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Independent insurance broker Blue Rock Insurance Brokers has announced that it is expanding its operations into Bellshill with a new office.

Headquartered in Ayrshire, Blue Rock Insurance Brokers said that it made the strategic decision to expand into Bellshill in order to continue to serve its growing client base in the Lanarkshire area.

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The focus on available schemes calls for an examination of the experience of the individuals who take up these opportunities. Ellie Jones (pictured), senior account handler at Hazelton Mountford, has become an ambassador for the cause.

Discussing her broking trajectory to date, Jones noted that she first found her way into insurance essentially by chance. She was introduced to the Worcester-headquartered firm via its associated referencing company for an IT apprenticeship that she was looking at. After having a meeting with the MD, she said, it emerged that an IT apprentice wasn’t something they needed but the team liked her and enquired if an insurance apprenticeship would be of interest instead.

“I was 16, not long out of school, with no idea what I wanted to do and I was given a chance by Hazelton Mountford – something most kids crave,” she said. “I spent some time looking into the industry to make sure it was for me before accepting, but looking back now it was the best decision I ever made.”

Read more: Hazelton Mountford reveals acquisition

Jones started as an apprentice in the let property department, dealing with residential property and tenants’ contents insurance, and it was in that department that she completed her apprenticeship and passed her IF1 module. She then went on to obtain her certification and worked in let property for two years as an account handler.

“After [this], I was promoted to a junior commercial account handler and claims handler,” she said. “I worked this split role for 12 months, then moved full time into a commercial account handler role, becoming a senior once I obtained my diploma. The initial move from let prop to a commercial/claims role was a big milestone as I needed to improve my technical knowledge significantly, along with assisting my exec (now branch director) in starting up the new branch in Evesham as this was a big responsibility to take on.”

Examining what it is that has held her interest in insurance broking, Jones highlighted how much she enjoys the variety that her role offers her working day. From haulage to equine, she said, you’re always doing something different. What she likes the most, however, is working for her clients, getting to know them and coming to understand how different industries work while also being their voice with insurers and fighting their corner.

Looking back at how she made her start in insurance, Jones said she would thoroughly recommend insurance apprenticeships to anyone.

“My dad did one when he was young and recommended me to go down that route,” she said. “It’s an achievable way of getting into a career without having to go to university/college – starting from the bottom and working your way up and consistently earning a wage while you learn and grow. By the time my friends were leaving university, I had a career and was earning a good wage. And did you know that the diploma is equivalent to a degree qualification?”

There’s a gulf that exists between a business that offers a great apprenticeship opportunity and one that offers a substandard programme, and, for Jones, the key differentiator is the commitment displayed by a business. It depends on the responsibility a company is willing to give you, she said, and their commitment to your continued development. A great apprenticeship is one where a company makes it clear that, should your time with them be a success, then you’ll be taken on permanently. Knowing that you’re working towards a career and not just finishing the apprenticeship is key.

“For me personally,” she said, “it was also really encouraging to see the level of trust and responsibility from the directors grow throughout the apprenticeship and to be given the chance to prove yourself with how well you’ve progressed and how much you’ve learnt and not to be treated as a child incapable of doing anything a little complex.”

For other young people looking to make the most out of their apprenticeship, Jones has some crucial advice. Perseverance and communication are critical, she said. Apprentices should try not to be too daunted by how much they have to learn or how far away they seem from being in the role that they want. They also need to work hard and not be afraid to do so, to be willing to go the extra mile in order to succeed, and to not be afraid to ask for help if they’re struggling.

“A company isn’t always going to know when you need help, they’re not mind readers,” she said. “So make sure you find a way to communicate your feelings with managers/directors – a company would rather you speak up and ask rather than say nothing and mistakes be made.”

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In November 2020, the reinsurance giant Swiss Re forecast a 2021 turnaround and its expectations have proven to be correct. The group, which today joined the ranks of its peers and announced its full-year results for 2021 has revealed a spike in net income, which rose to a profit of US$1.43 billion after a net loss of US$878 million in 2020. Meanwhile, GWP for the reinsurer rose 9% to US$46.66 billion from US$42.95 billion in 2020, and 2021 saw the group report a return on equity of 5.7% and a combined ratio of 94.7%.

