12 Jul 2021
Authored by Gary Head, AXA Director of Schemes and Delegated Authorities
In the past five to six years, the schemes and delegated authorities’ market has seen significant growth. We estimate that schemes and delegated authorities (SDA) currently make up at least 20% of the UK’s commercial, property, casualty and motor business. With growth comes...
1 Jul 2021
Insurance brokers play a vital role as a trusted advisor of the insured
Yet a recent survey we undertook of commercial business owners, on average, scored their trust of their insurance broker at only 6.4. That is in fact lower than the score they gave for insurers themselves (6.9).
So why, in an industry built on a promise, is trust is no longer being...
21 Jun 2021
Currently firms can claim £3,000 for new hires and access up to £21,000 for Senior Insurance Professional Level 6 training (Advanced Diploma for CII & CILA routes), but rules are set to change on 30th September.
The past year has belonged to virtual learning & development (L&D), with the pandemic changing the way we live, work and...
17 May 2021
So, BIBA has come and gone for another year. It was as different this year as every other aspect of life has been this past 15 months but it was good to have the conference back, at least in some capacity. We trust it will return to its usual format in 2022.
Well done and thank you to all those at BIBA who have adapted and managed to put on a very decent event....
17 May 2021
After some initial challenges the BIBA Conference 2021 provided a great networking opportunity with the added bonus of an extra day. Big credit to the BIBA team for getting everything resolved and the event back on track. It proved to be the perfect platform to launch Broker Intelligence, our new solution to help brokers use data enrichment to better serve...
13 May 2021
While the industry has not had the pleasure of heading to Manchester this week for the BIBA Conference, there has still been a bit of a buzz in the air, and so much goodwill for BIBA. It’s testament to just how much we’ve all missed getting together for a second May in a row. Fingers crossed next year the show can go on in person!
Strengthening...
10 May 2021
Diversity of thought and the benefits to business
‘Lateral thinking’, ‘outside the box thinking’ or even ‘blue sky thinking’: for years businesses have challenged conventional wisdom in order to gain a competitive edge. However, it is labelled, the fact remains that having access to a diverse range of opinions and ideas is...
10 May 2021
One of the things I really love about this industry is the close-knit community, and there’s no better event than BIBA for bringing everyone together. For me, BIBA has always been the best place for meeting industry friends, connecting with people and relighting my fire, and that’s in a normal year. But 2020 was no normal year!
This last year,...
10 May 2021
There’s a very different buzz around BIBA this year
While we’re obviously disappointed not to be hitting the road and swarming into Manchester, as we have so many times before, the sense of anticipation around this week’s digital conference is huge.
The BIBA buzz has always been quite hard to define. A bit more than the sum of its parts,...
6 May 2021
Welcome back, BIBA!
After a year off due to the pandemic, it’s a welcome return for the largest insurance broker event in the calendar.
We at Allianz are looking forward to greeting brokers to our stand over the course of the event. While we would love to be chatting with you face to face in Manchester, as we have done in recent years, we’re...
4 May 2021
My very first BIBA (spent staffing the stand and handing out leaflets) was held in sunny Brighton, where the evening’s entertainment was enjoyed on the pier with a portion of fish and chips. Now having worked in the insurance industry for over three decades, I’ve attended pretty much every BIBA since; including a very memorable one in London where a fire...
11 Mar 2021
You survived when Direct Line (in the 1980’s) started selling cheap insurance to consumers. Then there was the growth of the internet and price comparison sites, where we saw more people buying their personal and small business insurance based on headline information, checklists, and cost.
And how have you survived?
By adapting to the needs of...
21 Dec 2020
It’s hard to believe that it is just one year ago this month when the first case of Covid-19 was reported to the World Health Organisation. Looking back to December 2019, the dominating headline at the time – and also risk for British businesses going into 2020 – was Brexit.
Looking at the intervening twelve months, it is hard to fathom just how...
3 Dec 2020
The UK justice system was facing enormous challenges, long before the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. Tony Buss, MD of ARAG, explains how access to justice was already declining in the UK, how the legal profession has adapted and what the longer-term consequences are likely to be.
It is no secret that the UK justice system has been struggling for some time....
23 Nov 2020
Darren Wray, CEO of Fifth Step a firm that has over a ten years experience of helping to improve insurance businesses in London and international markets examines some of the process and technology implications of the pandemic.
There have been many pages written about how the world has changed as a result of the pandemic, but the ones that I've read...
26 Oct 2020
In a guest blog for youTalk-insurance, Ben Moore, General Manager at QuoteSearcher analysed vital data which highlighted that valuable new business opportunities could be being missed by UK based insurance brokers.
It’s one thing to implement a lead generation strategy, but what’s the point if you switch off at 5:00pm?
The fact is, a huge...
5 Oct 2020
With the UK officially in recession for the first time in 11 years and unemployment increasing, the impact of Coronavirus is having far reaching consequences across all industries, including our own.
While this is very challenging and will continue to be so, the pandemic has also had an additional and perhaps less expected impact. It has shaken our assumptions...
9 Sep 2020
In an very personal, heartfelt and brave blog written for youTalk-insurance Ben McBean QBE Europe’s Assistant Claims Manager and sometimes star of the BBC TV anti insurance fraud series ‘Claimed and Shamed’ explains how taking up the challenge of swimming two great English lakes acted as both therapy for his ongoing mental health issues and helped to...
6 Jul 2020
I think you’ll agree, there were no big surprises in the FCA 2020/2021 plan released in April. Top topics were; technology, fair pricing, broker remuneration, financial crime and culture.
The FCA said, “We will not compromise on our expectations of firms, particularly that they make consumers’ interests the foundation of their business models...
1 Jul 2020
In a guest blog for youTalk-insurance, Sheena Thomson, a crisis and issues communications leader, examines approaches to reputation management, why insurers and brokers must pay close attention in a post-coronavirus world, and some top-line guidance on how to do this successfully.
There is an expression in the media; “If it bleeds, it leads”.
It...
