Peter Jones heads the Trading Team in NFU Mutual’s National Intermediary Services (NIS) division which covers Broking, Technical, Product Portfolio and Binders. It’s a fast-growing area, working with the markets to outplace insurance products. And it’s a team he’s looking to expand. We caught up with Peter to find out more about his team’s role – and why you should think about joining.
Hi Peter. Can you give us a bit of background on what your team does?
Essentially, NIS has quite a simple proposition within NFU Mutual. We go out to the market to seek products and services that complement NFU Mutual’s offering. No single insurer can offer all things to people, but we are able to offer customers a whole range of insurance products from within NFU Mutual and from our external insurance partners.
When I started at NFU Mutual seven years ago, there were only about 15 people in NIS, but now there are almost 100. I was the first person to start the Trading Team, but now we have 16 subject matter experts and technical specialists – and we’re continuing to grow to support the wider NIS department, the business and our customers.
What kind of products and services do you outsource?
Firstly, we deal with products that NFU Mutual doesn’t manufacture. A lot of these will be specialist products, such as Financial Lines, Product Recall and Marine, but we also outsource where the risk doesn’t fall within NFU Mutual’s appetite across Property, Casualty, Motor and Animal Disease lines – all insurers have varying appetites for different trades and risk situations.
It is not all about the products though – I’ve been in this industry for 36 years and it’s very relationship-based. It is not just about the companies you trade with, but the people and the mutual trust and respect you have with them. You have longstanding business relationships, and you forge new ones based on good solid historical reputation. It is also about working strategically with a wide range of markets and knowing who’ll deliver the best solution for our customers. We want to bring the right business to the markets where they may do best – if it’s right in their sweet spot then it’s a match made in heaven.
How are you expanding the team – what role are you looking to fill?
Currently we’re looking for another Broking & Technical Specialist – someone who has great technical and market knowledge, who can trade with our market partners to achieve the best solutions for our customers. You could be doing something similar at the moment, or you might be in a broking team and looking for the next step in your career. The ideal person is someone with solid experience in Property, Casualty and Motor.
On a day-to-day basis, you’ll be analysing enquiries requiring outplacement and setting the broking strategy for the risk. You’ll decide on how the programme should be designed to achieve the best solution and where we are likely to achieve the best outcome. So it’s about making sure we get a quality product at a fair and reasonable price for our customer.
As mentioned, a lot of our work involves building strong working relationships. So this person will be working closely with the markets, and they might be involved in working with new and emerging markets, and then managing and nurturing that relationship for the long-term. We work with the composite, specialist, London and Lloyd’s markets – and have recently become a Coverholder at Lloyd’s for our binders. There’s also a lot of contact with the wider NFU Mutual business – our Agency offices throughout the UK who look after our customers and with other head office functions. They will also have some contact with customers. For instance, if a customer has a complex requirement, we might go out to assess the risk, so we can present it clearly to the market. Or we might need to explain to the customer the way we have structured their insurance programme to meet their demands and needs.
As well as market and technical knowledge, they also need the soft skills. But we offer a variety of excellent training to develop that side of things. Everyone in the business has a personal development plan, so you can talk with your line manager about your ambitions, the areas you want to develop, to analyse your skills gaps and work on those, to become a better all-rounder, or a greater product or technical specialist. Better never stops as they say!
What makes broking different at NFU Mutual?
I joined NFU Mutual after a number of years in big corporate businesses – it is a very different cultural dynamic. Being a mutual society with no shareholders means the focus is totally on the customer – our customer is our shareholder if you like. Of course, we all work hard just like you would do in any business, but there is something very refreshingly different about NFU Mutual.
In NIS, we simply want to make sure that we source products that complement NFU Mutual’s proposition and most importantly to deliver the right overall insurance solution for the customer. Everybody works together and plays their part to achieve that right outcome. And there’s a huge amount of respect for colleagues - nobody wants to let anyone else down.
We have a unique relationship with our insurance partners because we don’t just want to build long-term sustainable growth for our business – we want that for them too. We want them to benefit from our partnership too, because at the end of the day, we both cannot exist if we cannot serve our customers.
It sounds like an exciting opportunity – if someone joins your team, what can they look forward to in the future?
Our ambition is to continue to grow the Trading Team within NIS, develop the products and markets and continue to build on the great technical expertise we already have. It’s about growing in the right areas and having the right people to achieve it. That means there are great career opportunities for anyone coming into the business, in this role and future roles. Over the seven years I have been here, a lot of people in NIS have been promoted and moved on to bigger roles, myself included. So, it’s a very progressive and supportive business – if you have ambition then you have every chance of succeeding at NFU Mutual.
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