Interview: Tigi Singhateh and Adrian Best, Invicta Insurance Services

Sevenoaks-based Invicta was set up in March 2010 by Steve Gamage and Paul Cosh, beginning with deals for Williams Insurance Services and then Lowe Insurance.

The original plan had been to focus on personal lines, but by 2014 it had pivoted to a commercial focus.

Cosh had sold out to ex-LV leader Phil Bunker in 2017, and after a handover to Singhateh – who joined in October 2022 – Gamage retired at the end of March 2023.

Adrian Best had joined a few months before Singhateh as operations director. Despite the potential at the £2.7m gross written premium broker, they found there was one considerable problem. From May 2023 onwards, the pair – along with Allianz’s LV and subsequently other insurers – uncovered fraudulent activity by employee Leon Price.

Jailed

Price, 45, of Playstool Road, Sittingbourne, Kent, was jailed last month. His crimes, for which he was sentenced to five years and three months, included misleading customers via methods such as falsifying documents, leaving individuals and businesses without cover, faking claims and pocketing over £133,000.

The investigation and subsequent trial was an exhaustive process which effectively meant the bosses had two jobs. As previously reported by Insurance Age, Singhateh has been clear where the focus lay: “The first year, even though as a business we had growth, the mindset was completely off that. What we wanted to do was safeguard the clients.”

Best agrees: “The way we went about it, the meetings with policyholders and various insurers, we actually came out of it more positive as a result … because we were taking action.

“The relationships we have with insurers now are so strong because of the trust they have put in us and how we have gone about it.”

Expansion

There was still financial growth during the legal proceedings. The broker, which specialises in commercial, agriculture, property owners, home, motor, equine, high net worth and has a small offering in travel, expanded to now stand at £5.7m GWP.

“The work we have put in is to make the business better,” Singhateh says. “The focus on the staff and renewal retention was high. We are now hitting 90-91%. We have also developed and grown the business from a number of different areas. Primarily commercial – SMEs, large businesses.

“Some really solid business that just needed a bit of love. We have managed to secure those and bring them into the fold.”

Double

The plan is to continue with the growth patterns over the last three years, doubling again to reach £10m over the next three to five years.

Invicta previously had a track record of striking deals and there has been one acquisition under the new management – Sittingbourne-based Copperwheat Barlow on 1 April 2023.

We are trying to buy businesses that involve themselves in what Kent is

Tigi Singhateh

If there is an opportunity to buy again it will, but there are no talks currently ongoing.

“Never say never,” Best comments. “But we would want to grow in things we know we are good at and strong on, using the relationships we have built.”

Singhateh adds: “We are trying to buy businesses that involve themselves in what Kent is,” listing agriculture, farming and equine as examples.

There could though be a new angle – marine.

“It could be anywhere [in the country],” he shares pointing out the skill set could be used more widely irrespective of location and there is plenty of opportunity to bring services to potential clients along the Dover coast.

Opportunity

When Best and Singhateh joined, they invested as minority shareholders, alongside Bunker and CEO of Acrisure’s AUK MGA Nigel Palmer who bought out Gamage.

Nobody has more than a 50% stake. Palmer and Bunker are “pretty much silent” shareholders, Singhateh notes, leaving the MD and ops director with the responsibility and authority to drive their own strategy forward.

Alongside a commercial manager, personal lines manager and equine manager, the growth and doubling to be delivered is most likely going to be organic.

The sweet spot for Invicta, which has clients all over the country, starts at £5,000 and goes up from there.

In Singhateh’s view, larger brokers and multinationals have taken their eyes off this ball and are not willing enough to “go out and see them anymore”.

“[It’s] not just us, there are lots of independent brokers out there taking the opportunity in that space,” he declares.

Service

The broker also has a plans for quote and buy systems online. It is already trialling what can be delivered in the travel insurance sector and could expand further.

All insurers from the smallest to the biggest now want to have a conversation with us

Tigi Singhateh

However, Best stresses there is an important caveat: “We are looking at other lines of business … but we are still conscious as a local broker that people want to talk and get the service that a broker gives.”

Invicta in late 2022 to early 2023 had a server which still used data tapes, compliance was lacking, and calls were not recorded.

