Following its recent win as Personal Lines Broker of the Year at the 2023 British Insurance Awards, Co-op Insurance handling director Charles Offord exposes his ideas on what made it stand apart.
One of the important things that impressed the BIA judges was the change Co-op Insurance has actually gone through without interruption to clients and staff following the acquisition by Markerstudy. How did you do it?
It’s been an excellent synergy in between Co-op coworkers and our insurance provider partners.
From an associate point of view we’ve worked extremely difficult to build engagement levels, which has actually been a foundation in our success. Colleague engagement is an outright top priority for our executive group and all individuals supervisors throughout the business. We’re unrelenting in regards to open, truthful and two-way interaction and having the ability to show constant coworker advancement is a vital procedure for us. We think with an enthusiasm that excellent coworker engagement is essential to turn our technique into action.
From a consumer point of view, we’ve handled to ‘change the engine with the car still running’. Our car and home clients have actually been moved onto brand-new and modern items and systems, and our family pet, travel and life items have actually all been changed to benefit members and clients. We couldn’t have actually accomplished this without deep co-operation with our professional insurance provider partners, who now handle the majority of the client journey on our behalf.
How have you handled to produce worth for the Co-op Members and clients throughout this duration of change?
As a Co-op we’re owned by our members. Creating worth for members is at the heart of what we do and it’s why we’re here.
We’ve bought updating our entire item suite, so we now have an excellent core proposal for members and clients. Also, if you’re a Co-op member you get special discount rates on your insurance coverage. These are produced in collaboration with our insurance providers based upon special risk-predictive Co-op retail and member information. In difficult times like we’re in today, it’s much more crucial that our members can get additional worth and lots through Co-op Insurance.
Of course, it’s not everything about cost and monetary worth. We just deal with partners who can regularly provide good client service and excellent client results in those defining moments of reality.
How has the Co-op Insurance culture progressed throughout this time, and how has this benefitted staff?
Our Co-op insurance coverage culture is now far more inclusive, open and varied. In our brand-new operating design, in which our partners handle much of the worth chain, we’re rather a little group of less than 40 coworkers. This has actually certainly assisted us concentrate on developing a culture in which every coworker has a voice, feels listened to and can be themselves. We’ve handled to keep that ‘small company agile feeling’, in spite of becoming part of a much broader group.
Colleagues have actually benefitted in regards to their expert and profession advancement. If you operate in an open culture that’s likewise high obstacle and high assistance, there are constantly excellent knowing opportunities. The good news is that our coworkers have well and really comprehended the chance.
We are developing a culture in which every coworker has a voice, feels listened to and can be themselves.
Charles Offord
The Co-op quite has the ‘community’ at heart, how have you provided for these neighborhoods over the previous 12–18 months?
Putting something back into our members’ neighborhoods is truly crucial to us.
As an example, our car insurance coverage deal for Members provided a growth to the communit
y refrigerator network throughout the UK through the Co-op’s collaboration with ecological charity Hubbub, offering more sustainable and dignified neighborhood food options.
Our insurance coverage has actually raised money for Mind, SAMH and Inspire, which has actually seen the Co-op jointly raise £8m and to date has actually assisted 22,000 individuals to gain access to psychological wellness assistance.
As well as our neighborhood work, we understand how crucial it is at these hard times to help those around you. We ran a particular campaign in the 2nd half of in 2015 for our Members where we put £50 on our members’ card to invest in groceries in their regional Co-op store when they purchased or renewed their car insurance coverage with the Co-op.
Partnerships were likewise essential to your success, and assisted add to this award, could you broaden on what you have done here?
In our brand-new operating design partners are essential to our success. It’s crucial to us that partners take pleasure in dealing with the Co-op group and take pleasure in representing the Co-op brand name when handling our members and clients. Co-operation is certainly an essential worth for us at Co-op and we’re at our finest when we deal with partners who share our approach.
We’ve made some collaboration modifications to get where we require to be for our Members, however we’re now well established for the future. We’re grateful for and value the groups at the Markerstudy Group, Amazon, All Clear, Royal London, Legal & General, SRIS and Axa.
What strategies do you have for the future to continue to build on this BIA success as personal lines broker of the year?
We’re everything about providing worth for our members, which is our North Star and won’t alter. Our co-operative business design implies we don’t need to concentrate on providing monetary worth to investors.
This offers us a unique chance, despite the fact that we understand it’s an incredibly competitive market out there. So, we won’t be resting on our laurels and our development strategies are substantial. It’s going to be a a lot more interesting journey ahead for our clients, coworkers and partners.
