Insurance Age Briefing
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Shake-up at RSA
Whether you are giving out presents at Christmas or allocating rooms in a holiday home on vacation criticism of favouritism always stings.
“There gift is bigger than mine!”.
“Why do they get the en-suite?”.
Sometimes you're damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
So put yourself in the shoes of RSA CEO Ken Norgrove who in integrating RSA and NIG has had to put together a new commercial management team.
Staring at the top commercial managing director and managing director of NIG Sonya Bryson has been given the top job with incumbent Lee Mooney moving to pastures new.
Norgrove then had five more roles to fill, and being an equitable soul he has filled these with three current RSA staffers [Tovah Grosscurth, Rob Flynn and Steve Hedge] and two more from NIG [Steve Scott and David Enoch] giving an equal 3:3 split on paper.
Of course some might argue that Bryson’s role, being the biggest actually might mean it is more of a 4:3 split when weighted; and the fact RSA was the bigger business and the acquirer NIG has certainly come out on top when all things are considered.
For what it matters I have written a comment on what the new RSA commercial team means for UK brokers and concluded that the team could be best summed up as one half NIG, one quarter MoreThan and one quarter old school RSA commercial. A winning mix? Time will tell.
Interviews
Last month we caught up with Ardonagh leader Phil Bayles to get the lowdown on Bravo Networks’ new Digital Trader which he hailed an “unbelievable asset”.
Age also spoke to Zurich head of SME Will Edwards about how the insurer is seeking to improve its referral process and continue to invest in underwriters as part of its drive for double-digit new business growth across the SME space; while Kelly Ogley, CEO of Howden Consumer and Local Commercial, outlined the firm’s growth strategy and urged women to back themselves.?
After moving into the UK with the purchase of Lexham, Marc-André Dupont, head of the P&C division for the April Group told Insurance Age that it planned to be a leader in each country it was present in - but only in one or two niches, and not to be a generalist.
Meanwhile Andrew Jenkins, commercial account executive at PG Insurance - who came fourth in BBC’s The Traitors series two in front of a peak audience of 6.9m people.- told Insurance Age he found it very difficult to lie when he reluctantly became a traitor at the beginning of episode eight.?
Long reads
Age offered up a number of longer analytical articles last month, notably asking:
We also looked at how employee-ownership might work for insurance brokers.
Exclusives
Insurance Age revealed Axa will stop underwriting motorbike insurance from March.
We also broke the news Markerstudy plans to withdraw from the short-term motor insurance market. And that it is also still undecided about how it will re-enter the Northern Ireland market, having put this business on hold while it considers its options.
Finally...
We will all be watching what happens next with Ageas and Direct Line Group after the Belgium insurance group confirmed a possible offer for DLG valuing the business at ￡3.1bn. The Belgium-headquartered insurer stated it was “in the preliminary stages of considering a possible offer”.
Maybe if it happens they’ll have to seek out Norgrove for tips on keeping both sides sweet during integration.
Content director, Insurance Age