Mid-Market insurance

Jon Craker: Brokers are really important to us here at Aviva. We really appreciate brokers because they give us access to a much broader range of customers.

In our region for Leeds and Newcastle, we look after brokers everywhere from Nottingham, Sheffield, obviously Leeds, up to Newcastle incorporating the likes of Stockton, Durham, Sunderland, and the knowledge that they have of their clients really helps us work together, bringing the best of Aviva in terms of our claims, relationship management, Aviva risk management and our underwriting colleagues to work together to tailor our proposition.

Kate Bootham: The regional structure that we have at Aviva allows all of our broker development managers to be able to go in and see our customers, be visible in their local market.

Sam Smith: As a broker development manager, I'm the face of Aviva for my broker panel. So for any queries, questions, opportunities, they've got one central point of contact that I can then feed into the wider team, so be it a digital case, a mid-market case, specialty case, or claims issue - I'm that central facilitator for their engagement into Aviva.

Kate Bootham: From a more senior perspective, I'm able to support the team regionally to be able to take on any of those challenges that our brokers might have within the region and ensure that they get a good response and a commercial decision if required.

Mitchell Broadhurst: So something really special about having a regional claims relationship lead is being able to get out and visit clients and visit brokers. By knowing our brokers and clients, it makes it easier to support their claims journey and provide valuable claims insight. And at the end of the day, we're here to focus on being able to protect the customer's premiums and create the best customer claim outcomes that we can.

Laura Halliday: I do find that brokers and clients are really benefiting from our increased authority levels within the regions.

Billy Mole: It's certainly empowering, you know, I don't have to go to head office. I can speak to somebody in the region, I can discuss the risk, and we can move quite quickly and dynamically depending on what we need to do with that particular risk.

Laura Halliday: Absolutely, I think when we've got that underwriting authority there, and it's amongst our underwriters, we can make those quick decisions we're experienced as a team, which makes the process so much quicker and smoother for everybody.

Simon Hemingway: The fundamental achievement for a risk consultant is to educate the clients and try to point out areas where they can improve and to ultimately reduce risk. We've now got much more capability out on site when we are visiting clients. Examples -  drones, using thermal cameras, using iPads to do building evaluations. We are able to give a lot better advice face to face, and all in all, this helps the customers.

Bernie Swaby: As a client relationship manager, I want it to feel like a partnership at Aviva for our brokers. We want to redefine the insurance experience for our clients, understand what's keeping the client up at night, what their next 5 year plans are, and really tailor a solution. We want to make sure they've got the right protection for today and the future.

Jon Craker: People are the heart of our business. We really have a strong team in Leeds and Newcastle with a real breadth of knowledge and expertise, and I think getting the right people that are playing to their strengths that are really motivated to provide the best levels of service for our brokers and mutual clients really does set us apart.

Wendy Travers: The Midlands runs from Stoke all the way down to Milton Keynes and then we track right across to Cambridge and then come back over to Gloucester. So we really do sit firmly nicely in the middle of the country.

Brokers are so significant to this region because they're the conduit between our clients and ourselves. So they ensure that the clients are making their way to the best insurers that can deliver the best insurance solutions for them. That's why we have so many great partnerships in this region.

Ben Jordan: Every underwriter's empowered to be a decision maker, they've got the knowledge to assess every risk on its merit. Having a local decision maker and someone that's close, knows the area, it allows our customers to get a quick decision, an immediate response and trust the decision that is coming over to them.

Dean Henningham: I believe that we're part of that broker's team, albeit virtually. We're part of their business planning, we're part of their solutions, and I think by listening and understanding what journey they're going on in the short term and in the long term, we help brokers realise growth opportunities for their business. We like to watch them succeed - when they succeed, we succeed, which is a great outcome.

Grace Wellings: To me, our relationship with our brokers is all founded on very clear, honest communication.

Jade Best: It's important to us because they trust us to do the right thing for the customer, so without that trust, we wouldn't really have a good relationship with brokers or customers.

Grace Wellings: Yeah, and it's a mutual respect between the two. It's a mutual understanding of how they work, how we work, and how we can best work together to get the right goals for our customers.

Lucy Casswell: I love working directly with our brokers and clients because they are both our end customers. I love hearing all about their businesses, what's important to them, what's gonna make a difference and how the three of us can work together on achieving their 5-year plan. It's fundamental for client relationship management to feel like a partnership. We want our brokers and clients to know that we know them and that we care and that we are delivering the very best that we can for them.

Vicky Casey: Brokers really enjoy coming out on surveys. They always find it quite a valuable experience and they know that we're on hand if we need to give them any further support with risk management, so that's what we are there for, is we're not there to criticise, we're there to support them. It is about making sure they get the message as to why we're doing it. I don't want my customers to learn the hard way. I want them to find the best practices to work with and be successful.

Lucy Casswell: There's a vast amount of knowledge within our business and some real experts. So whatever our customer's query is, there's someone that's gonna know the answer. Whether that's ESG, risk management support or a learning opportunity, we can help.

Shelley Hussain: So Aviva is committed to delivering our claim service excellence tailored to our brokers' needs. Having a regional claims service manager, they get a personalised service. This means that we put our clients and brokers at the heart of everything that we do, so brokers can expect a transparent and supportive claims process with access to experts wherever needed.