Across its property and casualty reinsurance (P&C re) arm, Swiss Re reported a net income attributable to shareholders of US$2.097 billion, up from a loss of US$247 million in 2020. GWP for the segment rose 8% to US$23.246 billion while its combined ratio dropped to 97.1% from 109% in 2020. The reinsurer credited the results to the improved quality of the portfolio and rates increases, in addition to favourable investment results.

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Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, now has his feet firmly under the desk in what is one of Britain’s most high-profile roles.

Having joined last summer and focusing on simply steering the banking giant through the COVID-19 pandemic, Nunn has now outlined its long-term strategy – with insurance a key focal point.

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Life insurers in both the UK and EMEA regions are “under significant pressure” from regulators and management to improve their financial reporting, so many have made automation technology their key priority – a new survey from WTW has found.

Over 90% of the life insurer survey respondents to WTW’s EMEA-wide Life Financial Modelling Survey said that the application of automation technology – which includes business process automation, elastic cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) – is a key priority of theirs to address the demand for reporting speed and efficiency.

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Unsurprisingly, LMHC’s revenue increased during both periods, with the Q4 revenue totalling US$12,221 million (up 3.6% from US$11,796 million during the same period in 2020) and FY21 revenue totalling US$48,200 million (up 10.1% from US$43,796 million in 2020).

David H. Long, Liberty Mutual chairman and CEO, said the insurer’s excellent financial performance during the last quarter and the whole of 2021 was driven by the exceptional returns over the past year in its partnerships, LLC, and other equity method investment portfolio, which produced US$916 million of pre-tax income in the quarter.

“We also continued to make progress in the quarter against our objectives of profitable growth in global retail markets, profit improvement in global risk solutions, and expense management, with net written premium growth in GRM of 8.5%, core combined ratio improvement in GRS of 2.6 points to 91.3%, and a 0.6-point decrease in the group’s expense ratio to 29.6%,” Long continued.

Looking ahead to 2022 and beyond, Long said Liberty Mutual will continue to focus on its objectives of profitable growth and build upon its progress to date.

As part of its plans this year, Liberty Global Transaction Solutions (GTS), part of Liberty Mutual Insurance, will retain its underwriting capacity of US$200 million per risk for transactional risk protection for all product lines: warranty and indemnity/representations and warranties, tax liability, and contingent legal risk.

“Our appetite for this risk class remains as strong as ever in 2022,” Liberty GTS president Rowan Bamford said in a recent statement. “Our consistent capacity will allow us to support our clients in what is likely to be a bumper year for the M&A market, following the surge in demand for M&A insurance we saw in 2021.”

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Dublin-based Marine & General was established in 1972 to provide bespoke solutions to individuals and businesses through a varied offering of general insurance, financial services, and life and pension products. It has remained true to its founding principle of the client being central to every company-made decision.

“Marine & General Insurances DAC has built up an enviable reputation over the years as a broker providing exemplary service and striving to put their clients’ interests at the heart of everything they do,” said Aston Lark Ireland chief executive officer Robert Kennedy. “[T]here is an excellent cultural fit between our businesses, and I’m delighted to welcome them into the Aston Lark family.

“We are keen to continue growing and acquiring like-minded brokers in Ireland as we look to deliver on our ambition to become Ireland’s leading independent insurance broker.”

Director at Marine & General, Colm Tyndall added that he had never entertained changing the successful business model of Marine & General since he joined them in 1982. “However, after chatting with Robert Kennedy, it became very apparent that our shared values and principles, particularly regarding staff and clients, were closely aligned, allowing for a perfect fit for the future growth of our business,” Tyndall said.

Co-director Gavin Kennedy added: “With the ever-changing insurance market in recent years, it became very apparent if I wanted to secure the future for our clients and staff, the opportunity to join Aston Lark could not be missed.

“This will afford us access to markets and expertise we never previously had in our arsenal, giving us an opportunity for future expansion and opportunities for staff and clients alike.”

Aston Lark Ireland previously acquired North County Brokers, O’Loughlin Insurance, McMahon Galvin, Brady Burns & Associates, Principal Insurance Ireland, Abbey Murphy Insurance, and Brassington Insurance.

