Burns and Wilcox eyes £60m-£65m in GWP

Kilpatrick told Insurance Age that the company had almost doubled in size and will get there by the end of this year.

Burns and Wilcox was formed in November 2019 when H.W Kaufman bought Barbican Protect and rebranded the entity.

The CEO said that Burns and Wilcox had seen some significant growth since 2019. He noted: “The ambition of the business is to grow that a lot more. We will hopefully be at about £60 to mid-£60m in gross written premiums this year. Our cousins in the States do $2bn. So, there’s a kind of difference in skills.”

Its key business lines are property, casualty, professional indemnity. It also has other financial lines in cyber and charity trustees’ liability. The Manchester-based company also includes sectors in technology, manufacturing and engineering, warehousing and distribution, retail and leisure, service providers, and professions and office-based businesses.

And the organisation is open to developing its proposition to drive further growth.

Kilpatrick explained: “But we’re quite keen to look at additional classes of business, additional or maybe subsets of what we do, potentially looking at teams of people to come and join us. Also, we are open and willing to look at sort of mergers and acquisitions, so acquiring businesses too.”

Burns and Wilcox currently works with approximately 250 brokers and is “actively trading with 70 to 80” of them.

Communication

Looking at the wider marker, Kilpatrick has previously stated that the insurance market was already hardening in the months leading to the global pandemic and said Covid-19 produced a further “chilling effect”.

He advised that brokers should be communicating well in advance with their clients on potential issues, so alternative arrangements can be made.

The CEO added: “I think having them [brokers] be quite open and honest and have a dialogue with their clients to actually tell them exactly where the market is and what’s happening and where it’s going.

“They should prepare people for the worst so that nothing comes as a shock, then you can manage your way through that. I think the worst that anyone wants is knowing nothing about it and then all of a sudden at the last minute you’ve got to pay, say, twice as much as you were anticipating.”

Kilpatrick stressed not to leave discussions between brokers and their insurers to the last minute.

Despite the challenges that came with the pandemic, according to Kilpatrick, companies have managed to adapt.

He commented: “I think what we’ve seen is those businesses in that sort of area [retail], the ones that were kind of robust and financially strong, even though they’ve gone through quite hard times, are the ones that have come out the other side.”

One issue that came to the fore is the increase of claims costs and inflation. An analysis by Insurance Age in April 2022, found that the increasing rate of inflation in the UK had caused challenges for brokers and insurers.

This included increase in claims costs and cost of building materials. Kilpatrick mentioned that “prices are going up” and “our costs of claims inflation are up dramatically”.

He added: “Something that would have cost you a thousand pounds, maybe four years ago to settle, that could be £1200 now. I think that’s quite a difficult thing to contend with. There’s still a hangover in the construction area with things like cladding.”

Cyber struggle

Earlier this month, Howden’s annual report on cyber revealed the average cost of cyber insurance had doubled since last year, due to a high supply-demand imbalance.

Kilpatrick said people are struggling to get cover for product lines such as cyber. He commented: “Things like cyber, I think are quite tricky. There’s been a lot of loss in that that sector and I’d say areas of professional indemnity are as well.

“If you went back four or five years ago, everyone had a product, a solution. I think that’s becoming hard and hard. It has been a lot of losses and a lot of rethinks. Lloyd’s and others have taken some views about what you can and can’t do with that, and I think there needs to be a rethink around all of that.”

Re-establishing connections

Kilpatrick also commented on the recent Biba conference. He said it was an opportunity to reacquaint with the market and update broker on what Burns & Wilcox has achieved in the past two years.

He said: “For us it was about re-establishing connections with people. Bringing them up to speed about what we’ve done in the last two years, the direction we’re going to go, and what we’re going to do.”

“And for us to listen to where brokers have got difficulties or challenges and what we might be able to do to potentially help them.”

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