BIBA Conference Report

Last week’s BIBA conference in Manchester saw all the usual suspects – and one or two new ones – out in force. On this evidence, the insurance sector seems to be weathering the current economic storm pretty well.

BIBA deserves credit for organising an annual event that seems to offer something of value to so many people. With the scale of the event leaving few suitable venue options, BIBA now seems to rotate between Glasgow, Manchester and proposed 2010 venue London’s Excel.

Arriving at what used to be G-Mex – currently face-lifting itself to become “Manchester Central” – BIBA delegates met construction hoardings to which the organisers had attached directions to the side entrance and a banner proclaiming Your Best Insurance is a BIBA Broker.

Perhaps not the snappiest, or most logical of slogans – but, this aside, the conference agenda was refreshingly free of the self-congratulation, complacency and blame-shifting that typify so many industry conventions.

The main theme for the event was Delivering Value. A panel discussion on this topic chaired by TV’s René Carayol saw the insurance industry indulging in some refreshingly honest introspection.

Among the panellists were the FSA’s “Head of Insurance and Assessment, Small Firms and Contact Division” Jeremy Heales, Nick Starling of the ABI and the CII’s Sandy Scott. The FSA has had its share of critics in the fall-out from last year’s financial meltdown. But, within the insurance sector at least, it seems to be earning some belated respect. Or maybe it’s simply that the industry now grudgingly accepts the need for effective regulation and the fine-tuning required to bring this about.

Heales certainly put in an impressive performance. He admitted frankly that the FSA had not kept a sufficiently close eye on large institutions like Northern Rock and still needed to engage more with smaller firms. He said he hoped to build a new regulatory model through active dialogue with insurers.

Everyone present seemed to agree that in any sector there will inevitably be one or two ‘bad eggs’ and that whatever ‘whistle blowing’ is required to root these out ultimately benefits the industry as a whole.

Insurance broking still has some way to go put itself on a par with better-established professions like accountancy and law. But with strongly voiced calls for higher standards, robust regulation and investment in professional development, those at the top are at least talking a good game these days.

It wasn’t all sober soul-searching at BIBA 2009, however. Cuts in corporate entertaining budgets seemed not to have put too much of a damper on delegates’ after hours socialising. The topic of conversation, of course, never strayed to far from insurance however. In which context, the following anecdote is perhaps instructive.

On learning that the bar in which she worked was full of insurance brokers, one young lady reportedly complained about the rising cost of car insurance. A broker nearby seriously considered offering his services, before concluding that the young lady’s nakedness – and her preoccupation with gyrating round a pole – probably precluded taking down further particulars.

Impressive, all the same, that – even outside working hours and far away from home – some BIBA delegates never stop thinking about work.

The Heart of Insurance

Insurance is often viewed as a ‘heartless’ business – all about making money and not about the customer! Ultimately, all business is surely about making money, but insurance should be a balanced gamble between the client and the underwriter.

On two occasions recently examples have come to light in which insurance businesses have shown that insurance is not all totally heartless!

A small business in Surrey specialises in providing travel insurance for ‘high risk’ individuals suffering from terminal and serious illnesses. Obviously this is business which most underwriters will run away from on the basis that it is simply too high risk. The company I am dealing with underwrites each case individually, with a knowledge of medical conditions, treatments and medical facilities at the destination – they truly assess “fitness to travel” at the point of travel from a medical point of view. Their plan at present is to look for more underwriting capacity in order to spread their underwriting risk so that they can underwrite some higher risks – in order to “truly make a difference to quality of life” in certain cases. Thus they want to insure the “uninsurable” and enable even more people to make those last trips to say goodbye to family and friends, to have that last memorable holiday etc. A heart-warming business in a cut-throat world.

The other example is an insurer which paid property damage claims during the flood – often within hours of the claims being made. In fact our experience indicates that the response to the “flood claims” by most insurers was fantastic. Also, what a good selling-point for insurance – you only need a single disaster to justify years and years of insurance premium payments!

Isn’t it time the insurance industry began a PR campaign promoting their good points?