Q&A: Ecclesiastical on practical ways for schemes brokers to kickstart business growth

1. Why is achieving growth in their schemes proposition so important for brokers?

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are competing across a variety of trading and digital platforms, with it hard to get a message across in a crowded marketplace.

Brokers recognise the potential and need for growth – to remain competitive and relevant to existing and new customer groups. They also recognise that, without change and growth, they may shrink and struggle.

But the rewards are high. Once you have a confident understanding of what your customer base wants – and can match a product to support those needs – you are able to demonstrate how your scheme can add value.

This leads to a stronger relationship and trust between you and your customer, in turn helping retention and growth. Finding the right schemes insurer to support those ambitions is critical.

2. What’s holding brokers back in achieving this growth?

Brokers have a variety of headaches when trying to grow. Regulation, such as Fair Value Assessments and Consumer Duty, is constantly moving and time consuming to administer. Just trying to retain your renewal book can see challenges, with insurer appetite narrowing and not supporting your ambitions.

The constant threat of competition – including from within your partner insurer – is also not unheard of.

We’ve spoken with brokers who are unsure how to navigate some of these challenges and create a plan for growth. Others are clear on their offering, but not so much on how to expand their marketing and how best to reach potential new customers.

3. Does Ecclesiastical have a growth agenda to support schemes growth?

Our Ecclesiastical Insurance Schemes Study 2023 showed that the insurer plays a key role in equipping brokers for growth – and we take this seriously.

We take a long-term, collaborative approach. We’ll sit down with brokers to understand what they want, then pinpoint the opportunity, co-create a development plan and provide the practical support and connections to deliver it.

We’ve been growing schemes with our partners for a long time. We are experienced, committed and can demonstrate to brokers that our people and processes can overcome these challenges.

4. What initiatives are you using? 

Each partnership scheme and need is different, so we employ a variety of tactics to support our schemes. Some are operated on a self-serve basis, with others on a more bespoke level. All, however, are developed based on our experience.

One of our most effective and popular webpages is the Schemes Marketplace, which highlights a variety of schemes where our brokers will receive wholesale enquiries.

Our ethos at Ecclesiastical is that by doing better business, we can better lives. Through supporting growth and providing bursaries, as well as charity giving campaigns, brokers are challenged to find methods of distributing funds within their sector group to encourage growth and trust.

Our tripartite approach is also vital for scheme growth, as we regularly attend trade and exhibition fairs. Being around consumer groups enhances our long-term partnership message. 

Our current test and learn project is around providing full marketing consultancy. Three of our brokers with schemes in diverse areas are benefiting from access to Ecclesiastical marketing experts.

We’re aiming to explore aspects of their online and offline marketing and drill down into the quality and quantity of their enquiries and quote journey to ensure they are giving themselves the best chance of improved conversions.