Insurance news

In an interview with Insurance Business, Quadient’s principal of banking and financial services highlighted that nuisance calls and texts can be broadly divided into fraudulent and genuine communications. What sets insurance apart from some other sectors is that insurers are consistently getting the well-meaning element of their communication severely wrong.

“Most insurance companies don’t make bad calls on purpose,” he said. “Yes, there’ll be some that are chasing up payments, etc. and some delivering bad news, which is going to upset people. But there are so many companies that are sitting behind these numbers who are trying to improve their relationship with their customers and just getting it so badly wrong.

“It’s the age-old problem in insurance – you buy a policy and then both sides hope they never have to talk to the other one… But then what happens at renewal time? You’ve got a relationship which is like the one you have with your energy provider, nobody loves their energy provider, it’s just a necessary evil. Insurers are now going out of their way to build relationships so that when it comes to renewal time, [their customer] can see there’s more than just a financial relationship there.”

The problem that insurers are facing, however, is that they don’t know what to say and they don’t actually understand their customers, Stephens said. So that effort at relationship-building can very easily become condensed into cross-selling attempts or requests for feedback.

Instead, insurers need to spend more time understanding what customers want, where their problems lie and how they can help solve those problems. Having established what communication their customers want to receive, insurers must then determine which channels these customers want to be reached on and how often they should reach out.

“As an introvert, someone calling me is a horrible thing at times,” he said. “I’m perfectly happy with text or the system used in banking with mobile apps and smartphone push notifications and I’m not offended in the slightest if somebody sends me a small marketing message there. But about 74% of [insurance-related] complaints were about live calls which take up people’s time and are incredibly expensive to the insurer.”

Getting the channel wrong when delivering communication is what leads to complaints about nuisance calls. The 3,989 complaints about insurers in 2021 reveal that the digital maturity piece just isn’t there in the insurance market yet, Stephens said, and also that these companies have some way to go towards bridging the gap that exists around customer experience.

Read more: Quadient on creating long-term customer relationships

Insurers are keen to take the steps necessary to bridge that gap, he noted, but they’re having to face that the right time to do so was a year and a half ago because it takes time to put the right structures in place. Companies such as Quadient do have some solutions available that can be implemented quickly and effectively but the really advanced piece – around building customer profiles and deciding on the right communication platforms – simply cannot be done overnight.

“We can help you in understanding your customer, but that means gathering data, doing workshops and really mapping out customers’ journeys with real data,” he said. “The best time to do that was during the pandemic and people were able to do it. We saw a massive swing across multiple industries with people saying ‘we can’t just communicate anymore, we have to understand the customer experience’.

“I’ve not seen that so much in the insurance industry. A few certainly have, but they were the people who are either always ahead or so far behind they realised they couldn’t accept it anymore and wanted to change everything… But most didn’t take that approach, they were just firefighting to keep their company afloat when they should have also been thinking more strategically.”

It’s not going to be a quick change for insurance businesses, Stephen said, but it remains a necessary one. And it’s not all doom and gloom for insurers either as even though other branches of the financial services industry are several years ahead of them in terms of understanding the customer and translating that into creating the right customer experience, the insurance sector can leverage those experiences to expedite their own pace of change.

Read more: Claims management firm slapped with fine – warning for insurance industry

“Insurers should feed on the mistakes that were made by other industries as they blazed that trail,” he said. “But they’ve got to start now. It’s like that old [saying] that the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago but the second-best time is now. We have to start with where we are and help companies realise that if they do nothing, their costs will continue to increase but their revenues will not because what customers care about these days isn’t just the lowest price.”

The number of nuisance calls Quadient is seeing shows that there are too many organisations out there that, if they do care about the customer experience, are not making enough changes to their working practices to do what it takes to fix where it’s broken. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, Stephens said, particularly for businesses willing to learn from the mistakes of others and get started on this improvement journey.