Irrespective of the fraud, the business was going down the path of improvement, both leaders point out, with the necessary changes now having been made.

Agencies

One further example has been with insurer agencies.

“We had a lot of niche providers, we had over 50 agencies with only one policy,” Best recounts.

“What we wanted to do was build relationships with insurers that were supportive. The placement strategy was making sure the clients are getting the best products from the best suppliers, rather than being there because it was good five years ago.”

Support

The uplifts have been supported by the likes of Bravo Networks and Open GI, the broker leaders acknowledge.

With around one-third of the overall book being personal lines, the software house remains “very helpful”, Singhateh explains.

“Because we run commercial and personal lines, it is great, as it allows you to work with one system.” And the network has supported the focus on compliance and the access to insurers’ business development managers – “[Bravo] have helped us in terms of having conversations”.

Singhateh also picks up on Best’s point that the business has stronger insurer relationships in the wake of how it handled the situation with the fraudulent employee. He highlights that Hiscox became a partner this year and Ageas has also teamed up with Invicta.

“All insurers from the smallest to the biggest now want to have a conversation with us,” he says, putting the roster at the full range of A to Z.

Staff

Singhateh says that while insurer service declined during the pandemic it has been stronger in the past 12 months. Access to claims hubs – previously a “key pinchpoint” – has also helped, he says, so brokers can track progress. “That was always one of the frustrations in the broker market.”

Across the piece of Invicta’s in-house systems, insurer appetite and service, strategic direction and new client opportunities, it is all coming together, he argues, to bring growth without having increased headcount. The staff number of 14 people is identical to when the new management joined.

“We have a strong staff base and we can utilise and grow without increasing our staff numbers,” Singhateh predicts. However, with its only office just 30 minutes from London, there is always a challenge of finding staff, and he reveals that the business is considering starting an apprenticeship model too.

Careers

Best started in the industry in 1988 at Royal Insurance, working on accounts and the agency side for the best part of 10 years. He spent more than 20 years at The Civil Service Insurance Society working his way up to operations manager before taking the step into broking as part of the new team at Invicta.

The new team’s management style has been inclusive and transparent, he notes.

“We involve everyone in everything we do. It is always important to get the teams, whether they have been here a while or are new, to understand their part in our hope for the future of the business and what we want it to be.”

He hails Singhateh’s approach to making sure everyone feels valued. “What we took over was woeful in terms of morale, it was as low as you can get.

“We have both tried to put in place an environment where they want to come to work and enjoy working. Tigi is a positive, lively, transparent MD.”

Route

Singhateh’s route involved an initial eight weeks at Cornhill where his dad, originally from Gambia, had worked since the 1960s.

“What I couldn’t be is an underwriter,” he says of the short stint. “That doesn’t really float my boat. I like and understand risk but I also like clients. I like to be in front of them to understand their needs.”

The first real role then was at Towergate Riskline where he started with a Thomson Local computer disk of businesses’ addresses and phone numbers. His job was to call up and get insurance renewal dates so the broker could target them in due course.

Promotions followed and by October 2011 he had progressed to become head of sales at Keelan Westall, where the managing general agent had 1,300 broker relationships.

The MGA was bought by Gallagher in 2013, and after two more posts at AJG he wanted the chance to “grow something under my control”.

Style

It led to six years at NFU Mutual heading up the offering in Reading before coming back to broking with the key point again: “One of the things that excites me is growing a business.”

Reflecting on Best’s comments on his management style, Singhateh says he always tries to treat people correctly. Some will want to come on the journey and some won’t, but he aims to have clear messaging and involvement: “I try to be fair, [what] people lose in management is empathy.”

While neither of Invicta’s principals would have wished for the fraud case experience, both are certain if they could have their time again they would still have taken the plunge.

Confidence

Having achieved the feat of doubling during a period of tumult, it is understandable that there is confidence in delivering it again with more stable foundations laid.

“Myself and Adrian have grown the business with help from other people – we can’t sit here and say it was just us two,” Singhateh concludes.

“There is an element of direction in the business that we can double. We can look back and say ‘look where we have come from’. There is a satisfaction.”

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