Chief executive, Norwich Union General Insurance

Transcription

1 Igal Mayer Chief executive, Norwich Union General Insurance Introduction Q: You were recently appointed Chief Executive of Aviva's UK General Insurance business, having previously run Aviva Canada. So what are your responsibilities, and why do you feel that you are the best person for the job? A: Yes, I'm delighted to be here in the UK. I'm taking over the largest insurer in the UK marketplace. We've got over 8m customers, 27,000 employees, and I think the most exciting marketplace in the world for general insurance. What do I bring to the table? I bring 23 years of experience in general insurance. It's been the core of my career. I love this business. It's got a little bit of everything in it. You've got relationships with brokers and other distributors. You've got to manage a diverse business, which includes everything from enterprise management to technical skills, emerging technology. I think the general insurance business is facing increased consumer demands, which is driving many of our strategies. So it's got a little bit of everything, and for me, that's exciting. UK GI business Q: Could you talk me through the strengths of Aviva's UK GI business? A: The first strength is our access to customers, and our various routes to market. We are a multi-distribution company, and we've got three basic ways of accessing the markets: through our independent brokers; our direct channel, where we've got two strong brands in both the Norwich Union and the RAC; and our corporate partnership business, where we've got partnerships with over 100 different partners. That's the strength of the business. We've got market leading positions in every line of business that we're in. We're either number one or number two, and that gives us the ability to influence the marketplace. Q: And what are the challenges that you're facing in the UK market? A: The challenge facing our business is the current market cycle. We've got heavy price competition, and when we look internally, the complexity of our business, and the constant challenge and need to simplify the business to make it more nimble, and more effective. 1

2 Q: And how are you going to deal with the complexity of the business? A: My initial impression of this business was that it was complex, and that complexity was causing two problems. One, I think it was delaying our responsiveness to the market, getting the bureaucracy of our organisation, the size of the business, was actually causing us problems in the marketplace and we weren't as nimble as we need to be. The second issue is cost. We have to be the most cost effective provider in the UK, as the largest player. We've got to leverage that scale. So we've embarked on basically a three phase plan. The first one is what you would expect any leader to do when he comes into a business. It's about getting the priorities and focus right, and making sure that the teams and resources are focused on the important things. The second phase is frankly, what we call re-engineering of our customer service centres, and our processes around the business. We have a wonderful opportunity to do this in that in the last couple of years we've invested in a new technology platform that's going to allow us to run all our business on that one technology platform. The virtue of that is that a single platform will lead to a single set of products, a single set of processes, and improve productivity, but more importantly, I think improve customer service. We'll then move on to look at the organisation structure and how we can improve that, and I think all those three things coming together will give us a market leading cost profile, and also improve the effectiveness of the organisation as we become more focused, more streamlined in our processes, and an organisation structure that can be more effective and responsive in the marketplace. Q: Having said all that, where do you think the growth is going to come from? A: I talked a little earlier about the importance of market leading positions. They do allow you to influence the market. As you know, the UK general insurance market is in a tough position. Our market leading position is allowing us to lead the market out of its soft part of the cycle with rate increases. Last year we took action by increasing motor rates, and we're now seeing the market follow us. That is delivering good growth in premiums. After the floods in July, we announced 10% rate increases across our homeowners book. That again, I think, will begin to get traction in the marketplace. And lastly, commercial lines, although they've been profitable over the last three or four years, we do need to begin to get rates up, and again, in consultation with our brokerage force across the UK, we are planning rate increases to begin in the fourth quarter. So fundamentally, you've got to get your rates up. 2

