Jason Storah: Insurance must be ‘more deliberate’ in ‘attracting and fostering talent’

The insurance sector has to be “more deliberate” about “attracting and fostering talent into the industry” in order to generate market-wide “win-win”, according to Jason Storah, chief executive of UK general insurance at London-headquartered insurer Aviva.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times following the publication of Aviva’s half-year financial results on 14 August 2024, Storah explains that one facet of the insurer’s continued work with brokers is centred around “fostering talent”.

This includes helping to “support and develop broker talent and combine that with cohorts of talent within Aviva”.

For Storah, job candidates that have sought experience or apprenticeships across both insurers and brokers are “really valuable” because “you just see that longevity of relationship has real depth to it”.

He says: “Historically, one of the things the insurance industry has tried to shrug off and [where it has] probably not done as good a job as it could [have] is if you ask [insurance professionals] how they ended up in insurance, they often say they fell into insurance rather than they deliberately chose to work in insurance.

“That feels like a real shame to me because [the insurance industry has] a hugely diverse set of [rewarding] career options that it offers people, [which are] really meaningful in terms of [being] a driver for the economy, for financial success and all of those other things.

“So, I think just being more deliberate about how we’re attracting and fostering talent into the industry – whether that’s directly into brokers or directly into insurance companies – it’s a win-win.”

Aviva first launched its apprenticeship programme as a pilot in 2020, with the initiative becoming a permanent organisational fixture from 2021.

Apprentices accepted onto Aviva’s scheme can gain professional qualifications alongside working a day job in their choice of discipline – candidates can opt to work in the insurer’s claims, underwriting, risk or data teams, for example.

The apprenticeship scheme has grown in popularity since its launch – 2024’s commercial lines cohort, for example, is the largest to go through the programme, with 24 apprentices currently learning their craft within Aviva’s commercial lines SME team.

Stephen Pond, UKGI chief financial officer at Aviva, adds: “A player of our size, it comes with the territory that we should be doing things like the apprenticeship programme. It’s a responsible thing to do.”

Supporting brokers

Alongside collaborating with brokers to nurture the next generation of insurance talent, how else is Aviva seeking to deliver for its 1,800 broker partners?

Firstly, the insurer has “strengthened our regional visibility” by opening a raft of new offices – this move aims to encourage more face-to-face meetings and provide improved access to decision-making underwriters.

Aviva’s extended footprint includes new office locations in Chelmsford and Southampton, which opened in April 2024, as well as the addition of a trading office in Glasgow in July 2024.

The insurer has also remained focused on tackling underinsurance – a problem Storah describes as being “a really bad problem for the industry and for customers”.

Within the last 12 months, for example, Aviva has rolled out an automated underinsurance detection capability on its commercial insurance tool, for use across its digital and SME customer bases.

This automatically reviews renewal invitations and if Aviva believes the end customer is underinsured – based on its understanding of the client and other available data – then the tool will notify the broker.

Storah continues: “We’ve helped address underinsurance, with over £800m of property underinsurance having been tackled over the last year, and we’ve launched an automated underinsurance detection capability, which we’ve shared with brokers.”

Aviva’s broker partners have so far “responded really positively” to the automated underinsurance detection function, Storah adds.

Linked to this, the insurer has sought to plug protection gaps that it may spot across broker partners’ customer pool by providing quotes for cover it believes end customers should be purchasing – for example, cyber insurance. This has the added benefit of boosting brokers’ cross-selling opportunities too.

Storah confirms that 1,000 customers have so far taken up the additional cover that Aviva recommended to brokers.

He says: “We’ve added some essential covers to around 1,000 vulnerable customers. That was one of the things that we’ve been talking to brokers about – where would they like us to respond? What would they like us to do in the market?”

Lastly, Storah notes that Aviva is “continuing to invest in our digital distribution” via its broker claims portal, which first launched in October 2022.

The portal enables brokers to track individual claims digitally – whether they are open, closed or simply notified – download a snapshot of claims’ statuses and access live chat functionality, with information presented in a dashboard format.

Storah explains that the claims portal has so far been used to track more than 83,000 claims as at 14 August 2024 – compared to monitoring 100,000 claims across the entirety of 2023.

Striving for ‘flawless execution’

Storah credits much of Aviva’s recent work on deepening broker relationships to David Martin – Zurich’s former head of retail management that Aviva appointed as its managing director of UKGI distribution and SME in April 2023, replacing Gareth Hemming.

“[Martin] and the team that manage our broker network do a fantastic job with our brokers,” Storah says. “We’ve got one of the largest broker footprints in the UK, with over 1,800 broker agencies.

“I would hope that our brokers will continue to see us do more things in the spirit of [what Martin is an advocate of. Martin says that Aviva wants] to be flawless in our execution, really responsive and working in partnership with our brokers for a win-win.”