“Brokers who know their clients have nothing to fear”

This month, the Society of Insurance Broking (SIB) released findings from a survey they’d done into the future of broking in the UK.
The headline figures from the survey, which interviewed 341 brokers, centred on the relationship between the brokers and their clients.
Here are some of the top statistics:

• 94% agreed that knowing your customer is more important than ever
• 99% said it is important that customers know they can trust their brokers
• 88% are of the view that having a good trust-based relationship with clients is crucial

Perhaps the most alarming part of these statistics is that there are 6% who don’t think it’s important to know their customer, and 12% don’t think it’s important that the customer trusts them!

A fascinating insight into the minds of some brokers.

SIB non-executive director, Liz Foster, said of the findings, ‘it is clear how much emphasis the broking profession places on the human element in the insurance process. Insurance is fundamentally about people’.

And that’s a thought process which we’ve always agreed with.

It seems like in every insurance magazine we read nowadays, the whole world is talking about insurtech and how to use data to automate more processes.

And that’s definitely important. In fact, we’re always looking for ways to make the process of sorting insurance more convenient for our customers.

But technology and data can only ever be successful when they go hand in hand with good old fashioned human qualities such as the aforementioned trust, dedication and ingenuity.

A tailored approach to insurance

When we start a dialogue with new clients, we’re often asked questions like ‘how often will you visit our site’ or ‘what is the process for updating my policy’.

And we always give the same answers, but they’re probably not the one you’d expect.

Our answers are always along the lines of ‘what suits you and your business best’. Because that’s the way insurance should work.

There are certain aspects of insurance that have to be regimented. Your compliance conditions for instance, are set in stone. As is the data we require, and how we store it.

But the majority of insurance can be completely tailored to each and every customer. There’s no need to do things in a certain way just because that’s how they’ve always been done.

If you took a snapshot of Romero customers, you’d struggle to find any two that have the exact same relationship with us. For example, some customers prefer us to have a very hands on approach and offer them advice on a regular basis. Others would prefer us to maintain more of an overview, with scheduled catch ups on a quarterly or bi-annual basis.

There’s no blanket right or wrong answer. But there is a right or wrong answer for each individual customer.

As a business, we maintain a fantastic retention rate with some clients staying with us for 20+ years. That’s because we understand how their business works.

A quick survey of the staff at Romero showed that 100% of our team thought that trust and understanding the customer were in top 5 most important aspects of being a successful broker.

It’s what drives us in everything we do.

Our MD Simon Mabb, said this about that philosophy:

There is a clear gap in the market for a broker like Romero to fill with a tailored proposition that has the customer at the heart of it. The deeper you know a customer and their business the more added value you can give them. If the worst happens I’d want to know that that broker was going to get my claim paid. The moment you forgot that is the moment your clients forget you. Getting claims paid for clients is the beginning and the end when all said and done.

Want I’m really excited about is that team around me share this same vision of putting the customer at the heart of everything we do.