… build up to Biba

Sitting here looking at my diary and I can’t help but notice that there’s only a couple of weeks to go until the Biba conference.

I don’t know about you but I always prefer these when they take place outside of London. For me, there’s just something different, something better about the atmosphere, I can’t put my finger on exactly why, maybe it’s a feeling that’s peculiar to those of us who work in London.

Regardless of where they’re held, conferences like Biba always remind me that insurance is a relationship business. Insurers’ relationships with brokers, brokers’ relationships with customers, insurers’ relationships with customers, the industry’s relationship with government and regulators I could go on and on for the rest of this blog, but you get the gist so I’ll stop before I bore you.

And of course it’s not just external relationships. The type of people and whether I think I’m going to like working with them, is one of the first things I look for in a job and something that first attracted me to RSA. I’m lucky in that I work with some really great people in our broker business and I know there’s a bunch of them putting the finishing touches to our plans for Biba right now. And I also know that for Paul Donaldson, Mike Lawton and our key account managers Biba’s a great opportunity to catch up with business contacts, strengthen existing relationships and build new ones.

So what can you expect to see and hear from RSA at this year’s conference?

“I have a sneaky feeling my husband thinks I am using the rebranding as an excuse to buy some more clothes … perish the thought!

Well, you’ll hear a lot about our trading strategy. Sometimes I feel there’s a danger we could start to sound like a stuck record with our emphasis on trading, but it really is that important to our future. Jon Woodman, our Trading Director, and his team will be there talking about how we’re developing expertise in specialist trading units and improving access to our trading underwriters – people whose job it is to get out in the field seeing brokers and their clients and at the end of the day to write sustainable business.

You’ll also see more about our green services and initiatives something I touched on when I talked about energy management services in my last blog. And hopefully you’ll also get to hear about how we are supporting the development of new talent in the industry through our graduate initiative. By sponsoring a group of university students to attend the conference and arranging a placement for one of the students with RSA, Biba and a broker we’re looking to provide a fresh perspective on insurance and raise awareness of career opportunities for graduates.

And finally, you’ll see a very different looking RSA as BIBA’s going to the be the first time that we’ll use our new logo and branding externally, we’ll be really interested in your feedback. I’ve a sneaky feeling my husband thinks I’m using the rebranding as an excuse to buy some more clothes … perish the thought!

Bridget McIntyre is UK chief executive at RSA