “People didn’t know who handl were but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. People now see us as a market player. We can do better and we’ll carry on doing better in terms of exposure and we’ll get to where we want to be.”

Four key themes are the foundation of the strategic journey that Pulford and his team are looking to bring handl on this year. The first of these is profit-driving, he said, but it is critical to note that this is not focused simply on making money but rather on creating a position whereby handl ensures it has got the great products and services necessary to build out its market share. This means empowering and enabling its management teams to create these products and sell more of them, which in turn leads to more profit.

“The second [theme] is resilience,” he said. “We’ve proven that we’ve got a great, resilient business. We’ve just gone through probably the worst thing that has ever hit our business but we’ve come out the other side of it. We’ve got a few bruises and scars but that shows we’re resilient. And I think we can move on that a lot more in terms of making sure we’ve got business and operational resilience in terms of dealing with change, and [changing] legislation etc. All those things are really key for us moving forward.”

Resilience is not just centred around strategic operations, however, Pulford said, but also includes personal resilience. Particularly in light of its continued success on the M&A front, handl has a lot of employees it needs to look after and it is mission-critical to the group that they are supported and happy in their work. A happy workforce means better customer service, and better products and services at the end of the day, which makes it essential to the group’s ambitions for the year ahead.

Read more: handl Group acquires injury rehabilitation firm Reach

“Our [third] main strategy is collaboration,” he said. “That’s collaboration within the group, within our own companies working together in a better way, as well as working with partners. Partners are a big key for this year, things like the Cogent Hire link with Europcar are really interesting, as it’s a really high-level relationship. Then there’s the Claimspace and Verisk situation, where we’re working very closely with those guys. Again, they take us into markets that we’re not in, and we give them products and services to take to their market, so that works well.”

Customer collaboration is the third strand of handl’s 2022 plans, Pulford said, and will see the group do more projects that allow it to identify the problems its customers face and work with them to provide holistic solutions.

The fourth area of focus is handl’s digital transformation agenda. This will look at how the group interacts with its customers and, more importantly, with its customers’ customers. At the end of the day, he said, while the end insureds aren’t handl’s direct customers, it is the group’s ethos to service them, albeit indirectly, and to provide them with a seamless journey – and in doing so to protect the interests of the insurance company in question.

“We’re taking a slightly different view on digitisation,” he said. “What I don’t mean is just creating a portal that looks whizzy and looks great. That’s not what it means for me. What it is, is re-engineering the process and thinking about the journey and seeing how I can make that easier, with fewer touchpoints. Technology will then make that easier for the person to use but the first key is to make sure… [we’re] creating workflows that are better and more customer-centric.”

A good 2022 will see handl Group balance all four of these components, as well as achieve double-digit growth. It plans for each business within the company to be on track to achieve double-digit growth and, on the inorganic side, the group is planning several substantial acquisitions. There are already two acquisitions on the cards that, if they come to pass, will be its biggest by far, Pulford said, so the group is moving up the ranks in terms of the company sizes it is looking to bring on board.

Handl is looking for transformation acquisitions rather than bolt-on acquisitions now, as the group is already in all the spaces it wants to be and the only way to grow from there is to look into absorbing some of its biggest competitors in those sectors and bringing them under the handl umbrella. It can be quite a daunting prospect to make purchases of that size, Pulford said, but he and the team are positive they have the proven capabilities to take those businesses in and integrate them successfully.

“My logic is, well, let’s just move a step up and go and get a bigger one, and keep driving this growth further,” he said. “And it’s interesting that post-COVID, a lot of businesses are now coming to market. Certainly, for a lot of owner-managed businesses, the COVID downturn scared them a lot and they were thinking they could lose their whole business.

“Now they’re in a situation where they’ve got back on track, they’ve got their volume back [but] they want to de-risk their business a little bit and some money off the table (which is right because they’ve worked hard creating these businesses) and then work with something that gives them a bit less risk. And [in that situation] it’s much better to join a portfolio than it is to sell out.”

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Local brokers are set to network with peers in a Bristol event in February following the British Insurance Brokers’ Association’s (BIBA) relaunch of its West of England regional committee.

“A regional network is the backbone of BIBA’s governance,” declared BIBA chief executive Steve White. “Chairs of each region sit on our regional chairs’ advisory board, and its chair has a place on our main board. Alongside our ongoing contact with members and our own annual regional tours, we can be sure that regional voices are heard.”

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Specialist insurer Hiscox has announced the appointment of Matthew Wilken as chief underwriting officer for Hiscox Re & ILS, effective Monday.

In his new role, Wilken will join the Hiscox Re & ILS executive team and will be responsible for executing the Hiscox Re & ILS underwriting strategy. He will be based in Bermuda and report to Kathleen Reardon, CEO of Hiscox Re & ILS.