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Read more: Chaucer, Moody’s join up for ESG scorecard

“We fundamentally believe that insurance is providing societal good,” he said. “I think it gets a bad press at times, but we are there as a force of good, we’re here to step in when things go wrong and to help. And the way we can influence and make a difference is to help incentivise our counterparties to move forward and help the transition [towards sustainability]. And there are other players in the market who have similar views to us, so I think there’s definitely a migration towards that way of thinking.”

Tighe highlighted that Chaucer’s recent collaboration with Moody’s was an organic extension of the strong relationship that already exists between the firms across multiple aspects of the group. In early conversations about Chaucer’s ESG journey, it was realised that the big challenge the market faces is getting reliable data from counterparties in order to accurately assess ESG risk.

“We identified you’d have to go to 10 to 15 different providers to get the different type of metrics you need to really understand the ESG profile of your counterparties,” he said. “When talking to Moody’s it became clear they have an extremely large database of information on a lot of companies.”

In addition to the wealth of data that Moody’s can provide across all these companies, it became clear from Tighe’s conversations that the risk management firm is committed to ESG and had an ethos heavily aligned with Chaucer’s. That ensured both parties were clear in their vision for what they wanted to achieve, he said, and underlining that is the ambition for real change.

“We want to help the whole transition,” he said. “We want to work with partners, we don’t want to walk away. We don’t believe in walking away from partners because we believe real change can be driven by us helping the people we work with moving towards a more sustainable future. We want to enable that and help that, and the way to do that is to use this scorecard to identify gaps, to bring those to our [partners’] attention and to help them on that journey.”

While accepting that there are certain things Chaucer just can’t do, he said, the group is determined to provide its insight and expertise across the entirety of the ESG spectrum – not limiting its remit to the ‘E’ of this concern that garners so much attention. The firm wants to help companies become more sustainable as it believes that those companies will be around for a lot longer.

This view was shared by Moody’s, he said, and so the scorecard has been applied across the entirety of the group. Chaucer wants to apply the scorecard on every single counterparty it’s working with, across both its underwriting operations and its investment portfolio. Looking at the wider market, Tighe said, there’s a maturity curve among which businesses are ready for this and which are more hesitant to embrace what it means.

However, he said, the demand for such tools is clearly there and growing all the time.

Read more: Chaucer introduces dedicated renewable power team

“We get a lot of questions from our brokers and reinsurers on this,” he said. “The market is definitely moving that way, and our customers are expecting this from us now. It’s going to be part of the criteria of how an insurer chooses who they place their business with now and who they decide to go with.”

In addition to how ESG is rapidly becoming a deciding factor in how insurers choose their partners going forward, having the right sustainability emphasis will also prove integral in the war for great talent going forward, Tighe said. So, it’s integral to how a business evolves and grows, which is why it’s so important that everyone across an organisation is brought into the process – from the top down.

Chaucer has been very lucky in that it has had buy-in from the very top from day one, he said, as CEO John Fowle is the sponsor of this project and has really driven it forward. The entire C-suite has thrown its weight behind the move and is fully embedded in the ESG process, which he believes is critical to the success of such an endeavour.

“Collaboration is an absolute necessity in managing ESG risk,” he said. “Our opinion is that insurance companies can’t rely on a third-party view of ESG risk. We need to have our own opinion of risk and to do that we need to collaborate with the right partners and access the information and data to make these decisions and to move forward.

“You’ve got strength in numbers, so by collaborating with a company like Moody’s we are creating something that we know has the right fundamentals behind it, and the scale that we think will be a game-changer for the insurance market, and we think will be a positive force to move the transition forward. Because our entire goal with this is to help with the transition and to push it forward – and to do that we need to partner and to collaborate as a market.”

Read more: Chaucer names insurance head

Tighe and his team would love to see the scorecard become the tool of choice and to promote further collaboration across the insurance market. He hopes that the rest of the market will take up this mantle and look to build their own balanced scorecard in a bid to continue to move the transition to sustainability forward. The beauty of this tool, he said, is that it is truly flexible and will continue to evolve and grow in anticipation of the requirements of the wider market.