“It’s really exciting and we’re looking forward to working [with those businesses],” he said. “It’s a pivot point for the industry. Do you want to carry on thinking you can get through this the old way? Or do you want to actually make a change? These [FOI] numbers alone won’t make up your mind, they’re only highlighting one element of this. But if everyone else is changing and if everyone else sees the light, can you really afford to be Kodak at this point? Do you want to be that organisation?”

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The report explained that ARAG’s record-high premium income was mainly driven by the solid performance of its legal insurance segment, the group’s largest unit, with premium growth reaching 10.9% in Germany and 7.8% in international business. The group’s health insurance segment also delivered an excellent premium gain of 12.6%, driven mainly by successful new full-cost health insurance rates. Meanwhile, its composite segment recovered from pandemic-related declines in 2021, reporting a 4.2% increase.

Dr. Renko Dirksen, speaker of the board of management of ARAG SE, said at the presentation of ARAG’s financial statements: “Consumers are responding to a crisis with an increased need for cover, which is strongly focused on the areas of work and health – and hence on legal and health insurance. Our customers rely on us for help and protection and reward our corresponding efforts. This is reflected very clearly in how our business has developed in 2021.”

For the 2022 financial year, ARAG’s momentum continued into the first quarter (Q1 2022), with premium income growth rising 10.4% to €638 million (compared to €576.4 million in the previous year).

In Germany, the group delivered strong premium growth of 8.4%, with its national growth drivers being health insurance (14% growth) and legal insurance (6.6%). ARAG also got off to an excellent start internationally, boasting a 14% increase in premium revenues.

Commenting on the group’s positive results during Q1 FY22, Dr. Dirksen said: “Despite this brilliant start, we are not expecting record figures for our business again in the business year 2022. Above all, the effects of strong inflation are unclear and will be crucial.”

Dr. Dirksen added that the group will continue to observe noticeable global changes and economic order.

“With our business model, we offer our customers effective protection for their standard of living in uncertain times. Our customers need us right now – and we will deliver,” he said. “This attitude will also help us find our way in a world of unresolved geopolitical conflicts and continue working with calm assurance on our success story.”

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Meanwhile, Hyams (pictured directly above) will transition to the role of executive chair. He founded Claims Consortium in 2010 and previously served as the chief executive officer of companies such as Synergy Cloud, Property Consortium Drainage, Building Claims Services, and Property Consortium UK. As chair, he will continue to oversee the group’s overall strategy with a focus on “progressing new developments and projects,” a Press release said.

The restructuring also sees the promotion of Owen Pugh (pictured directly above) to Claims Consortium’s board of directors. In addition, he will assume the newly created role of chief operating officer. As part of his new responsibilities, Pugh will oversee service delivery across all of the group’s claims products.

According to Claims Consortium, the changes follow its acquisitions of specialist Lloyd’s and London market focused Chartered Loss Adjuster, Roger Rich & Co, and weather and claims data specialist, WeatherNet, over the past year – and the launch of its standalone claims management software Synergy Cloud.

“These changes, combined with our new five-year strategy will drive our business forward as we seek to build on and expand our services across claims, technology, and data,” said Hyams. “Matt has been my right hand in running the business for the last 12 months and there is nobody better to step into this position and deliver our strategic vision ensuring continued success as we build for the future.”

Hyams added that as executive chair, he looks forward to “dedicating more time to focus on specific areas of opportunity and development for the group.”

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Last year’s figure of 740 vacancies for risk insurance professionals was itself an all-time high for the sector, representing a 122% year-on-year rise from 2020. On its current trajectory, recruitment levels in 2022 look set to increase 105% year-on-year, on a potential course to reach over 1,500 new jobs.

Region by region

Vacancysoft identified that the largest region for risk vacancies is London, with new jobs in the capital rising 114.5% year-on-year in 2021. In early 2022 this figure climbed strongly, already reaching 46% of the total vacancies published in the capital across the whole of last year and it is set to increase 37.5% year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the South East experienced the greatest growth, with recruitment levels in 2021 rising 150% compared 2020. This year, Vacancysoft said, recruitment levels in the South East are projected to increase by 67.1%. As a result of this growth, the South East now accounts for 11.7% of England and Wales vacancies, the greatest number outside London (53%) – leapfrogging the West Midlands (8.1%), which held the second spot in 2021.

