Ecclesiastical launches into office professionals market to satisfy broker feedback

EXCLUSIVE: Charity owned specialist insurer Ecclesiastical is next week (8 July 2024) entering the white collar office professionals market with the launch of a new property and casualty focused product that has been designed to meet broker appetite and continue to fuel the insurer’s growth strategy.

The new product, called office professions, is targeted at white collar businesses such as accountants, lawyers, architects, high quality call centres and market research companies, with average premiums of at least £10,000.

Office professions, which will be entirely distributed via brokers, includes cover elements like business interruption, theft, temporary removal of valuable papers, equipment breakdown and liability options.

The policy can also tap into Ecclesiastical’s fine art specialism too, if required.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Richard Coleman, UK managing director at Ecclesiastical, described office professions as a “natural expansion” of its “biggest niche” – real estate.

He explained: “We insure large amounts of commercial real estate – the offices that these kinds of trades occupy. So, we understand their built environment really well and this [new product] pushes us into underwriting the operating risk that sits inside [these buildings].

“The good thing about being a new entrant is you can look at what the market offers. What we’ve done is make sure that we are absolutely at the top – there is no policy that we look at and think we don’t offer that.

“We’ve been able to start it from scratch. [The product is] clean, fresh, simple and looks really good.

“We’ve put a lot of work into researching [and getting it] right so that [office professions] has everything a broker would want, need and expect.”

The product launch next week signals another new market entry for Ecclesiastical following its move into the high end leisure arena last summer.

The insurer’s leisure proposition, which has driven 20% of Ecclesiastical’s new business volume since its launch, is targeted at high end hotels and restaurants, as well as good quality visitor attractions, for example.

Grow to give

These two new products and associated market entries form one of four key pillars that make up Ecclesiastical’s Grow to Give strategy, which was implemented a couple of years ago.

Coleman explained that the insurer’s 800 broker partners consistently fed back how much they enjoyed working with Ecclesiastical, encouraging the company to broaden its product footprint so that they could expand existing relationships.

This “drove us to look at new sectors”, Coleman noted.

“We had direct feedback from brokers saying ‘we like what you do, we’d like you to expand your footprint’. Brokers [told us] ‘you give good service. You give good expertise. We would like to place more business with you. We like what you stand for and how you do it’.”

With two new market entries in as many years, brokers could be forgiven for predicting another new proposition launch in the summer of 2025.

However, although Coleman admitted that there is “a vacant slot” in Ecclesiastical’s strategic planning to enter a third new market or line of business, the insurer is “not going to push to launch that quickly”. At this point, Coleman does not even know what specialism could be next on the agenda.

He said: “Our brokers broadly enjoy working with us and would like to see us expand and into sensible adjacent specialisms. We’re having that constant conversation about what might the third sector be and, quite often, that might come from conversations with brokers. We’re really into keeping that dialogue going.

“We have a developments plot for it in our own minds. But it’s not imminent. We’re about to launch a new product. We’ve got to do it really, really well and we’ll put the weight of the organisation behind that because that’s important. And then, [once] we’ve got [that as] a success, we can think about a third sector.”

Looking to the MGA market

The other pillars of Ecclesiastical’s Grow to Give strategy centre around continuing to deliver for existing customers across its heritage, faith, charity and education lines, growing “underweight business” lines – such as high net worth and schemes – as well as exploring “new distribution” channels.

By this, Coleman is referencing building new capacity arrangements with MGAs.

“We underwrite [broker] schemes at the moment and we’re selectively starting to open up some conversations about supporting MGAs,” he said. “That’s early days and [it] has to be right for us and right for them.”

Looking to forge “long-term” relationships with property and casualty focused MGAs, Coleman noted that any capacity agreements will be “much more about who than it is about what”, with the focus on the partner MGA itself rather than any particular specialism or line of business.

He continued: “We’re quite open. We’re having some interesting MGA conversations at the moment.

“Could we talk about something that happens during this year? Very possibly. Could it be into next year? Equally possible. We’re not going to rush. We want to get the right partnership, at the right time.”

Coleman noted that the MGA market is seeing plenty of success right now, due to having “greater nimbleness” compared to insurers or by being “super specialist” and doing “something no one else can”.

He continued: “MGAs, often what they can do very well is they put decision-makers in front of brokers. And that’s what brokers want – the ability to have a conversation about a client or a risk and for that to be understood by the underwriter, [with] those facts and issues taken into account.”

‘Milestone’ growth rather than a set destination

The Grow to Give approach has been working so far for Coleman and Ecclesiastical – the insurer has grown by about 70% over the last four years, for example, thanks to its “service, expertise and purpose”.

However, Coleman is quick to emphasise that the strategy is a multiyear growth plan and that the insurer is “probably still a couple of years away from being where we want to”.

The business is striving to achieve £500m gross written premium (GWP) in the UK in commercial terms – ideally within a two to four-year timeframe – although it also has corporate giving targets linked to its charity ownership.

Ecclesiastical is part of Benefact Group, which is owned by grant giving organisation Benefact Trust. Therefore, the insurer would like to be the number one corporate donor to charity in the UK – it currently stands in third place, Coleman said.

He added that he would love Ecclesiastical’s charitable donations to reach £50m.

Discussing the company’s growth, Coleman concluded: “The ultimate aim is twice our contribution to good causes, but [becoming] twice our size [is] an important part of making that journey.

“I see £500m [GWP] as a milestone, not an end game. So, there’s a real ability to continue pushing on.”