“I don’t want it to be reactive, I’ve always wanted it to be proactive and, while at times we will have to be reactive, it has been developed with innate flexibility built into it,” he said. “It has been a real labour of love for me, and something I’ve put a lot of time into. I’m delighted the Chaucer team have bought into it as well and put so much time into it. It’s great that it has been recognised and taken up…

“Now we just need to keep pushing forward, I don’t want to stand still. This has never been about ‘one and done’ – that’s not it, it’s not how ESG works. We’ve got it done, but now we’re going to move forward and keep pushing the envelope further. Because as soon as you stand still you fall behind, and that’s not our aim on this.”

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It has been a remarkable journey for Mooney (pictured) who kickstarted his career in insurance some 23 years ago when he joined RSA straight out of college as a casualty underwriter. From that foundation, he has crafted himself an eye-catching career, with each new update taking him one step closer to this new role. There are a lot of elements to get his arms around as MD of the commercial lines business, he said, but he feels primed for the next step having done so many of the roles that sit within its purview.

“We’re now embarking on the next stage of our strategy which is [exploring] how we take all of our component parts out of remediation (which they are all coming out to an extent now), and then truly get back to being a visible partner of choice,” he said. “It sounds easy to say but it’s going to be difficult given where we are and the headwinds we’re all facing into. There’s a lot that we need to do while keeping the lights on, and there’s a lot of strategic changes to implement to make sure we’re fit for the future – and to take us forward.”

Backed by a quality partner in Intact and a team of passionate individuals, the commercial lines business is geared up for a busy 2022. While there’s a lot to do, Mooney said, it’s all the exciting elements that are left – from how to invest, how to grow, and how to become a better partner. This is all building on the strong remedial work RSA has been investing in across its commercial lines businesses.

There’s simply no appetite for the business running before it can walk, he said, and as it moves out of this remediation phase, RSA’s commercial lines business is centred on listening to what its partners are saying and, by doing so, becoming a stronger customer service partner. He wants the business’s partners to have “trust and clarity” in RSA’s appetite, as well as simplified access to its services.

“Because I truly feel that, at times, as an industry and as an insurer, we have quite a selfish overlay of our internal structures on our partners,” he said. “And we need to take a step back and we need to look at, ‘if I was a broker on that journey, how would I navigate such a complicated corporate machine to get the best for my customers?’

“The way I see it is that I want our brokers to spend all of their time with customers, not trying to navigate a solution from an insurer. [The industry] has really flipped that the wrong way round in that the broker probably doesn’t spend enough time with the customers, in part because they’re trying to navigate a complicated market, in a hard market where there are fewer opportunities and fewer options.”

There are three key focuses to Mooney’s ongoing strategy as MD of the commercial lines business in 2022 and beyond – distribution, service and proposition. Exploring the distribution angle, he highlighted that previously this has been built on one premise – to correct course on and simplify the insurer’s expense base. Naturally, this has led to the distribution model becoming more compressed, which means some regional brokers and existing brokers alike have sometimes struggled to access RSA.

“My simplistic view is that if you’re a partner of RSA, you get access to all of our propositions,” he said. “There might be different dials in respect of what access you get but we’re no longer having a closed-door culture where you can only deal with us on [e-trading] or in mid-market, or in specialty lines. We want a real sense of partnership built on characteristics and behaviours… one built on the open-door philosophy that we can partner better together.”

Read more: RSA’s Lee Mooney reveals how he drives growth

RSA is not at the end-game with this yet across all its models, he said, but it’s investing heavily in these structures and bringing in new broker partners all the time. Getting that distribution piece right leads to the second element of his strategic focus – service. For Mooney, the service proposition of RSA needs to be that the business doesn’t look at customers as products but rather in totality – and so forms a proposition based on their understanding of clients’ unique requirements.

There are parts of its estate where those dots simply aren’t being connected as it stands, he said. So, the emphasis for the team is on providing a seamless solution and making sure RSA offers prompt responses with a clearly defined appetite, with real clarity of milestones and of what to expect next on the service agenda. Whether you’re in SME, the regions business or in delegated, he said, he wants a consistent response that looks and feels like RSA.

Getting those distribution and service elements right will allow the team to focus on the exciting bit – proposition. From Mooney’s perspective, this proposition piece will be the gamechanger for the business going forward. RSA is looking at how it can remove the divide between e-trade, manual trading, and SME and regions, he said, as it is the business that sits between those existing silos that makes up about 85% of a broker’s book, especially in the regional space.

