Broking success: New lease of life

▶ What did you do before joining KTIB Insurance Brokers?

I’m in my 35th year now in insurance, for my sins, I’ve never done anything else. I left school and joined Chambers and Newman in the West End of London.

My last job was with a part-owned company, MD Insurance Services, but the brand was Premier Guarantee. We were an underwriting agency, specialising in latent defect insurance so housing warranties, commercial warranties – a quite specialist field really. I was there for about seven years. When I joined there were probably half a dozen people and when I sold up it was more like 150 people, so it was pretty successful. The only problem was that it’s based on the Wirral and I live on the Norfolk Broads, so in terms of practicalities, getting to work was difficult.

I sold my shares [in early 2010], looked at the map, drew a big circle and decided I didn’t want to commute very far. From memory there was nothing up for sale at that time, but I met with John Knowlden [KTIB director] and we just hit it off. It’s a bit of a cliche but we are like-minded individuals and we struck a deal [for a 100% buyout]. I haven’t really looked back to be perfectly honest.

▶ What has since happened to company directors John Knowlden and Jon Titlow?

They’re both directors still and actively working at the business, I think Jon Titlow’s plans are, over a period of time, to ease back a little. He’s got other interests. John Knowlden – I call them JK and JT – has had a new lease of life. They probably felt they had taken the business as far as they could or wanted to at that point and perhaps it needed someone else to come in, fresh ideas, and I guess stir things up a little bit.

▶ What were your aims for the business when you bought it?

It’s fairly clear to me that the insurance industry over the last 35 years has not evolved anywhere near as quickly as some other industries. It’s not true of all brokers, but if you look at the products they’re selling and the way they’re delivering them as an industry, it’s pretty much the same as it’s always been. There’s really not been a huge amount of change.

One area where brokers are not great, if they’ll forgive me for saying that, is marketing. Some are, most are not. My background has been to drive and build the business and marketing has been an integral part of that. If you try and put yourself in a client’s shoes, and they get half a dozen mailings, half a dozen phone calls, it’s incredibly difficult for that client to differentiate one broker from another.

We’ve decided to drill down into specific sectors and segments to build what we term compelling propositions. We want to deliver them differently to other brokers. We consider ourselves to be more a hybrid of brokers. What I mean is that we don’t sit comfortably alongside some of the other regional insurance broking operations. Of course, we have to place business, transact business, collect premiums and pay claims, etc, [but] I think we’re probably closer aligned to the national, delivering it on a local level.

▶ Can you give an example by line of business?

Large fleet is a very important element of our business – most brokers in the country can place a fleet risk without too many difficulties. There’s plenty of market out there but actually, for us, it’s about how we risk-manage and claims-manage that fleet. It could be a telematics solution, it could be reducing vehicle downtime… basically working with a client to improve their overall claims experience and eventually their premiums.

▶ Have you focused on providing a more rounded service?

I see it very much that way. In fact we’ve been playing around with some ideas – we may even go to the lengths of rebranding ourselves. We will remain KTIB but I think we’re looking at corporate risk solutions rather than insurance brokers because that’s a better description of what we do rather than traditional placement transactions.

▶ Do you work in any niche areas?

We do a scheme called Splash which is for swimming pools and one called Spectrum which is for printers, so [we have] various different schemes. One of the things we looked at was making sure the business was robust. It’s fine having a concentration of mid-to-large corporates but a few have ceased trading in the current climate. Businesses in Norfolk have generally fared better than most. I always think of Norfolk businesses as being very much balance sheet businesses – they are perhaps second or third generation and they’ve paid off all the loans. Their overheads are relatively low as opposed perhaps to some other areas of the country. You tend to find there’s a tremendous amount of loyalty – we renew around 96%, which is pretty high.

▶ How important is it to support your own in the regions?

It’s a double-edged sword because, at the end of the day, the ones that are easier to pick up tend to be the ones that will change brokers every year. We tend to target the ones where they’ve been with a broker for five or 10 years or more – by definition they will be more difficult to move. A number of brokers probably go after everything irrespective of whether they’re dealing with quality business or not. We tend to go with businesses that stay loyal to brokers. So far I have to say it’s worked very well. When I took over in 2010, GWP was £11.5m, and this financial year to May 2013 we’re looking to top £15m. We’ve got plans to take it up to £17m and then £20m over two years. It’s quite an aggressive growth pattern.

▶ Do you plan to make any acquisitions?

Yes, indeed. It’s something we have looked at. I guess the single biggest issue for us is that there is not a saturation of insurance brokers in East Anglia – it would probably mean having to move out of the area, we would set up another office.

▶ Would you keep this office?

Yes, this is arguably the most prestigious business location, certainly in Norfolk, maybe beyond. You’ve only got to look at the names that are in the park to see the quality of businesses that are set up here – it’s pretty much 95% occupied.

▶ When did you move here?

In May when the lease came up on our last premises. [We were] right, slap bang in the town centre. The location was fantastic but it was a very old, very large house that had been converted. It meant that, [for] the claims department downstairs, quite frankly, you could have gone a week without knowing if they were in or not. People underestimate the importance of environment when it comes to culture.

▶ Has the ethos of the workforce changed since the move?

We’ve gone from a business where if you wanted to speak to somebody downstairs you would pick the phone up rather than go and see them, to one where we’re all on the same floor. It’s bright and airy, very contemporary here, but moving in itself doesn’t change the culture of the business. Anybody who thinks just by moving [it will change] is fooling themselves. But done in conjunction with other things, for example we rebranded from Knowldon Titlow Insurance Brokers to KTIB at the same time as the move in May, it can.