3 Now, in terms of organic growth, we've got a number of initiatives underway.. In our brokerage business, we have a very simple vision. We want to be the insurer of choice for our brokers, and we've built a number of initiatives under that programme that are starting to deliver organic growth for us. Q: The RAC business that you bought in 2005 is now fully integrated, and the cost benefits realised, so what are the next steps there? A: For those of you who don't live in the UK, let me quickly describe the RAC business. It's a roadside assistance business, and it's one that has a great heritage in the UK, and we bought a market leading company in that business. As you've said, we've fully integrated it, and achieved the cost saves that we expected. Now, in terms of what we got, we got a business that I think fits very well with insurance, because roadside assistance is about getting people back, very similar to the core insurance business. What it gives us is a diversified flow of income against the traditional insurance cycle. So we're delighted, strategically, to have that business. In terms of the next step, the brand is well recognised and well trusted in the UK. In fact, it's a top five brand here in the UK. What we are now doing is expanding that brand into the core insurance products such as motor insurance. So that's our plan. In terms of achievements so far, in terms of customer growth, we've exceeded our expectations. Q: You've already mentioned the strength of your Bancassurance partnerships. Are these the main way of reaching new customers in the UK? A: Let's talk a little more broadly about our corporate partnership business. Our ethos is to really access customers in the way that they want to be accessed, or the way that they want to buy products. So if I look at our corporate partnership business, it's really broken down into three main areas. First, there is the bancassurance, and we've talked about the large footfall that HSBC has, and we have other bancassurance clients, such as Barclays and Abbey. The next category of partners is big retail brands, and consumers love retail brands, and they trust their retail brands. So we have many, many partners who have strong retail brands, and have that trust and pull with clients. The last category is affinities, and affinity in the UK, as an example, is something like Saga, which has built a great reputation and trust with the over- 50 population. So those three categories are the categories of the partnerships that we have, and allow us to really build a diversified business, with many, many points of access to customers. 3

4 Q: Could the rest of the business learn from your expertise in this area? A: Absolutely. I worked here in the UK from 1999 to 2001, and was amazed by the development of our corporate partnership business. Our heritage has been to really build that channel. We are the leaders in that channel, both here in the UK and across the world. And one of the things I took back to Canada was that passion for the business, and that insight, and we actually did end up launching our first partner in Canada while I was CEO there, a very large partnership, with a major retailer in Canada. So there is absolutely the ability to take that forward across our other businesses around the world. Q: What impact has this year's heavy flooding had on the business, and what can you do to minimise the effects of natural disasters? A: First, I want to talk about response, because I'm really proud of it. These were major events in the UK. For Norwich Union alone, we had over 30,000 people displaced from their homes. I'm delighted with the way our teams responded across the country. From a service level, we took this head-on. In many of our centres, we doubled staff. From an innovation standpoint, there was great creativity amongst our teams on how they responded. We were the first insurer to arrange for caravans to be available for people that were displaced from their homes, temporary kitchens. We had our mobile claims centre out in the affected areas, making it easy for customers to access our claims service. So from a service perspective, it was absolutely brilliant to see our staff be there at the moment of truth for so many of our clients. In terms of the longer-term effects, we've had flood mapping here in the UK. We led that initiative of really being able to analyse the effects of floods, and with that unique technology. And I think that technology helped us actually avoid a greater loss, so that was quite helpful for us. In terms of what we're doing going forward, well, clearly, something's changing in weather patterns around the world. We are seeing more severe impacts of weather, and we're seeing that in the UK, with increased exposure to floods. Our view is, it's important to be able to take rate increases, to take into account the long-term weather average, and that was one of the principal drivers for our announced 10% rate increase on homeowners in July. Now, it comes down to a very basic principle in insurance, which is that the premiums of the many have to create a pool, sufficient to pay the losses of the few. And we felt we had to recalibrate that equation, to take into account the long-term weather average. 4

5 Outlook Q: How do you see the general insurance market in the UK developing, and what role do you see Aviva playing in that market? A: Well, first our role is simple. We're going to be the leaders. We're going to be the outright winner here in the UK, and carry through our number one position. I'd like to break down that discussion into two areas. First, in personal lines, to me it is absolutely about pricing expertise and segmentation. It's a very, very competitive market. The advantage we have in that pricing and segmentation is our size gives us more data than any other player here in the marketplace. In terms of commercial lines, there's a bit of a war for distribution going on right now, and the winners are going to be the ones that can help brokers, I believe, stay independent. We have our four point plan around how we're helping the broker channel, not just survive, but thrive here in the UK. Q: And finally, let me finish by asking you, what does One Aviva mean to you? A: Well, first, I'm delighted to be part of the new Aviva team. Andrew has brought together a great team of individuals that bring a wealth of experience, and a serious amount of diversity of thinking that we haven't seen before. And that, in the last five months, is leading, I think, to some great strategies and great thinking. Our teams are seeing that, in that focus, and that thinking, is coming through in our new regional structure. 5