Broking Success: Staying in a positive mindset

Describe your insurance journey?

I started with The Bollington Group in 2006 as personal insurance consultant before progressing to claims handler. 

Then, after around five years, I moved to AA Business Insurance as an insurance adviser, but only for seven months.

In 2012, I jumped to amb Insurance Services and have been there for 11 years as operations director.

Why makes insurance such an attractive place to work?

It’s all about people and speaking to clients. If you’ve got an interest with people, it is a great industry to be part of. I’m constantly dealing with clients and meeting them face-to-face, which I enjoy.

You have a lot of variety with insurance which I think is a positive.

Why have you decided to stick with amb Insurance Services?

The leadership team has given me the autonomy to get on, do things, make my own mistakes and celebrate successes. It is a company that genuinely wants [its staff] to do well.

I chose to be with a smaller company because it has more of a family feel to it and that’s one thing I like.

What I would like for the future of amb is it to give back to the people who work within it and the wider insurance community.

Peter Lycett

We are small enough to know one another inside and out, so the successes just feel a little more personal and that you are a part of something.

What I would like for the future of amb is it to continue what it’s doing, which is continual improvement. And to give back to the people who work within it and the wider insurance community.

How does amb develop its own talent?

We have a supportive atmosphere.

People are not necessarily encouraged to make mistakes, but we have an open and honest atmosphere and culture. If you do make a mistake, we can present that as a learning opportunity. Especially as we encourage our staff to go out of their comfort zone in terms of development.

We invest heavily in our training, through formal schemes and apprenticeships.

Peter Lycett

We invest heavily in our training, through formal schemes and apprenticeships.

We have linked in some good providers in the past, and we are lucky to have some good people training with us. 

I also make sure that people have the freedom and opportunity to go and plug into our local chamber of commerce or other local training events.

How have you found recruitment in recent times?

Our training programmes and apprenticeships have helped. We have also been fortunate with some of the people we have recruited.

Experienced staff aren’t micromanaged, and the less experienced ones are given that opportunity to link up with their more senior colleagues so they can share their knowledge.

How has amb managed with wider economic challenges like inflation?

We must make sure we sell ‘trust’ to our clients, and we encourage the team to be open and honest with customers.

We embrace challenge. If we can deliver messages in a professional manner, be upfront about it and work hard when our clients need us they will appreciate it.

Peter Lycett

We embrace challenge and if it’s industry-wide then people can move to another broker, but premiums are still rising regardless of who your place your business with. 

I think if we can deliver messages in a professional manner, be upfront about it and work hard when our clients need us then they will appreciate it.

How have you found insurer service of late?

If you speak with other brokers, they will say it is a huge challenge. We just try to be on the front foot rather than waiting for them to contact us about things, and make sure we work with the right people. 

We are representing our clients, so we must be quick to communicate with insurers and have an honest conversation with them over where they are at with rates.

Where do you want to see amb in a year’s time?

We recently bought the brokerage Mercer Jones & Company, so we want to embed that within the business, and that will hopefully give us growth.

It should also help us with the recruitment challenges by adding one or two people to the business. 

We would love to make more acquisitions. If there are brokers out there that fit our ethos, we would be interested.

Peter Lycett

The new team has been welcomed by the existing one, and both sides have worked well with one another.

We continue to work hard with servicing our clients to get them where they need to be by building even closer relationships. 

In 12 months’ time I hope we know all of them even better, so that we can help them first and foremost with their insurance challenges.

To this end, any good broker should have a network of suppliers that they can share with their clients, which we do.

Maybe not this year, but we would love to make more acquisitions. If there’s other brokers out there that fit our ethos, then we would be interested.

How are you looking to step up organic growth?

We have just taken on another sales executive to help make sure our servicing is perfect and that our relationships are sound. 

I think, locally, we are the only chartered insurance broker, so we’ve got a good unique selling point there for clients to pick up on; they can easily speak to the owner and not just be a number in a big corporate firm.

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