Neill Johnstone: Lorega eager to invest in success, despite five star rating for third year running

Neill Johnstone, group managing director of loss recovery specialist MGA Lorega, says the efforts the company have made to support broker partners in alignment with its service-centric ethos have played a vital part in the MGA once again receiving a five star rating in Insurance Times’ Five Star Rating Report: MGA market 2022.

Lorega has received a five star score from surveyed brokers for the past three years.

In 2020’s Five Star Rating Report: MGA market, the organisation achieved an overall score of 4.86 out of five. This improved to 4.97 for 2021’s report and this year, Lorega notched a 4.81 result.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Johnstone says: “We are absolutely delighted with the five star rating for the third year in [a row in Insurance Times’] MGA Survey.

“We always aim to deliver a five star service across our claims handling, underwriting support and broker relationship activities.

“We’re proud to say that our brokers experience this service whenever they interact with us. Our focus now is on continuing to deliver the best possible service for our brokers and policyholders.”

Johnstone firmly believes that Lorega’s success with brokers comes down to the MGA’s culture – he explains that “providing a high quality service is an enormous part” of the company’s culture and that this “commitment to service runs through everything we do at Lorega”.

He continues: “Whether that’s our chartered loss adjusters who are focused on delivering the best possible claims outcome for brokers’ customers, or our operations team providing fast responses to broker queries and focusing on making it as easy as possible to trade with Lorega, or our broker relationships team actively delivering product knowledge training sessions face-to-face and remotely, our people are continually striving to provide the best service possible.

“We also know that to provide a good service, we need to have an excellent IT platform and capability. That is why we invest in our support systems - this includes our online training portal for brokers.

“But we’re not overreliant on technology and sometimes good service can be something as simple as ensuring our telephones are answered quickly and by actual people.”

Offering for brokers

Lorega has clear plans for the future and how it intends to further support brokers.

Johnstone says: “Many of our brokers are still dealing with the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As such, we’ll be using our expertise to continue to help our brokers’ customers settle their outstanding Covid business interruption claims.

“We’ll also be getting out to see brokers face-to-face again, following the pandemic when everything was done remotely. We’ll be continuing our hybrid approach of face-to-face or remote video meetings with brokers, to provide the help and support they need in the most appropriate way.

“Aside from this, we’ll be continuing to enhance our online training materials for brokers and ensuring our business is aligned with the Chartered Insurance Institute’s Code of Ethics. We’ll also be maintaining our fast response times to brokers’ queries and quote requests.

“We also want to help more brokers offer Lorega’s products to their customers, to ensure an ever-increasing number of customers have access to expert help when they need it.”

Johnstone adds that the MGA’s staff “are essential to Lorega’s success” too.

“Recruiting and retaining the best talent is absolutely key and we’ll be continuing to develop and grow our people by providing excellent development opportunities, so they can enhance their capability [and] continue to provide the best possible service for our brokers and their customers,” he says.