Company by company

Out of the top firms recruiting for risk specialists in England and Wales, growth at three of the top five is progressing at a slower pace in 2022 than during the same period in 2021. AXA remains the dominant hirer for risk specialists with 50 jobs published so far in 2022 but its pace of growth slowed by 15.3%.

The second-highest ranked insurer was Phoenix group where the pace of growth was 8.5% slower than last year. Meanwhile, Admiral, in the fifth slot, is experiencing the fastest growth in the top 10, with 50% more vacancies in the first four months of 2022 compared to the same period last year. 

Top 20 insurers, risk vacancies, UK, 2021-22

#	Company	Sector	2021	2022
1	AXA	General	177	50
2	Phoenix Group	Life	59	18
3	Willis Towers Watson	General	55	17
4	RSA	Non-Life	44	15
5	Admiral	Non-Life	26	13
6	MS Amlin	Non-Life	29	13
7	NFU Mutual	General	48	13
9	AIG	General	40	12
9	Munich Re	General	37	12
10	The Ardonagh Group	General	41	12

_{Source: Vacancysoft}

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Insurance law firm BLM has been appointed to the legal panel for Hastings Direct. The announcement follows a six-month-long market review and re-tender process.

Under the new three-year partnership, BLM will handle large and complex loss claims in the UK and Ireland.

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For Tuplin, who moved across from heading up Ethos Broking to become CEO of Towergate earlier this year, the last few months have been incredibly exciting and now he’s in a position to identify the key drivers that will define its agenda – to remove complexity, focus on its people and deliver its proposition to its clients.

Among his early observations from leading the business is his appreciation for the broker’s people. They’re a fantastically talented team, he said, and it’s clear how much they care about what they do for their clients. Having the right talent who are happy and fulfilled in their respective roles is key because that empowerment translates to customer success, and Towergate is now in the position of “renewing its vows” with its people.

“[To attract the right talent], we’ve got to make sure we articulate the opportunity that comes from being part of the insurance profession,” he said. “Because otherwise, we just seem like this giant business that is impersonal, and the truth is absolutely the opposite. We’ve got to communicate that to people who’ve never been in insurance, we’ve got to set out our proposition and make people aware of it.”

Being able to promote exactly what a career in insurance can bring you – longevity, variety and the chance to do something that makes a difference – is the key to crafting a future for the profession. The promise that insurance offers, Tuplin said, is that in five years you will likely be a much more well-rounded person than you were five years ago, and that there are mentoring and sponsorship opportunities available that can take you to wherever you want to go.

Looking back on his career, he noted how lucky he feels to have been supported and mentored along the way. It’s not something he takes for granted, however, and reflecting on those experiences begs the question, “how can senior leaders help shape the next generation of talent?” Being in a senior position doesn’t mean sitting in an ivory tower and considering your work done, but rather the exact opposite.

“It’s about making the senior leadership team at every level available to our people,” he said. “And we’re all still on that journey. When I sit in a room with the [Ardonagh leadership team], I see that people at every level are willing to keep learning and keep sharing what they’ve learned. I think that traditionally that’s where our industry hasn’t been great, it’s often a case of ‘I know what I know’.

“We should be sharing that and we should be helping the generation coming through to take over. I hope my successor is at Towergate, I really want them to be. That’s how seriously we should be taking this. And we are identifying our talent all the time to make sure we can support them all the way through.”

The insurance profession as a whole needs to be more diverse and inclusive in its approach to the job market, Tuplin said, and to recognise that talent can come from anywhere. As somebody who started his professional journey with a place on a youth training scheme, he implicitly understands the importance of giving people opportunities in order to ensure a talent pipeline that is strong and fit for the future.

“I’m not going to recruit just through my own eyes,” he said. “I know as CEO if I can get a more diverse senior management team around me, the better decisions I will end up making. If I recruit like me, I’m not going to get any different opinions or views of the situation and I will be a worse CEO for that.”

