Leadership Insights: Growth, acquisitions and the future of high net worth

Mark - Ann Owen is Managing Director at Aviva Private Clients. She joins me now. What have been the main developments in the last few months?

Ann - So, our main development is the launch of our Refine product, which is a home product which is aimed at buildings sums insured for between £1 million and £3 million. So, this is very much targeted at the entry-level high net worth and high mid net worth segment.

Mark - And over the last couple of years, there's been the acquisition of AXA XL and Azure. Is that all bedded down now?

Ann - Yes, so both acquisitions are complete and the migrations of the business are complete. The team have all moved over, and that went really really well for us. It was a difficult three-year period of bedding in, but it's gone very, very well.

Mark - If you had to define what the Aviva Private Clients division covered, how much resource it had? In a nutshell, what have you got?

Ann - So, over the last three years, with the two acquisitions that we've mentioned, we've become a significant-sized business. So, we’re now over 100 people working on underwriting, claims, service, etc. risk management as well. So, we’re a fairly large business, we consider ourselves to be a leading player in the high net worth market in the UK.

Mark - High-net-worth market is a pretty broad spectrum. So, are there particular parts you specialise in, do you have, you know, which parts do you aspire to be in that perhaps you're not in today?

Ann - I think that something I'm particularly proud of is that we really do have a wide range of products in Private Clients. So, we start at our entry-level product, which we call Smart Home, which is a minimum premium of £800. And we go all the way through the Refine product to our high net worth product, which we call Complete, to our ultra high net worth product. And our largest single premium is £1.1 million. So, we really do, in the private client segment, we cater to emerging wealth all the way through to the really true ultra high net worth client.

Mark - There’s a few carriers in recent years that have withdrawn from this part of the market. So, why are you going into it? Why do you think you can succeed where perhaps they haven't?

Ann - That's a really good question. As you say, a number of carriers have pulled out and we saw this as an opportunity. So, what we’ve created with the Refine product is something that doesn't fully fill the gap of all the carriers that have pulled out of the market, but what it gives our brokers is an online, digitally traded solution which is very slick, very easy to use, available 24 hours, obviously online. And what it's catering for is the very large market in the UK with rebuild between one and three million. This is probably the largest segment in the overall high net worth segment.  And we’re giving a really sustainable product. It's great cover, but it's not more cover than this segment needs and it's priced properly, so it's going to be here for the long term. So, what it’s giving the market is something that will absolutely help fill the gap of the carriers that have left, but it's there for the long term. It's not priced to be the cheapest; it's priced to be excellent cover that will be here in the next 10 years.

Mark - If you look back at some of your competitors, were there any things you learned from them as to what not to do in this space?

Ann - I think that a big lesson that's been learned in the market is that you can't sell what is fundamentally a mid net worth product with a high net worth wording but mid net worth pricing. It just doesn't work. The wording needs to be tailored to the segment that you're targeting. Which is something that we’ve really done with our Refine product, is the cover is very wide, it's great coverage, but it's not more than is required by this segment. Therefore, the pricing matches the coverage that's provided.

Mark - What next for Aviva Private Clients?

Ann - Well, it's really exciting times for us. So, post the three years of the migrations of the two acquired businesses, we've launched Refine and we're replatforming the rest of our business onto a very, it’s a brilliant tech stack. We're also going to be entering the Lloyd's market via the Probitas business that Aviva acquired last year, which is very exciting for us. It will give us access to markets such as Switzerland and Monaco and the rest of the world. So, that’s really the exciting times for us. Growth is also a big opportunity for us in every segment that we're operating in, from the entry-level right the way through to the ultra high net worth.

Mark - You mentioned growth and new markets, but then you've got your existing business. So, how important is the service element of the existing business?

Ann - We never ever lose sight of how important our existing business is. So, we have a very large team of great people servicing our existing business. Renewals, mid-term adjustments are as important to us as new business. I think it's really easy sometimes to lose sight of that, but you know, we've got this huge back book that we want to manage really well and keep them customers. Renewal retention is incredibly important to us, so service is absolutely paramount. And of course, how we're tested by our clients is how we pay claims. And our claim service is something that we're all incredibly proud of. In fact, our net promoter score has never been below 96% since I've been here. So, you know, we're very, very proud of the service that we provide on claims.

Mark - If you had to distil down what Aviva Private Clients was in a couple of sentences, what would they be?

Ann - I think that I would say we are providing an extremely high level of coverage to our customers, an extremely high level of service, and we're going to be here for the long term.

Mark - Ann Owen, thank you.

Ann - Thank you.