Aviva to focus on building CPE business

Aviva will be looking to build up its construction, power and engineering business and take advantage of new opportunities in the market over the next four years.

That is according to Aviva’s corporate risks managing director David Hall who has been set the target of doubling his division’s book of business in three years, as well turning it into a top three player in the market and to be the No.1 UK broker choice to do business with by 2015.

Last week the insurer announced that up to 10 jobs could go at its engineering division in Southend following the decision to shut the operation, as reported in Insurance Times.

But the 160-strong staffed Southend office will remain and the engineering staff will be offered redeployment within Aviva.

Aviva said the move was part of its strategy to focus on creating regional hubs with trading, underwriting and servicing all under one roof, enabling it to write more complex business.

This included expanding its engineering division to include construction and power, all within the corporate specialty business, with the growth will come from the hubs in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

Hall said that part of his role had been to look at the whole organisation and focus on growing the engineering line of business.

“The reality was that when I came in engineering was simply engineering and what we have decided to do is expend it into construction, power and engineering and the whole point of that was to put our products, expertise and capability into what I believe to be the key UK provincial markets,” he said.

“As a consequence of that, what we want to do it to expand into the Manchester, North West and North East areas, and we are developing a Manchester hub which we will strengthen significantly in terms of our expertise and capability.

“We will also further expand our Birmingham operation because I think that is another significant engineering areas in the UK, and we are going to further expand in London as well.

“What I want us to do is also deliver construction, power and engineering products into Eire and Northern Ireland to our Belfast and Dublin offices and I want to increase our expertise in Glasgow too.”

Hall admitted that he took the tough decision to close the Southend division due to being too far away from some parts of the country it did business in, with a view to redeploying the staff there and to strengthen the overall operational area.

He has also appointed a number of technical underwriters to run the north, south and London market operations and plans to add more deal architects and closure personnel to provide whole package solutions.

“In the sub-product markets there is an opportunity to attach capital to risks where we get the right rate of returns and the right rates through putting our capacity against risks that we understand, and to do this sustainably over time,” he said.

Hall said that Andrew Moss’s departure as chief executive last week had resulted in no change of strategy and he was set on meeting his goals for this year and beyond to 2015.