Ellen Bennett on the week's news
It’s now or never for RBSI. There’s been yet another round of navel gazing at the country’s third largest insurer this month with a reshuffle at the top. Paul Geddes has been handed the daunting task of breathing life back into the hidebound brands and, with the spectre of a sale finally lifted, he has an opportunity to look to the future that would have made his predecessor, Chris Sullivan, green with envy.
Meanwhile, RBSI’s competitors are bursting with former staffers who have walked during the years of upheaval. They know the market; they know RBSI inside out and they have a spirit of energy and entrepreneurialism sadly lacking at the government-owned insurer.
Perhaps RBS’s new chief executive, Stephen Hester, and his team should be concentrating on getting the bank and its insurance division out of the hands of the government and back into the private sector. Then it can compete fairly with its rivals on the High Street.
And below Hester, Geddes needs a big idea. So far, RBS is keeping quiet. The bank this week refused to talk to Insurance Times about its plans for some of the country’s biggest insurance brands or to comment on past events. That is its prerogative, of course, but for its own sake, let’s hope that it is cooking up something big behind closed doors, rather than simply not having anything to say. After all, how long can you keep shuffling the deckchairs?
Watch out Direct Line or you’ll be left behind
Direct Line revolutionised the insurance market two decades ago, but it has since been overtaken by events. With the growth of aggregators seemingly unstoppable, it is time for it to innovate again or be left behind as a relic of a bygone age. So far, it has pinned all its hopes to pushing the direct model into commercial lines, but the ongoing back and forth of the sale that never was has prevented it from making any big impact. If it can turn this round and take the fight to brokers on their home turf, then it could make history once again. It might want to consider off-loading that awkward sister, NIG, too, to stop its right hand fighting its left.