Read more: Insurance leaders reflect on BIBA 2022

The hope for Tuplin is that everybody in Towergate will be blissfully happy forever, but, as a realist, he recognises that the business won’t always suit everybody’s needs. What Ardonagh is therefore looking to do is to find opportunities across the whole group, whether that’s in Ethos or Atlanta or any of its brands, that will keep its talent within the family.

People should be empowered to explore opportunities across the wider piece, he said, and it’s an exciting time for the business as its looks to enhance that accessibility angle. The group needs to get better at that, and it will get better at that as it sets out clearly what it means to have a career in Ardonagh and where that can take you.

“It is exciting to me,” he said, “because when I started, the insurance industry was very different. When I started, I stumbled into insurance and I fell in love with it but I did stumble into it. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody at a graduate-level, or doing their A-Levels or GCSEs said ‘I’d like to have a career in insurance?’

“Wouldn’t it be great if it wasn’t a guilty pleasure? I’m so proud of what we do and how we prop up the economy. And I want our young people to know that, to know it’s not an embarrassing thing to do and it’s not a last resort… It’s a privilege to do the jobs we do, and one I never take for granted.”

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Kelvin Smith Insurance Brokers has appointed Rena Ross (pictured above right) and Scott Gardner (pictured above left) as directors. The two will sit on the company’s board alongside managing director Stephen Travers (pictured above centre).

Both Ross and Gardner are veteran employees of the Glasgow-based brokerage and were instrumental in the company’s growth, which has added £1 million turnover annually since 2012. Founded in November 1982, Kelvin Smith currently has 40 employees.

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The London & International Insurance Brokers’ Association (LIIBA) has launched the [email protected] campaign to increase awareness of diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives in the London insurance market.

The campaign involves several initiatives that target younger people and those from less-advantaged backgrounds by providing them with access to the London insurance market and the professional roles it offers, LIIBA said.

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Wallace noted that he’s at a stage in his career where he is settled and comfortable with who he is, which makes a real difference to the strength and longevity of the relationships he has built across the market. Now when he speaks to brokers and carriers across the UK, he said, a lot of them are at the point where they’re running their businesses and it’s wonderful to be able to chat with them openly and on the same level.

“Because you’ve just got that level of understanding when you’ve been in the industry for a long time and you’ve built up a level of trust and respect with so many people,” he said. “Insurance is a family, so that trust aspect that you build up over a period of time is really important. Because then you can deal with things, and you can make difficult decisions much easier because you’re working with people with whom you’ve got a common understanding. And you can really see that camaraderie coming through.”

Having the opportunity to serve QBE’s UK business is a great position to be in, Wallace said, as while he joined QBE Europe to help lead its growth strategy, now he’s coming into a region where QBE already commands a strong and established brand. Between its deep technical specialisms, its great expertise, its strong London market identity and its solid regional footprint – QBE UK is in great shape, and he’s looking forward to continuing to build that out.

Read more: How can brokers deal with rising costs in the construction insurance market?

“We’ve got areas where gaps do exist in the armoury,” he said. “For example, we’ve made a significant push on construction in recent times. We’re very strong in the large corporate sector and we’ve just launched Contractors Combined to target the middle market… launching Commercial Combined a couple of years ago and then aligning that with Contractors Combined just serves that need to target the middle market sector as well.

“We’ve also got a good regional footprint but I think we can get a much stronger identity and visibility in the market, and that’s some of the feedback I’ve got from our broker contacts. That QBE is a special brand, and we’ve got some strong specialisms across different areas but the market wants to see more of us, the market wants to see more visibility. One of my aims is really to try and engage with the brokers, engage with the customers, and try and make QBE much more visible in terms of who we are and what we’re looking to achieve.”

The message across BIBA and across the wider market is one of growth, Wallace said. Everybody is pushing for growth and in his new leadership role, his remit is to come in and set the pace for that growth within the business. That only happens by trying to create greater cohesion and greater alignment across the business, so that when the proposition goes to market, its approach is much more joined-up and provides greater scope and clarity as to where it wants to go next.

