“We’ve just got no business dealing directly with clients”

When Patrick Brice (pictured) joined CFC eight years ago after almost two decades serving with RSA, the business comprised a team of circa 110 people occupying just one floor of an office. Today the specialty underwriting giant employs nearly 900 people across multiple offices and is recognised as the biggest independent MGA in the world.

Speaking with Insurance Business following CFC’s UK Broker Summit, distribution director Brice noted that while the firm has seen significant changes, its fundamental DNA – a resolute focus on broker distribution and an ambition to grow the market as well as CFC’s market share – remains unchanged. 

Why CFC has no interest in going direct

“I can’t think of a single reason why we would ever go direct; I just can’t ever see us doing it,” he said. “Commercial insurance is a broker-led business. It has to be, given the complexity you’re dealing with, given the wide range of different products and the wide range of different requirements that commercial clients need. And bear in mind, commercial clients include everything from micro-businesses all the way to large corporates. So, brokers are absolutely central to that.

“If you’re working in commercial insurance, you need to understand the broker market. And I’ve always loved that aspect of insurance. It’s one of the things I hammer home when I’m talking to new joiners at CFC – that insurance is fundamentally a people business. And we at CFC talk a lot about the technology that we use and the tools we use to streamline the insurance process but the one thing we’ve been really consistent on is that brokers remain fundamental to the success of our proposition.”

What makes working with commercial insurance brokers so special?

Having seen the insurance market through multiple iterations over the last 30 years, Brice noted that what has held his interest so long is the opportunity to work with brokers and understand how their businesses operate. From the personalities involved, to seeing the strategies they put into operation to getting a first-hand look at the way in which they advocate for and support their clients, he’s continually impressed by the level of innovation displayed by brokers as they pivot to meet the ever-changing demands of insureds.

“Over the years it has become clear to me that pure selling in commercial insurance is actually really difficult,” he said. “What you need to do is build partnerships with your brokers, and to understand what kind of clients they’re working with and how your propositions match the solutions they’re trying to provide for their clients.

“For me, it all comes back to people and relationships, and understanding that brokers have a tough job to do. They’ve got clients that, nine times out of 10, don’t understand insurance and certainly don’t want to buy insurance. It’s a grudge purchase for anyone who isn’t one of those sophisticated buyers that use it purely for risk transfer.”

Making brokers’ lives easier – assessing CFC’s ambition

Making brokers’ lives easier is the name of the game for CFC, he said, and integral to that is recognising the pressures brokers face with the client on one side of the equation and the insurance market on the other. The key to navigating that is tailoring a proposition to match their requirements, and that’s the bread and butter of what Brice’s team do at CFC – crafting solutions that make the business accessible and its products efficient and tailor-made to what the broker needs.

Brice highlighted that, from a reputational perspective, the insurance industry had a rough ride during the COVID crisis, and he knows from his time serving on a BIBA advisory board that brokers are still navigating the challenge of ensuring the reputation of the industry is as powerful and positive as possible. But that’s where the role of the broker really comes in, he said, as it’s through the provision of professional, high-quality, impartial advice and guidance, that clients can learn or relearn to trust the insurance proposition.

“That’s their job,” he said. “Their job is to be professional, impartial advisors who understand their clients’ requirements and can then turn to the market and find a market for those products. Our job is to design the products, to manufacture the products and to find the right distribution partners for them. It’s also our role to educate our broker partners to the point where they feel really confident in talking about the value of those products.”

That education piece has been a responsibility CFC has taken very seriously since its earliest days, he said, and he doesn’t ever see that focus slowing down. The simpler and more accessible you make a product, the less work the broker has to do in converting that into something comprehensible from a client’s perspective.

‘What’s next? What can we do better?’

However, he noted that no matter how positive the feedback from brokers to CFC’s proposition and emphasis on creating a more sustainable specialty insurance marketplace, the business is determined not to rest on its laurels. The team knows never to take its market relationships for granted, he said, and works off the conviction that it can always be better and always do more for its brokers.

“The moment we get complacent about the fact our brokers are giving us fantastic feedback, or that we’re growing at 20-something per cent year-on-year, that’s the moment that delivery slips,” he said. “That’s when you start losing your grip on the things that made you a successful business in the first place. We’re owners of this business, so we’re all invested in its success, and we care about it deeply. And that means constantly asking ‘what’s next? What can we do better?’”

Hopefully, this continues to translate into a differentiated service proposition and a differentiated way of interacting with brokers, Brice said, because, no matter what, the broker sits at the centre of CFC’s offering.

“Their role in providing impartial, professional advice to a client that doesn’t understand insurance by coming to experts that understand that particular channel of insurance is a really powerful combination,” he said. “So, we’ve just got no business dealing directly with clients. It’s not for us. That’s where the brokers add their real value and long may it continue.”