Mark Shaw has been named as Head of Broker Relations for Hiscox London Market. Mark tells HGI about his new job and Hiscox’s desire to forge even closer links with its broker partners.
How long have you worked at Hiscox?
I joined in January 2000, so I’ve been here over 13 years.
What did you do before?
I have been lucky to experience a variety of different roles at Hiscox. I started in claims, did a stint as a PI Underwriter, and was Regional Manager for our London Commercial Lines Team in our UK Retail business. My last role was National Account Manager, managing our strategic relationships with Marsh, Aon and Willis.
Describe your new job?
It entails managing our trading relationships with our core broking partners in the London Market business. This involves analysing our current performance from a financial perspective and our general engagement with them. I’ll be supporting our divisional heads in understanding the opportunities for profitable growth, sharing with them the growing amount of data available to us (particularly from the major brokers) to help us to spot trends, where we might have gaps and potential new areas of business. We are looking to be more proactive in how we maximise our relationships, using what I learned from our retail business on account management, how we approach major deals, and, generally, in developing a more consultative approach to how we sell ourselves. Finally, I am keen to support our newer underwriters as they develop their skills, to complement their underwriting and technical expertise with business development techniques.
What is your number one priority in your new role?
HLM has a strong ambition for profitable growth, and in each of our core areas of business we should understand the potential for growth and how we can make that happen. This involves knowing to whom we should be talking, how we best engage with them, how we make ourselves relevant and, importantly, how we add value to our brokers. There is much Hiscox can be very proud of in terms of our brand, heritage and expertise. Understanding the needs of our brokers and how Hiscox can support them is crucial.
Describe a good day in your new job?
It probably wouldn’t involve much time spent at my desk. Instead, I’d spend most of it meeting our key brokers. What’s unique about the London Market is that all our friends and broking colleagues are within walking distance. I also really enjoy meeting our underwriters, appreciating the complexity of what we do, and sharing information across our teams on the progress we are making with our partners in the various business areas.
What insights have you gained into the broking business?
I would say there are two hugely important ones. We are all beginning to understand how important data is and how we can use it to better understand both the opportunities and threats to our business. We deal with huge trading partners that are harnessing data to better understand the needs of their clients and to demonstrate to us how we can better achieve our goals for profitable growth. It’s easy to have an instinctive view on how well we are doing with a broker, but the data often tells a slightly different story, allowing us to push that bit harder to see all the business we have an appetite for.
Secondly, the relationship that brokers have with their clients is very strong, notwithstanding how competitive that world is. We see brokers provide outstanding service and client loyalty every day. We believe that Hiscox complements these strong relationships through our claims service, our understanding of risk and our innovative approach to underwriting.
What’s the most important point you want to get across to brokers?
I think the word partnership is overused and probably abused. But our teams have longstanding relationships with brokers that survive the market cycle, and which evolve as the needs of our clients change. We have made huge strides this year in how we look at how to collectively grow our business with core partners, and I see this gaining momentum in the coming years. The more time we spend together talking through challenges, brainstorming and sharing new ideas will pay massive dividends. So in a nutshell, expect more engagement from us, more innovation, and to see more of us knocking on your door to talk.
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