20th October 2022

How do you ‘nail’ the Underwriting / Broker relationship?

In our last blog we spoke about Culture, what you celebrate and what you tolerate. Have a read in detail here.

In insurance, the Broker / Client relationship with Underwriters appears very simple. Yet, each line of business has its own personality; for example Marine may behave differently to Aerospace. There are many causes for this. Different key personalities, different time horizons for the business being done. Maybe, people have worked together for a long time across different markets or there was a recent M&A uniting companies that used to compete.

With our background in brand and service design we think about the experience layer the customer or client interacts with. How are we delivering our service? What are the touch points? What data supports how we behave? What does the Client / Broker actually value?

Personality fit

The Broker audience in some ways is no different to any other, it’s made up of a variety of individual personalities behaving differently. Like in any family or group, the combination of those people and the conditions of their interactions can shape a variety of different behaviours.

Essentially, truly understanding the Broker experience is vital. We break this experience up into three areas:

• Observed behaviours

• Accepted truths

• What’s unique about this group?

What are their observed behaviours?

People don’t behave as per their job description or how they ‘should’. What do they actually do in reality? We consider the following:

• Context
  Where is the interaction happening, i.e. timing, place, country ?

• Cadence
  What is the frequency of the interaction, days, weeks, months, years?

• Characteristics
  What is unique about them?
  What are they dealing with? - Renewals; hard or soft market?

The accepted truths?

Ask anyone about a job role they will say that sales people are organised and tenacious, data people are fastidious and work solo, prepared to be proven wrong; brokers are polyamorous, dealing with lots of people, so one needs to consider that brokers:

• Are time pressured

• Have targets

• Rely on relationships, they are at the heart of how they do business

• All product offerings being equal, may be influenced by subjective factors, for example:

  • Who makes their lives easier?

  • Who is a better fit for their client?

  • Who do I need ‘to keep sweet’

  • Seemingly superficial things like:

    • who does the best sausage rolls!

    • do I always sit by the window

What is different about the particular broker audience in question?

Stereotypes exist for a reason but are a dangerous, arrogant shortcut to understanding, so one needs to consider:

• What is the lead time for doing a deal, hours? weeks? months?

• What is the size of the business?

• What is our relationship on the Claims side, what’s our reputation?

Understanding Brokers’ needs and catering for them, getting into their world is vitally important. Your business, your culture, your people and your brand create a unique combination.

You have to find out why you matter to these different groups, what they need from you and how your unique offering will help them achieve their objectives.

When this is catered for, one can put all their energy into differentiating on experience.