High Impact Broking - are you getting it?

Back in the mid 1980s, an advertising campaign hit our TVs from an insurance company that offered car insurance in a different way. The promise of competitive car insurance from the comfort of our own home promised efficiency and effectiveness. For many at the time, the procurement of car insurance typically involved a trip to the high street insurance broker, in a setting like that of a travel agent.

I recall in the late ‘90s visiting our local broker’s shop-front office with my father as he added me to his car insurance policy for a month, once I had my driver’s licence. The experience was a Q&A with a broker prompted by their computer. As my answers were entered, we’d await the price that was spat out. Once my dad had reluctantly agreed to add me to his policy (reluctance driven by my overly eager right foot), the broker handed me my ticket to freedom (aka a cover note) and off we went. My dad drove us home!

In those times, insurance broking, certainly for private car insurance, was mostly about access. Access to a variety of quotations. While the customer was guided through the options, the objective was to provide multiple quotations from a variety of insurance companies in one go. In exchange for this access, the broker took a commission, typically a percentage of the premium.

When our TV screens promised us cheaper car insurance by cutting out the middleman, it sounded to many like the perfect solution. The insurance broker was relegated to the role of ‘middleman’ which added nothing to the equation other than cost. For many, this hangover still exists, and in a world of transactional experience, for good reason.

As an insurance broker for over 20 years, I’m pleased to tell you that there is an alternative type of broker.

High Impact vs Low Impact Broking

As insurance brokers, we work for our client. For me, that’s business owners and operators. Be it multinational manufacturers or high street retailers, the objective is always the same, use my specialist knowledge to deliver competitive insurance protection to enable business owners and operators to pursue their business objectives. I do this through a range of high impact broking, which put simply means using techniques to influence insurance underwriters to accept risk and to do so at a more competitive rate.

Our objective at Howden has always been to add value to the client by delivering high impact broking strategies that deliver high impact results. It is quite common however for the opposite to be true, where brokers revert to the role of ‘middleman’ in a broking review and feel very transactional.

We’ve spoken with clients whose broker has gone to market efficiently, representing their client to insurers at an agreed timescale, but without delivering compelling results.

Case Study 1

We tendered for the insurance of one of the UK’s largest book printers, a company that prints over 150 million books per year. They operate numerous buildings across a site spanning more than 600,000 sq ft. One of their risk management challenges was inspecting a vast roof where access was limited. This presented them with their own inspection challenges, but it also resulted in uncertainty for insurance underwriters. From an underwriting point of view, there were several unknown factors, and uncertainty is no friend of an underwriter. We delivered a solution utilising drone technology equipped with HD cameras to capture the roof in a detail not seen before. The drone-captured images were collated into a state-of-the-art 3D interactive model. The technology allows the client to review their roof in minute detail. From a broking point of view, it enables us to demonstrate to the insurance market that the client takes risk seriously and enabled us to provide accurate information to insurers, allowing us to pursue more competitive premiums.

A short video of this case study can be viewed here.

This is high impact broking, thinking differently to deliver different results.

Case Study 2

Our client, a hotelier that operates hotels across three countries, had been with their insurance broker for more than 20 years. Our objective was to deliver more cost-effective insurance solutions. It was clear that their broker had approached the insurance market regularly in pursuit of options, but due to an escalating frequency of ‘trip and slip’ claims, the price was escalating with no option of a cheaper alternative.

Howden has specialist knowledge in this sector and we were able to utilise this to get to the heart of the problem. The issue was not access to market, it was helping the client reduce the frequency and cost of regular claims. We deployed an IT system at enterprise level to deliver a consistent approach to employee training, record keeping and accident management processes. This resulted in our client implementing consistent risk management standards across their hotel portfolio and giving them a stronger defence in the event of incidents. By implementing this system, we reduced their insurance spend by more than £50,000 at the first attempt.

You can read the full case study here.

This is another example of high impact broking.

If you don’t believe you are benefiting from high impact broking, we’d be delighted to work with you. Contact Howden on 020 7543 2800 or request a call back here.