Q&A: Lorega ‘recognises the importance of face-to-face’ trading

In the Five Star Rating Report – MGA Market 2023/24, which was officially launched on 10 January 2024, Lorega Limited was awarded a five star rating.

This represents a continued positive trajectory, as the firm also achieved five stars in the 2022/23 survey’s results.

Brokers also improved their broker service ratings for Lorega year-on-year, with the MGA’s rating rising 0.09 from the last report to reach a total of 4.60 in this year’s report. 

Neill Johnstone, managing director of Lorega, spoke to Insurance Times about its results.

1. What is your reaction to the star rating and how have you managed to be so consistent?

Lorega has achieved a five star rating for four consecutive years in the MGA Survey and seven consecutive years in total in the Broker Service Surveys. We are delighted with this achievement.

Service is at the heart of everything we do and we strive to consistently deliver the highest levels of support to our brokers by providing a fast response to underwriting queries, relevant and engaging product training sessions and the best possible claims support when the unexpected happens to their customers.

2. How would you respond to broker concerns about the threat of arrangements at MGAs being withdrawn or altered in a precarious market?

We have a long-term partnership with our capacity provider – over 20 years. Working together, we have developed a range of specialist products and services which consumers and commercial customers need when disaster strikes.

3.  What key developments have taken place at your MGA over the last year and what can brokers expect over the next year?

We have and will continue to invest in our systems capability, making the process of binding cover and reporting claims online as simple and streamlined as possible.

This past year, we also completed our plan to meet the new Consumer Duty standards and conducted a review of our products to ensure we continue to offer value and clarity to our policyholders.

We know brokers enjoy and learn from our webinars and training sessions and we will continue to offer these, covering the features and benefits of our products, as well as technical claims topics.

4. What trading support does Lorega provide to brokers in the UK

We have an office-based operations team, providing support to brokers for underwriting and systems queries and we aim to respond quickly to every enquiry.

Our ongoing investment in systems means that brokers can report claims to us online 24/7, enabling us to provide the fastest possible response to policyholders when they need to make a claim. Our nationwide relationships team supports brokers with face-to-face and online meetings.

5. What do you feel will be Lorega’s biggest challenge and how do you hope to meet this challenge?

Our biggest challenge is responding to the additional work and resource needed to settle claims promptly for policyholders. In the past year, we’ve had several new loss adjusters join our nationwide panel of claims experts, which stands as the largest geographical pool of expertise for the management of policyholder claims.

Our aim is to continue to deliver a  five star market-leading service, offering value for money in a competitive market – something we’ve been doing successfully for over 35 years.

6. What aspects of the service proposition will you be working on in the year ahead to maintain your five star rating in next year’s survey?

• We constantly strive to deliver exceptional service to our brokers and policyholders.
• We will continue to invest in all our people through an extensive training and development programme.
• We will continue to seek the fastest and best outcome for our policyholders who need to make a claim, despite the slow response times from certain insurers and pressure on claims settlements.

7. What is the importance of specialism to Lorega and the brokers you serve?

Lorega is the market leading specialist in providing claims assistance services to brokers and their customers. Brokers choose us because of that specialism and because we consistently deliver exceptional service and so we are not surprised by the findings of the MGA Broker Service Survey.

8. Please tell our readers about expert relationships, ease of access and clear service level agreements in relation to your MGAs service offering?

These aspects are also very important to us. We’ve built strong relationships with our brokers and consistently provide expert help and advice to their customers.

Our relationships team recognises the importance of face-to-face visits. Brokers can reach our office-based teams by phone and will speak to a person rather than an automated message system.

Our products can be accessed easily on broker quote systems and our own online quote and buy platform and claims can be reported to us online.

We continue to invest in our technology to make these processes fast and efficient. Our loss adjusters work to strict service levels in their speed of response and the way in which they handle policyholder claims.