Chairman's Comment - Risk and opportunities - strengthening our voice

Our industry is undergoing another period of change and managing that change is the responsibility of us all. Looking ahead, there are many opportunities for us, but there are also a number of threats that we need to observe.

As brokers, we face threats from a variety of directions. At times it appears as if everybody wants to find their own part of our industry and many third parties have been encroaching on our sector.

Regulation has also been seen as a distinct threat by many across the industry. However, I would prefer to look at it as an opportunity, albeit an expensive one. As I said at the British Insurance Brokers' Association conference earlier this year, it is now all about the interpretation - moving from what the rules mean to how we comply and evidence this. We are in a strong position for the future, and regulation and compliance - interpreted in the right way - have the potential to make our offering even stronger. Many thought that regulation would seriously impair the primary intermediary market. So far this has not been the case, in fact quite the opposite.

Changing consumer perception

This is a highly competitive market place and we must maintain a strong voice as a distribution channel. We can change the way that we are perceived and educate consumers about the efforts we are making to improve our service.

One of our next steps going forward must be to strengthen our voice, working as closely as possible with the media and all stakeholders to convey our key messages.

Lack of promotion

I do not think that anyone could deny that the insurance industry suffers from a lack of promotion. This has resulted in a rather stale opinion within much of the media and it certainly affects how many consumers perceive our role in the industry. In my opinion, we do not do enough to communicate our values and one of the real challenges of the future is going to be to ensure that our industry starts to be viewed more favourably. One of the ways this can be achieved is by increasing our professionalism through more training and continual development.

Customer service has never been as important as it is today, with customers expecting high-quality, efficient service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, some in the industry have not placed a significant level of importance on the development of good customer service. As we move forward, we need to clearly demonstrate our level of commitment to the customer by taking proactive steps towards better understanding our customers' needs.

It seems to me that by making concerted efforts to improve our relationships with clients and concentrating on our claims-handling processes - an area that still receives significant numbers of complaints - we can quickly help to dramatically enhance the reputation of our industry and, of course, our distribution channel.

Prominence in times of crisis

The very nature of insurance means that our industry comes to prominence at times of crisis. The remainder of the time we must not hide away waiting for the next disaster or major terrorist incident. Most of our time is in fact spent dealing with problems and offering solutions.

Think about all of the good news stories you know from your time working in the industry, and then consider how many times you have seen these positive occasions reported in the press and media? It is time that we started to shout louder about our work and our commitment to our customers.

There is a great deal of work to be done in this area and again it is down to us all to take responsibility for the promotion of this work.

There are a number of opportunities for us to clearly define the messages that we want to convey. First and foremost, it is vital that our industry is seen to be playing its part in the issues of the day and working hard with government and other stakeholders to resolve issues as they arise.

BIBA continues to be at the forefront of these.

I believe that we are a resourceful industry. We must remain open to change and adapt in order to deal with the challenges and situations that arise. Building on our strong foundations we are in a good shape to move forward to the next chapter in our industry's long and distinguished history.

- Eric Galbraith, chairman of the British Insurance Brokers' Association will be chairing the Professional Broking Roadshow 2004 in Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol and London. The Bolton event will be chaired by Peter Staddon, technical manager of BIBA.