An Interview with Jamie Nash

Today, leak detection services deliver valuable protection for thousands of policyholders and save the insurance industry millions. Jamie Nash, Managing Director of SOS Leak Detection, was one of the sector’s early pioneers, and here he talks about service innovation, career progression, and the ongoing evolution at SOS designed to bringing enhanced efficiency and sustainability to the UK insurance market.

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When we were first bringing leak detection to market, we were conscious that we were introducing not just a new service, but a new way of thinking. Essentially, we were educating the market about an entirely new concept that transformed the view of damage restoration to incorporate damage prevention and mitigation. As with any innovation, particularly one in a conservative market like insurance, there was a delay between initial launch and widespread adoption, but once that education piece started to take hold, we maximised our first-to-market proposition and witnessed an exponential growth in revenues, answering around 6,000 claims each year.

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At that time, leak detection was already established in Germany, serving the main insurance carriers, but it hadn’t been grasped as a concept in the UK. I was working at Munters, the globally recognised leader in climate solutions, and, having seen the opportunity, established the service together with SOS Leak Detection founder Nik Day. Leveraging the skills, experience and technologies the engineers in Munters Germany utilised, Nik and I set about building the market in the UK. It is fair to say that we not only educated insurers, but also established the skill base upon which the leak detection market burgeoned, with engineers gaining experience and leaving Munters to establish their own organisations.

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I originally joined Munters in 1991, having started life as an electrical mechanical engineer working in multinational OEMs. Back then, the Munters business in the UK was almost exclusively focused on providing temporary climate solutions for the marine, construction and pharma sectors, which enabled me to leverage my skills in engineering. Five years later, the business realised that the drying equipment and world-leading expertise in climate control could be deployed in fire- and water-damage settings, leading us to the dawn of a brave new world of damage restoration in the insurance sector. I quickly progressed in the business as the portfolio of insurance work grew, first as a depot manager and then area manager, before becoming Director of Leak Detection for the Polygon organisation (we rebranded from Munters in 2010).

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I was responsible for the performance of the business unit, incorporating our own back-office administration and claims handling as well as a dedicated team of engineers nationwide. We also established offers for facility managers and managed property companies with higher excesses as well as a B2C offer for policyholders who found that trace and access was not covered by their insurance policy. The insurance industry offer changed too, as we witnessed over time the inclusion of trace and access in many policies as first a point of differentiation and latterly as a point of expectation that led to customer retention. I do seem to remember at one point a large insurer was reporting that over 30% of its complaints received were because trace and access wasn’t included in the policy. Thankfully, today that exclusion is all but eradicated.

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I followed Nik and his co-founder Brad’s progress over the years since they established SOS Leak Detection. Indeed, they were a major competitor to Polygon and often a pain in the bum for me! SOS had done phenomenally well since its inception and the private equity owner, together with the board, had subsequently identified that the business would benefit from the addition of someone with the technical expertise, operational knowledge, financial control and large corporate experience to continue that trajectory of growth. And so, in March 2022, after 30 odd years at Polygon, I took an educated leap of faith and joined SOS Leak Detection as MD.

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The agility and flexibility of the operation was a real bonus for me. It felt like decisions could be reached and implemented within hours rather months – and, as we all know, agility is key to success in a technical services business answering to insurers. It was an exciting rather than daunting prospect to move the business on again in terms of its technical acumen, customer service and financial performance.

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It is now largely a case of evolution rather than revolution for SOS. We are particularly proud that we have improved our SLA performance on response times to the point where 96% of customer visits are conducted within two days of FNOL. We have developed our softer skills too, and the Trustpilot reviews we are receiving are testament to the work the whole team has done in terms of improving the emotional intelligence of our service as much as our technical capabilities. Seeing that feedback is of course a huge motivator for the engineers and back office. Our investment in people skills has created a true point of differentiation as we see the customer as much as we see the damage – we are responding and reassuring as much as we are restoring. Given the skills required to serve the insurance industry are very much similar to those required by facility managers and managed property companies, we see this as a clear growth area for us, while we continue to grow our market share within the insurance sector.

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Within insurance, for me, it’s about joining the dots for claims handlers. The process remains very fragmented with potentially multiple contractors for the insurer to manage and for the policyholder to accommodate on site. A key trial we are undertaking with some major insurers right now is how we can streamline the process by adding drying to our portfolio of services. This will reduce policyholder interruption, reduce cycle time, mitigate cost and improve sustainability by minimising the number of suppliers to be managed. And it’s all in the interests of an important KPI for insurers – customer retention.

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For the commercial sector, the opportunity is to develop prevention services such as plumbing surveys and maintenance to mitigate against damage from ever happening. Not only does this address the obvious challenges around disruption, it also directly impacts on sustainability by reducing the amount of water lost in the first place.

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For me personally, the motivation is to leave the business in great shape. I want to create a legacy of excellence that will continue to shape the leak detection industry that I am so proud to have been at the inception of.