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Mike Southgate – who became part of the Hiscox family in February 2020 in his capacity as divisional director for marine, energy, and specialty – has passed away.

“In his time with us,” noted the specialist insurer on LinkedIn in honour of Southgate, “Mike has been responsible for building and leading one of our most high-performing teams.

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It was in March 2019 when the insurer started advertising all new vacancies as a potential part-time, job share, or full-time opportunity. Said to be the first business in the UK to advertise jobs in this manner, Zurich also uses gender-neutral language in its job postings.

“Pre-COVID,” noted Zurich UK, “12% of external female hires were on a part-time basis. A stark contrast to the 12 months following the first national lockdown when it soared to 22%, suggesting the need for flexibility with many struggling to balance caring and home-schooling responsibilities with work. This is 10 times higher than male counterparts hired on a part-time basis which have remained consistent at just 2%.

“As well as doubling the number of part-time hires overall, Zurich has also seen numbers of applications from both men and women boosted by more than two-thirds since the initiative was launched. This could be attributed to people future-proofing their careers ahead of life changes further down the line.”

Meanwhile, citing new data from flexible working consultancy Timewise, Zurich said only 26% of UK job vacancies advertise flexible working options such as remote working, home working, or part-time hours.

“As advocates of flexible working for over a decade, we know that people still want to progress their careers while managing a whole host of other commitments,” stated Zurich UK HR director Steve Collinson. “Our approach is about removing barriers for those who need flexibility. We are urging the government to make businesses like ours advertise all roles as being available on a more flexible basis wherever they can.”

In the insurer’s view, current proposals that would give workers the right to request flexible arrangements from their first day do not address the issue of people being put off applying for jobs that are not advertised as flexible.

“Our part-time jobs initiative means we’re able to access a whole new pool of talent,” added Collinson. “This is a priority for us in the current climate but also benefits working parents, carers, those with portfolio careers or other interests they want to pursue.

“As the labour market tightens, employers need to rethink their approach to attracting and retaining talent. Workers want a new deal and are no longer prepared to work in outdated and rigid patterns.” 

Meanwhile Minister for Employment Mims Davies said flexible and hybrid working opens up more employment inclusiveness and progression opportunities to a wider range of talent. The MP went on to offer assurances that the government is committed to ensuring workers can balance their work-life commitments.

“Over the course of the last two years, we have seen an increase in people wanting to work more flexibly, and be able to adapt their work patterns around a variety of other responsibilities,” commented Caroline Nokes MP, chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee.

“I am pleased to see this initiative from Zurich, recognising the impact that the way you advertise roles can have on the number and diversity of applicants. As we build back from the pandemic, it is going to be crucial to find different ways to make sure as many people as possible are playing as full a part in the workplace as they can, and flexibility will be key to that.”

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“To make sure we keep doing that, we have created the Launchpad to foster innovation and align more closely to the flourishing Lloyd’s Lab.”

According to the centuries-old insurance marketplace, potential ideas can now be directed to where they’re most relevant – be it the Lab, the Launchpad, or other areas such as the Lloyd’s Disaster Risk Facility.

The Launchpad continues the work of its predecessor facility, enabling the market to keep partnering with insurtechs and providing underwriters a space to experiment in a safe and controlled manner, all while balancing the need for appropriate oversight with the risk of not innovating fast enough.

The facility has developed, among other things, a parametric profit protection policy for the hotel industry; an insurance product against losses arising from the theft of cryptocurrencies held in online wallets; and a business interruption policy for when business-critical, cloud-based services go down.

Described as “the new home” for the development of insurance solutions to tackle emerging risks, the Launchpad is co-chaired by Beazley incubation underwriting head George Beattie and Chaucer strategy head Hayley Maynard.

In the joint statement, they commented: “We’re excited about 2022 and what it holds for our eclectic group of insurance innovators. With a new look and refreshed purpose – but the continued and valuable support of Ed Gaze and the Lloyd’s innovation team – we’re committed to finding practical and measurable insurance breakthroughs.

“The industry can expect new products and partnerships from the Launchpad that will reinforce Lloyd’s reputation as the best place in the world for commercial insurance innovation.”

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Insurance Business UK’s inaugural Fast Brokerages 2022 report aims to recognise the fastest-growing brokerages in the region. If your brokerage has enjoyed a year of increased revenue, headcount growth, and acquisitions or successfully refocused offerings, then this showcase is the right platform for you.

To be eligible, you must provide information on your company’s headcount and revenue figures during 2020 and 2021. All figures provided must relate to a brokerage’s operations across the UK only.

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Legal & General group chief executive Nigel Wilson, who has been at the helm of the financial services group since 2012, has been knighted.

Wilson was one of the 23 individuals who made it to the Knights Bachelor list within the 2022 New Year Honours. The recognition, recipients of which include former Lord Mayor of the City of London William Russell, is the oldest form of knighthood in the British honours system.

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