Leadership Insights: Michael Yabantu on new propositions and future priorities

Mark: Michael Yabantu is Managing Director of Aviva Mid Market. He joins me now. Michael, when we spoke last summer, it's about August 2024. I asked you what you had on your to-do list, and you said, well, we're rolling out a multinational proposition, general product refresh, and you were looking to build up capability in public sector and construction. Are those still on the to-do list, or are they on the done list?

Michael: Yeah, thanks, Mark. It's been a really exciting and busy period for us at Aviva, and we've really looked to continue to expand our appetite, improve our service, and ultimately deliver better outcomes for our customers. So some of the things that we spoke about last time and that we've delivered, we have launched a new multinational proposition to support SME and mid-market customers. We've integrated our client relationship manager team into the regions and branches, so providing end-to-end support for our larger, more complex customers. From a technology perspective, we've launched a market first, a new business dashboard, so brokers in real time can start to access their new business inquiries with us and see who's got it, where it's up to, and what stage it's at. And in addition to that, we've also created automatic upload functionality. So for motor inquiries, they're uploaded, they're ingested, and served back to our underwriters in minutes, for then decision support or certainly trading conversations. And then in addition to that, from a people perspective, we focused on investing in our people, we've increased our technical authority across the UK, so over 500 license increases, really making sure that our brokers and customers have got access to decision makers, and we've completed an excess of 1,000 hours of volunteering, which is really important for us, supporting local businesses, local brokers, and local charities, which we know are the heartbeat of the community. So lots completed, lots still to do.

Mark: And any other developments in the last six months or so?

Michael: Yeah, it's been a continuation, really, this year, Mark, in investing in the business and really committed to being more visible, more responsive, and executing on the outcomes that our customers need. It's been a strong start to the year from a trading perspective, but outside of trading, some of the other things that we've delivered so far this year, we have launched a new public sector proposition, really focusing on areas like education, social housing, NHS trusts and councils, so expanding our appetite. We're also continuing the expansion of our regional footprint, so with the latest announcement that we'll be opening in Cardiff in May, so hugely excited about that, really important market for us, and again, allowing us to be closer to our brokers and customers, and we'll continue to develop out some of those technology advancements that are referenced earlier, but outside of that, we've really focused, certainly this year, on the core delivery of our day-to-day service, and we can see that coming through in a number of areas, so 90% of our new business inquiries are logged within 30 minutes, in excess of 80% of our renewals going out of the door, at least 28 days in advance of renewal, and even for our midterm adjustments, 70% of those being completed on the same day, so really, really important, and then later in the year, we will look to refresh some of our existing products as well, which we committed to doing in our last interview.

Mark: How do you manage this growth and this expansion that you've touched on, but at the same time, ensuring it's sustainable? You're not dropping the ball on the basis?

Michael: No, and look, I think that one of the benefits of being in the organisation is we've got a huge amount of capability, and I think our start point would always be harnessing the benefit and power of one Aviva leaning on the capability that we have internally, so if I think about multinational, we worked really closely with our global corporate colleagues, where we're writing that business already, supporting larger global customers to help build out our proposition. If I think about our digital and technology expansion, we worked with our SME business and our claims business, who've developed functionality in that space, again, collaborating, making sure we take the learnings and then we can deploy those things as effectively as we can. And if ultimately we don't think we have the capability or we need additional capability, then we will look to recruit and bring that in to complement the skillset that we have.

Mark: Since we last spoke, there's a new president in the United States, there's quite a lot of macroeconomic uncertainty, I think it's fair to say. How are you finding that those macroeconomic trends are affecting your clients and the insurance industry more generally?

Michael: Yeah, look, I think we continue to see challenges on a number of fronts. Inflation and supply chain disruption is still very much real and active and playing a part for insurers, brokers and customers. The economic environment is really challenging for customers and businesses, particularly having to absorb the costs of increased costs of national insurance and minimum wages increasing. We also see data and technology and how businesses stay relevant in the market places that they operate in and blend in where it's relevant, digital and increasing the use of technology in a variety of different ways. Sustainability and businesses focused on how they become net zero and the desire to become net zero. And kind of a new and emerging trend is really around wellbeing for both business leaders and also employees and really making sure they've got access to the right level of support. And I think from our perspective, it's really important we work with our brokers and customers, understand the challenges that are relevant to them in the geographies that they're in and provide solutions, whether that's advice, guidance, support, or make sure the insurance programme responds to the needs and requirements.

Mark: You've mentioned tech and data a number of times and also wellbeing just now. In this increasingly digital world, what's ultimately more important? Is it the technology or the people?

Michael: It's completely both and I think that's certainly the way we think about it in the regions. We need better data, gives more accuracy, more accuracy gives more stability, which is really important. We need technology to improve how we harness the data and deliver that to the underwriters in the most efficient way. But at the same time, we are investing and we'll continue to invest in upskilling our underwriters and our teams from a technical and trading perspective. So ultimately, they've got the best capability to be able to utilise the data and deliver better outcomes for our customers.

Mark: There's clearly a huge amount that you're committed to doing. How do you prioritise it?

Michael: Prioritisation for us is purely based on broker feedback and over the next few weeks and months, we'll be spending plenty of time out in the marketplace. So we'd love to hear from our brokers around the things that they want us to focus on and prioritise, whether that's products, proposition or service.

Mark: Michael Yabantu, thank you. Thank you.