Technological innovation has tended to benefit personal lines. But PIA’s young chief executive contends that commercial brokers can see the benefits from it too, and says she has the model and the mettle to prove it.
Tucked away behind the Sussex seafront sits the office of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA). Its foyer, bedecked with a samurai sword and modern images harking back to feudal Japanese culture, is a homage to the old Japanese warrior class.
Just off to the right of the spacious entrance, under the stairs to the main office, sits a room full of computers and apparently self-professed technology geeks.
It is not what you expect to encounter when you step into a broker’s Eastbourne headquarters. But then, PIA isn’t your traditional broker.
Broking at the cutting edge of digital
Some brokers have been slow to dip into digital, but as chief executive Kelly Fyfe explains, her team strives to be at the forefront of innovation.
The broker has released its own quote and buy platform for brokers, which is used internationally. It is also experimenting with exciting new artificial intelligence (AI), as well as building what Fyfe refers to as a “superbot”.
“You can create your own bot. Then they can talk to you face to face,” she explains. “They can answer questions about the product that you are buying. If you need help throughout the process, they can assist you.”
Things haven’t always been so digitally demanding at the broker, which today boasts a strong social media presence – “I don’t think you can afford not to be on it, to be honest,” the young chief executive asserts – and understanding.
When Fyfe started working there 20 years ago, she never could have predicted where she, or the business, would be today.
Fyfe’s is an uplifting story. Like many, she slipped into insurance. Originally, she began working at PIA as an administrator, on a temporary contract. Luckily for them, the small team of three at the time (including current chairman Graham Hearsey) spotted Fyfe’s potential.
She began building her insurance knowledge specialising in professional indemnity, and worked her way up, gaining experience of broking and claims before taking on a managerial role.
She is now in charge of an office of twenty, and spends time between offices in the seaside town and London. The business is now part-broker, part-insurtech company. Fyfe explains that the tech side of the business trades under the name Business Insurance 24/7.
From paper to panel
“When I first started we were a paper office, so we literally had files,” says Fyfe.
It was slow going at the time.
She continues: “In 2004, we started using PDF proposal forms, as insurers agreed to use them. We wanted to take it a step further, because at the time we were finding that a lot of companies wanted us to input information into their own online quote & buy systems. We had about five systems that we were putting information into. It was time consuming.”
The solution? Fyfe explains: “We wanted to come up with an idea where we didn’t have to do that and could pass that on to our clients so that they could input the information, and we wanted a system that would then come up with a panel of different insurers offering different cover.”
One big challenge was convincing insurers to join a panel, but they got there in the end.
It could also be a struggle to convince clients to buy insurance online. At the time, insurance was very paper-driven.
“Our clients would normally get all their information by post,” says Fyfe. “It was tough getting them to change their mindset and go online. They would call up, we would go over quotes with them over the phone, and then get them to make that purchase online as well.”
However, Fyfe estimates that half of all the broker’s business now comes through the software, which PIA allows brokers – both UK-based and internationally – to use for free.
The tech-driven side of the business has grown rapidly since 2006, and Fyfe expects that in time it will bring in more business than its traditional broking arm.
Customer needs are changing
Customers have different expectations in 2018, says Fyfe.
“It’s very different now. I think when it’s a smaller premium, under £1,000, a lot of them are happy to do their own investigations in terms of the cover they are buying. I think that’s changed quite significantly,” she says.
By enabling smaller premium purchasers to buy online, this also frees up the insurance side of the business to build relationships with bigger fish.
“From our perspective it’s been great because we can focus on dealing with bigger corporate clients,” Fyfe points out.
The company is now working on its ISO accreditation, as it looks to continue delving into the tech-space.
Fyfe is convinced that the industry is shifting – through technology, as well as in areas of diversity and broker responsibilities – but this doesn’t have to hurt brokers who are happy to embrace change.
Traditional values, technological edge
In 1877, at the Battle of Shiroyama, rebel samurai fought against imperial forces in the last charge of the Satsuma Rebellion.
The samurai wielded traditional weapons, but were met with guns and artillery. They had little to no chance and were cut down.
Perhaps, had the warriors learnt to embrace the new weaponry of the day, it could have been a very different story.
The bushido samurai sword in PIA’s office sits next to a room full of techies armed with computers. By balancing traditional values with new advances, it seems, the company hopes to stay at the cutting edge of broking.
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