“The solution for [that business] is clunky,” he said, “because you’re trying to make it fit on e- or you’re trying to navigate away and get manual intervention to look at it. And all that’s doing is subconsciously overlaying our internal structure on a broker and providing a point of friction in a part of the trade sector which should be really simple and seamless… Because if we have friction then we are reducing our partners’ bottom line but we’re also not providing the right solution.”

Mooney is therefore looking at building a ground-up solution where RSA has choice points the broker can navigate to, which will be either manual or e-trade, and RSA will no longer transpose its external expense structure on the broker. This means brokers will have sub-£10,000 manual traded solutions with RSA.

“We’re not there yet and we will be announcing this over the next few weeks and months,” he said. “We’re doing some pilots in various parts of RSA at the moment to make sure it’s the right thing for our partners. But every single partner I’ve sat down with needs that mid-market e-solution, where if they are e-savvy and they can use it and it fits through, then that’s brilliant, but if it doesn’t then we’ve got our experts ready to help. Whether it’s £2,000 or £10,000 or £1 million – you can access our service expertise and that will be the significant change in respect of how we’re pursuing our growth agenda moving forward.”

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During his one-on-one with Insurance Business on Friday morning, Horton said the aim now is to continue that momentum into 2022 and beyond. “We’re interested in doing this consistently, rather than as a one-off event,” stated the QBE boss, who described his first months at the helm as “incredibly” exciting as he got to know the firm’s people, partners, and customers.

Pointing to QBE’s strong foundations, Horton shared: “What I’ve found is we have very passionate people and we’re very positive, with good business within those divisions and great relationships with our brokers and clients. What I’ve found is we’ve got some great building blocks.

“All I’d like to do is probably use them a bit differently, in that we leverage the skills we have between the divisions (North America, international, and Australia Pacific), rather than having three divisions which are somewhat separate. If we’re doing something great in the UK, why don’t we try and replicate that in the US, or the US to Australia or Australia to the US? That is a great opportunity for us.”

In the US, for instance, the CEO sees promise despite it having been a challenging market for QBE.

“It’s by far the largest property & casualty market, and nobody dominates it,” he said. “So, the opportunity to grow there is great, as long as you’re very consistent. Generally, you do well in the US if you have consistent products, consistent appetite, and you have the same underwriters and claims people year in / year out. So, it’s getting that consistency.”

In fact, it is now QBE’s vision to be the most consistent and innovative risk partner, alongside its purpose to enable a more resilient future. To achieve both, in January the insurer set out the following strategic priorities: portfolio optimisation, sustainable growth, ‘bring the enterprise together’, modernisation, as well as QBE’s people and culture.      

Lifting the lid on the new agenda, Horton explained: “I did think it was something we needed to do because it wasn’t clear what the QBE group strategy and purpose was. We had purpose, but we didn’t have an overall strategy and vision.

“We did in the divisions, and I wanted to try and have something for the group that the divisions could then align behind – so, getting this consistency across the group so wherever you are you will understand what we’re trying to do and how you, as an individual, contribute to it.”

“We need to live it,” he told Insurance Business, referring to QBE’s new purpose. “And we need to deliver on the strategic priorities that help us achieve the vision and purpose we’ve laid out.”

Of the six strategic priorities, Horton has taken the lead on bringing the enterprise together.

“I think it’s important to the CEO to try and get the organisation working more closely together – look at the governance processes, how decisions are taken; try to empower people more,” he declared, while stressing that all of the priorities are equally important. “And I think that one should be with me.”

Horton – who was the long-time chief executive of Beazley Plc prior to his relocation from London to Sydney – also cited the importance of communicating QBE’s purpose and vision across the business.

“People need to feel they’re contributing to everything we’re doing,” he said. “Otherwise, they won’t buy into it; they won’t accept it. And communication isn’t just telling people what it is – it’s listening to them, how it resonates with them, and the questions they have on it. So, there’s going to be that continual communication.”

When QBE’s financial results were released, Horton noted his ambition to lead the “with great potential” organisation towards becoming a consistently high-performing enterprise that is culturally and operationally united and has a clear strategic direction.

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