It’s an interesting time to be in the market, he said, as customers are looking for greater communication and engagement from their insurers following the COVID crisis. The role of the broker in bridging that demand versus supply opportunity is crucial, and Wallace is actively engaging with multiple broker partners on that subject.

“We’re a broker dominated market,” he said. “And the important thing is to recognise that the broker’s job is to try and represent the needs of the customer, while our job is to produce a solution for the customer. And the best way to try and find that solution – which ideally optimises addressing and preventing risk, or finding new opportunities and solutions for the customer – is to work together.

“I saw it in Europe, but coming back into the UK I see what’s more prevalent [here] is a willingness and desire to work together. That’s not just at an executive level, sitting in a room and having a chat, it’s all the way through the different structures of both the broker and the customer, and the broker and the insurer.”

What he and his team are seeing at the moment is a strong desire to come up with new and innovative solutions that are more agile and adaptable to their clients’ needs. Because what the client is looking for, he said, is greater clarity, greater consistency and greater certainty. And he believes that both brokers and insurers now have a fantastic opportunity to put aside individual ways of working and start to come together.

Read more: QBE’s Chris Wallace on IUAD’s campaign is more critical than ever

With so much opportunity in the market, Wallace has a lot of plans in place for what the future of QBE’s UK insurance division will look like, but top of the agenda for the year ahead is “listening and engaging”. His year one is 2023, he said, so a lot of his meetings are about getting ready for that period and he’s relishing the opportunity to get to know the ins and outs of the business.

Over the course of about 150 one-to-ones, he’s had the chance to catch up with many of QBE’s broker partners. What’s critically important to him, he said, is to have absolute clarity on these relationships, and a very clear vision and ambition for where these can go as the insurer prepares for 2023.

“That’s about understanding where we choose to play, where we choose to produce targeted solutions for different segments, customers and products,” he said. “So, it’s very much about understanding our current state and then also setting out our vision for growth in terms of what we want to achieve. And that is really to target a much stronger focus in select industry segments, to develop our industry specialisms and to develop greater visibility across the UK regional footprint.

“I would say those are the main areas of focus on my end. If I can get to the end of the year, where people know who I am coming back into the UK and also know my team and our key people across the different UK branches, I think that will put us in a really good position for growth.”

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Metric	Q1 2022	Q1 2021
Gross written premium (GWP)	US$128.1 million	US$100.6 million
Net underwriting result	US$41.3 million	US$27.6 million
Profit for the period	US$19.4 million	US$10.2 million
Core operating income	US$23.9 million	US$14.6 million

According to IGI, the improved underwriting result is largely attributed to the growth in net premiums earned and to lower net claims and claim adjustment expenses. The rise in GWP, meanwhile, was mainly due to new business across all segments and rate increases on existing policies.

“IGI had a strong start to 2022 as our growth and cycle management strategy resulted in an excellent set of financial results across all key financial measures,” declared Jabsheh. “Most notably, we recorded a 50% increase in net underwriting results, a 90% increase in profit for the quarter, and a 64% increase in core operating income in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021, resulting in 8.8 points of improvement in our core operating return on average equity to 24.1%.

“We grew our gross premiums by 27% during the first quarter of 2022 as we continued to take advantage of a robust rating environment and capitalise on market opportunities in all areas of our business, while continuing to strengthen our existing portfolio. Our combined ratio for the first quarter of 2022 was 72.2%, an exceptional result and well below our long-term average of around 90%.”

Meanwhile the CEO noted that IGI has minimal direct exposure to Russia and Ukraine, and that the company does not expect any material losses from the ongoing conflict.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “it is events such as this that continue to remind us of the complexity and uncertainty of the world around us, and the impact they have on our global economies. Elevated inflationary pressures and rising interest rates in the first quarter of 2022 were evident in the mark-to-market impacts in our investment results.

“Overall, our performance in the first quarter of 2022 demonstrates the effectiveness of our underwriting strategy and provides another positive data point in the track record of high-quality results that IGI has achieved over many years. We expect that our markets and the rating environment will remain favourable for the foreseeable future, resulting in profitable growth in 2022.”

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