RSA looks to add 200 more brokers in a year

The insurer currently has about 450 brokers which Hardy stated was approximately 15% of the insurance broker market.

Speaking at the British Insurance Brokers’ Association Conference in Manchester last week, Hardy was optimistic about RSA’s achievements since last year’s conference.

He said: “We [RSA] are trying to accelerate the progress we have already made in the past year. Last year I spoke about how we were trying to open our doors to brokers and I believe we have done that. We have been looking at our contact strategies which means trying to give access to our people and making sure are visible to help brokers.

“The second thing is that we’re making sure we are focused on being more responsive to our brokers and we can’t really do that without putting investment into our teams. Since the past year we have increased our operational headcount, in the teams that support our online business, by 40%.”

Reorganisation

Hardy added that it had reorganised itself into product focused teams, noting that RSA has now removed a thousand referrals a week, while investing in the mid-market team.

“Last year was all about fixing the stuff brokers told us wasn’t working and we did that. This year is about trying to enhance our broker proposition,” he continued.

“Part of that is around trading. We are looking at removing our minimum premiums for trading in the mid-market. We had quite a draconian sort of [£]10,000 minimum, which was set around seven years ago, and its has become a big barrier. We’ve focused on removing a lot of gaps in the proposition like that.”

Insurer relationships

According to Hardy, RSA has made significant progress in the past 12 months and that brokers are wanting to build more insurer relationships.

He commented: “At RSA we are trying to shift our efforts more towards broker experience, which is a continuation of what we just spoke about. So, looking at how we respond to brokers and the relationships we have with them. We want to move away from single point relationships.

“Speaking to just the owner of the business or a salesperson is not good enough and it isn’t sustainable. We need our underwriters to have relationships with the multiple people within the business. We need the businesses institutionally knowing each other.”

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