Wendy Travers: It's important to me that brokers have full access to the technical expertise and the way that we can collaborate, the way that we can pull all of our people together to deliver the best solutions for them. We are proud to be Aviva Midlands.

Lee Grainger: The real power of Aviva is the fact that geographically we've got some really strong presence around the region. We operate across Devon, Cornwall, the West, in and around Bristol, in Wales. We've got an underwriting team on the doorstep of all of our brokers, and it also means we're on the doorstep of a lot of the businesses that we insure. We also offer a bespoke claim service, our risk management team, which is fully in-house, and the client relationship managers piecing together something that's really robust for the customer and utilises the best parts of the Aviva product.

Claire Marsh: It's living in the area, you're able to go out and see the customers and understand their business, understand the risk, which makes it easier to underwrite, and from a customer point of view, we can give them the cover that they need.

Lee Grainger: It's really important that we support our brokers to allow them to continue to see as many clients as possible. We can deliver some strong customer outcomes.

Claire Marsh: Having a strong relationship with a broker makes a huge difference when you're trading. They know that they can approach you and that you will deliver on what they need.

Greg Donald: I'm a big believer in making life easy for the broker, and what I mean by that is do the basics and do them really well. If we can manage the process from start to finish, they're happy, the clients are happy and we're also happy. Where I think we add value most is understanding the broker's business. I think that's absolutely critical. If we can understand their business and what they want from it, we can then align the right experts and the right people to support them and their customers.

Mark Biss: So having a claims service manager based in the region gives the brokers a dedicated point of contact, means I can build relationships with those brokers and talk to them about any claims needs they have, making sure they're aware of changes and new technology that are going on with Aviva, as well as looking at MI and changes and tweaks that they could possibly make to how claims are reported, speed of reporting to benefit their clients, and to ultimately try and keep the claims cost down.

Rebecca Saunders: So as a risk manager, my role is to support customers through their risk management procedures to help to mitigate any circumstances that may come about. They've probably got already some very good risk management procedures already in place, but sometimes they need an extra hand, so our approach is, OK, what's the issue? What have we got that we can help them with and what solutions can be put into place? It's very much bespoke. So, I mean, we can cover things like cyber, renewables, fleet, liability, your property, your security. There's many areas that we're developing and growing into. We're able to offer a good mix of solutions.

James Preston: What I love most about my role is I really feel as though I make a true impact on our day to day customers. I have the opportunity to work closely with a lot of our clients on a 1 to 1 basis and in partnership with our brokers. We wanna be known more as a partner to that client that can offer far more value than just insurance premium and claims paid. We want to be known as a partner that delivers a unique and tailored proposition that is very much in line with their values or their business values.

Claire Marsh: Our appetite in our region is probably the widest I think it's ever been in the 25 years that I've worked for Aviva. We are able to write risks that we've never been able to write before. As a team and as a region, we're empowered and to make our own underwriting decisions. We're easy to deal with, we're close, we're visible, you know, we can come and visit the brokers as and when they need us to.

Greg Donald: As you know, without customers, we haven't got a business, right? So for me, it's all around the customer, what we can do for the customer, how we identify their needs, their wants, but that also cuts across the broker as well. So we got the broker as the customer, we got the end customer. And so one of the beauties of your role really is to fully embrace and understand those clients' needs.

James Preston: Absolutely, I think we're in a very privileged position that we are focused on delivering the best outcomes for our customers, so ensuring that we understand what truly keeps the client up at night, what they're concerned about and what they're worried about, gives us the opportunity to align the right resource in the right time. So say for instance we have a claim, the client understands that we are gonna react in the right way, we're gonna help them, we're gonna wrap our arms around them, we're gonna take them through that difficult time as a collective and support them through that challenging situation to deliver the right outcome.

Greg Donald: I think that's hugely important, having that peace of mind, you know, that if something does go wrong, that, you know, it will get done, but also the relationship that you've built up over those months and years that they know who to turn to in their hour of need.

James Preston: Absolutely, being accountable and having the right team aligned and making sure that both broker and client knows who's the dedicated points of contact for that customer is paramount.

Greta Tripon: As an apprentice, Aviva allows me to constantly grow within my job role. I mean there's always doors open, opportunities open, knowledge and skills to be learned from the job. Regardless of the fact I'm an apprentice, I'm still doing an underwriting job. I've had a lot of broker meetings, so I've met a lot of my brokers, and having that personal relationship with them is quite key.

Claire Marsh: Our priority is to get out and meet as many brokers as we possibly can to build those relationships, find out what they are about, so that we can try and work to build business with them.

Lee Grainger: We want this to be a long-term relationship, and we want to be really consistent in terms of our underwriting and our discipline. You can confidently place a piece of business with us, knowing that you're not gonna get a different response for us in 12 months' time and make your life hard. And what I always say to our brokers is it's there for you to use. If you don't use it, someone else will, and if you're going after a big piece of business and you want us to work with you, we'll come in and we'll support you with that. Our proposition, we can make it as good as we want to make it, but it's very much, it's up to the brokers to lean on that and use that in a planned strategic way. Talk to us about this in advance, give us the opportunity to allow our proposition to deliver you a new customer of size and scale.