Allianz broking pilot targets £1m in additional revenue

Allianz Cornhill's broker development manager, Lloyd Hanks has set a target of writing £1m new business through the brokers taking part in its provincial broker distribution strategy pilot.

The insurer has selected a group of 400 brokers in the Maidstone area not being managed by the insurer's sales force and divided them equally into a 'managed' group and a 'controlled' group. Mr Hanks said Allianz Cornhill staff in Maidstone call centre would "strongly manage" the managed group to "to find out everything about them, what markets they use etc, so ultimately we can sell our products to them and unlock the potential of these smaller brokers."

Nav Sanga, one of two business development managers in the pilot call centre, will be looking after 100 brokers. He said: "I will be contacting brokers non stop to find out what they actually want and need and then monitoring the statistics on a weekly basis."

Mr Hanks said the insurer would assess the success of the pilot in month three and four in terms of growth in quotations, activity and business written compared to that achieved by the controlled group of brokers, who will not be actively contacted.

"I'll be disappointed if we do not write £1m new business in that period. But the critical thing is understanding small-medium sized brokers and how they want to trade with us and why they haven't been using Allianz Cornhill."

Call centres will be rolled out nationwide over 12 months if the pilot proves a success. However, Mr Hanks said the insurer would take a cautious approach, taking into account the differences between the regions and holding a series of roadshows with brokers.