Leadership Insights: Rebecca Gambrell on Digital Expansion and Broker Engagement

Mark Colegate: Rebecca Gambrell is Managing Director, SME and delegated authorities for Aviva UK Commercial. She joins me now. Rebecca, what have you been doing to build out the team in recent months?

Rebecca Gambrell: Thanks Mark. We've really been focused on our service at operating model at Aviva, particularly in the digital space. We recognise it's really important for our brokers to have those touch points with our underwriters and to be able to have conversations about risk and trade with us. So particularly in the commercial combined space, we've built out a new hybrid team with some of our most senior underwriters there, ready to trade and to have those conversations with our brokers. We've got a big ambition to place more complex CCI risks and larger risks online and we know that our brokers do too. So we're really setting ourselves up to be able to have those conversations, to give our brokers confidence that they can place those risks with us, but also to give them an accessibility. Across all of our trading teams as well for SME, we've got a senior underwriter intake, that are on the floor, they're visible to all of our underwriters so that they can help support those more complex conversations and make quicker decisions for our brokers to enable them to place the business with us.

Mark: Can you talk through in a little bit more detail how building out that team has an impact on the overall business offering?

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. So I think one thing that I've mentioned is around the trading aspect and being able to speak to our underwriters and have that access. I think the other elements are around product enhancements and the product suites that we're offering. So we've made a number of upgrades to our platforms recently which enable us to build more flexible products, particularly in that commercial combined space and the next drop of that will be around our all risks cover. And then secondly around our product suites, so what we've spoken to our brokers a number of times about what gaps that they see in the market for their customers and what they'd like to be able to trade digitally from a product perspective. So we'll be launching some new products in 2025 and 2026. And a really good example of that is contractors combined.

Mark: And what are some of the really big trends you're seeing in the wider market that you think are gonna have a big impact on broker business and your relationship with brokers?

Rebecca: Yeah, I think there's a few things and I think not to touch on the dreaded buzzword but automation and artificial intelligence is really taking the market on at the moment. And I think Aviva, we're looking at how we can cultivate that and use that to our advantage. And this is not about replacing roles or replacing underwriters, but actually how do we really equip our teams with the right information at the right time at their fingertips so that they can have the right conversations with our brokers, so that they can trade with them in a more effective way. So it's about enhancing what our underwriters have access to so that they can then be empowered to have those conversations and trade with our brokers in the way that they want us to.

Mark: Well, you mentioned conversations. How can brokers engage more closely with you and the team?

Rebecca: Yep, absolutely. We're absolutely accessible and we're really focused on being accessible to our brokers. So phone us up, speak to your local underwriters, speak to your local distribution relationship leads, but also there's a number of surveys out there that our brokers can use to really give pointed feedback. And we're also at BIBA again in May this year. So please make an appointment, come and see us, come and see us on the stand. We're really keen to have those conversations and our teams love doing it.

Mark: We have to do it there, Rebecca Gambrell, thank you.

Rebecca: Thank you.