Aviva seeks to ‘improve connectivity’ with scheme broker partners in 2025

Aviva has a “big focus” for 2025 on improving its “connectivity” with scheme broker partners in a bid to help facilitate business growth, according to Rebecca Gambrell, the insurer’s managing director for SME and delegated authorities.

Currently, Aviva works across approximately 100 schemes in conjunction with its broker partners.

A “big focus” for the insurer this year, however, is how it “can improve connectivity with brokers that have schemes” to “help support them with growth”.

Gambrell told Insurance Times: “There’s a big focus on how we can improve our connectivity with our brokers that have schemes.

“Whether that’s through application programming interfaces (APIs) or data sharing in some form, how can we make sure that we are sharing those insights and information so that we can have a much easier, clearer and transparent conversation with our brokers and help support them with growth and with the scheme.

“That will be a focus this year from [a] schemes perspective.”

New growth opportunities

Speaking to Insurance Times at 2024’s Biba Conference in Manchester last May, Gambrell flagged that Aviva was ready to grow its schemes portfolio – particularly around non-motor commercial products – after appointing Donna Smith as its head of schemes and delegated underwriting authority operations in January 2024.

Although Aviva confirmed at the end of January 2025 – a year after Smith’s hire from Zurich – that the number of schemes it works on is still hovering around that 100 mark, Gambrell noted that the insurer’s schemes account has recorded “growth on green” regarding existing schemes, as well as taken advantage of “new opportunities”.

One such new venture included its September 2024 deal with broker Howden, to provide capacity for a new rural land estate scheme. This offers property and liability covers for farming, land and estates and property owners via Howden’s rural division.

“Customers needed solutions in terms of their insurance offerings,” Gambrell said. “So, we supported Howden to make sure that we closed that gap for customers, to make sure they could continue to have cover and have confidence that they had the right and appropriate cover in place.”

‘Nicheness’

For Gambrell, Aviva’s backing of Howden’s scheme is the ideal analogy of the “nicheness” the insurer looks for in a scheme opportunity.

She explained: “When we’re talking about schemes and we’re looking at new opportunities, it’s about finding something that’s niche in terms of what does it offer us that’s not part of our core product set or part of our core appetite.

“That nicheness might be the type of underwriting or the type of product, but it might be the way that it’s delivered to the customer, or the technology that the scheme or the MGA has. So, it can be niche in a number of aspects, not strictly underwriting.

“We will continue to look at things that help complement the products and appetite that Aviva already has.”

With this in mind, non-motor commercial focused schemes are “still on the cards”, with the insurer hoping to expand and grow its propositions in this line of business, Gambrell continued.

Area of focus

Gambrell explained that Aviva’s distribution team works “very hard in terms of prospecting and pipelining potential schemes” – alongside investigating ad hoc opportunities as they arise – which means the pipeline for new scheme additions “looks pretty healthy” for 2025.

“We have grown,” she said.

“[Schemes] continues to be an area of a focus for us in terms of it’s an area that we want to grow.

“We want to make sure that we’re delivering good propositions and good services in that scheme space. So, one to watch for this year.”