Where next for GAB Robins?

“A distressed business would be a nice way of putting it,” says Kieran Rigby, chief executive of loss adjuster GAB Robins’s UK operation, describing his company’s performance in recent years.

GAB Robins returned to profitability in 2009 after three years of changes under Rigby’s stewardship. It posted a profit after tax and minority interests of £1.9m, compared with a loss of £1.2m in 2008.

Rigby has worked for GAB Robins for 25 years. He returned to London to become chief executive of GAB Robins UK in 2005, having previously run the loss adjuster’s Australasian operation and managed company operations in Ireland.

When Rigby arrived, GAB Robins UK was losing business and failing to win accounts. “2006 was a very tough year, and quite a number of decisions in terms of new business did not go in our favour,” he recalls.

Management bought the company from private equity firm Brera Capital Partners in April 2009.

Rigby is reluctant to criticise the former heads of GAB Robins UK. “The strategy of the company was on the money,” he insists.

Management positions

However, he concedes that GAB Robins lacked the correct structure to deliver its strategy. When Rigby arrived, action was already being taken to close offices and allow people to work from home. However, the structure hadn’t changed accordingly. Rigby says: “A very different style of management and organisation is needed if you are dealing with people working remotely rather than in offices,” he says.

The structure was leading to problems with the service the company offered. “It was being criticised in the market,” says Rigby. “We lost a couple of important clients and we lost potential clients. Feedback in each case was around service. This wasn’t necessarily bad service by individuals, but criticism that we weren’t delivering a consistent service or being seen to be managed in a consistent fashion.”

A further problem was that some technical staff had been given management positions for which they were ill-suited. “When given the opportunity many were delighted to go back to do what they were good at – and in doing so attract clients,” says Rigby.

Pension scheme

Rigby amended the structure of the firm and added new services, one example being the contractor management product. He also made personnel changes. “In addition to just recruiting, we have made many key hires into senior roles,” he says.

GAB Robins also spent on technological infrastructure to support remote workers and help staff do their jobs better. Examples include a VOIP telephone system and a data warehouse.

A better programme to improve the management of clients and relationships was put in place. “We began to set objectives for opportunities that might come out in the next six or 12 months,” says Rigby. “Rather than waiting for the tender document, we went out to build relationships and talk about what we were doing. This put us in a better place when the tender document came through the letterbox.”

GAB Robins also had an issue with its defined benefits pension scheme. “While you could do many good things with the business, the elephant in the room was the scheme,” says Rigby. “The level of contributions exceeded the ability of the company. The scheme was patently unaffordable.”

Rigby closed the scheme at the end of 2006, and has since negotiated with trustees to ensure that the amount to be paid by the company is within its means. “If for some reason we lost a chunk of business, it would affect the amount we could afford to pay,” he says.

White-label work

Profitable-again GAB Robins UK can now focus on developing its business, and Rigby sees scope for growth in existing areas. For example, he says there is demand for building inspectors to undertake low-value investigations where loss adjusters would not normally be engaged. “We would like to exploit that a little more than we have in the past,” he says.

The company also wants to increase the white-label work it does. This is where it acts as a company’s claims department – typically for start-ups or for discrete lines of business within an insurance company. “We certainly have ambition to do more of that,” says Rigby.

The company is analysing its service to determine where it can improve. “The offering we have has been solid but we’re picking it apart to see if we’re ticking all the boxes and whether we can do things a little differently,” says Rigby.

Despite a brighter outlook, the years ahead will not be easy for GAB Robins, and the company expects it will have to fight hard to grow.

“To win business you have to take the food out of somebody else’s mouth,” says Rigby. “It is about looking at the activities we perform, how we perform them and what the offerings are.”

He adds: “One thing I’m pretty sure of is that the way we do business today is unlikely to be the way people want it done tomorrow.”