2017. What a year. As many of those who know me will verify, I prefer to look forward rather than back. But I don’t think any insurance CEO – particularly any motor insurance CEO – can fail to reflect on 2017 without a sense of bewilderment at how things played out in our industry.  The sector is increasingly being challenged by government, regulators and lawmakers. And sometimes it’s easy to overlook the reason why we exist in the first place.

“In times of crisis, ordinary people can do extraordinary things”

I was reminded of this recently when I went along to the House of Commons to see the announcement of the winner of the Flood Re Local Heroes award.

Nigel Evans MP:

In my ten years in Account Management and Development, I’ve heard a variety of people observe that there’s ‘something different’ about the Scottish Insurance Market, a unique phenomenon that occurs only North of the Wall.

The omni-present Kardashian family are well known for being relentless trend-setters; however the aggravated robbery of Kim Kardashian last October was one trend we would rather not keep up with.

Unfortunately, the scary fact is that this high profile robbery does reflect something we’ve witnessed here at Covéa Insurance. In the past five years I’ve seen significant increase in the number of aggravated burglaries, particularly of HNW properties, which can leave customers severely traumatised and suffering from physical injury. 

As a trainer in cyber insurance, I spend a lot of time speaking to brokers around the country about the many complexities of cyber insurance policies. Often the conclusion from those brokers is that cyber insurance policies seem to have been written with the intent of making cyber insurance as hard as possible for brokers, and their clients.

Insurers and brokers have a lot on their plate at the moment: Brexit bafflement, Ogden agony, rate reductions and new threats to their business models but everyone from the smallest high street broker to the largest multinational insurer need to know their GDPR subject matter. Failure to plan ahead means you could find the regulator banging loudly on your door followed up by a gaggle of Google search tags that you really don’t want your customers to be reading!

About 18 months ago, I began writing a book about my experiences in the insurance industry.

"The winds of change are blowing wild and free"

Bob Dylan (To make you feel my love)

Endless amounts of noise and copy have been devoted to the subject of ‘disruption’ and it’s been something of a buzz-word in the insurance industry for a while now. Disruption is really nothing new, however, and certainly nothing to be frightened of. 

Disruption has been happening since the dawn of time... 

Against a constantly changing claims landscape, insurers must offer services that meet their customers' needs and expectations. As a result, and following an extensive review, Allianz is proposing to combine its commercial and household claims units to create one property claims team in Milton Keynes.

Our review showed there were clear strengths and opportunities in doing this, enabling our customers to benefit from a claims service that suits their requirements, whatever the future brings.