To the Riverbourne

Established in 2002 with just two staff, the Riverbourne Group today turns over £12m in premiums from its two offices in Surrey and Leeds. It is a private company with no external shareholders.

The founders - Jamie Coyne and Nick Plowman - are joint managing directors and the company is fast gaining recognition as being young and ambitious.

Recently, Riverbourne was named Best Growing Business in the Best of Business Awards (South East) and was a finalist in the HSBC Start-up Stars Awards.

The company was formed when Coyne and Plowman bought out another broker after the pair had became disillusioned with their respective insurance companies.

Coyne says: "We basically set up with a clean sheet of paper and built the business totally from scratch. We started with modest target figures, but soon realised we were going to far exceed expectations. I think the insurance industry can be quite staid and not very dynamic. We did things slightly differently and put a great deal of enthusiasm into it.

"We set a premium threshold of £10,000 from the outset, which was important in achieving growth. However, we will not turn away referrals from existing clients."

Coyne claims Riverbourne "cuts out a lot of time wasting that goes on in traditional brokers, though the firm keeps this process confidential - between it and the client.

"Riverbourne specialises in construction insurance and liaises closely with insurers and targets specific trades on their behalf. We try to find some slightly out-of-the-ordinary ones - in an attempt to be quite specific.

The firm works closely with trade affiliations and targets trades that are recommended by insurance companies. For example, we are associated members of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors.

Riverbourne has a satellite office in the City of London, with a unique tie to a broker and, altogether, does between £5m and £6m of business with Lloyd's through various brokers."

Commenting on the relative youth of the company, Coyne says: "The nature of our marketing has tended to attract younger people filling our roles.

However, our claims manager has 18 years of experience in the insurance industry and we have plenty of other people who have ten or more years in the business."

When asked about the growth of the business, he says: "The Riverbourne Group has made no acquisitions to date. We are always on the lookout for high-quality staff and, at the moment, this is more of a priority than acquisitions. A lot of brokers are rightly or wrongly going for growth for growth's sake. We have proved in two years that we can grow swiftly organically. It works out cheaper to get the business ourselves."

He continues: "Riverbourne is active in marketing and finding new leads. There are probably only a handful of brokers like us around in that respect. Sometimes we sit down with other brokers and come to an agreement when competing for the same client."

Coyne stresses that Riverbourne is not running up any debt despite being such a new, successful company; nor does it have any outside investors.

Coyne feels a broker of the size of Riverbourne has an advantage when dealing with smaller businesses. He says: "A lot of the national brokers would not really look at £50,000 to £70,000 premium spends. For a provincial broker or a mid-market broker, that is considered a worthwhile client. I personally think in terms of training and support for risk management, a mid-market broker can offer a better service to that kind of client. Most of our clients are between the premium range of £10,000 and £150,000."

Riverbourne received its Financial Services Authority minded-to-authorise letter in the last month and has allocated more responsibility to board members in order to cope with increased regulation. Riverbourne plans to increase its premium income to between £16m and £18m next year. It would not be surprising if more accolades were to follow.

RIVERBOURNE GROUP

Managing directors: Jamie Coyne and Nick Plowman

Established: 2002

Number of offices: two

Locations: Whyteleafe (Surrey) and Leeds

Number of staff: 18

Lines of business: Commercial

Gross premium income: £12m.