President's Message - March 2019

In any case, I hope that the new season finds you well and ready to take on the opportunities and challenges ahead.

CII Social and Educational….

Ringo’s – Thursday 28^th February 2019. As part of my aim to do more for members socially, we have sought to put in place a wide variety of events for people to join in with. “Ringo’s” was a completely new thing for me! This is essentially sliding down a ski-slope on a giant rubber ring!!

The event was organised by our Young Professionals Group, with Tom Chambers taking a lead role. We had a dozen people attend, including a couple of “newbies” to our events, which was great to see. It was huge fun, even if climbing back up the hill (even with the help of a mini ski lift) was a bit tiring towards the end.

After much sliding, racing and even screaming, we all retired to a local hostelry for a meal and a drink and a chance to catch up and swap stories.

My thanks to Tom for organising and to all those that attended – I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

“The Human Robot” – Tuesday 5^th March 2019. Our latest lunchtime CPD event looked at securing and managing data, led by Kevin Reid who has over 30 years’ experience in data forensics and security.

Ollie Watson from our Council and Education Committee introduced the session and commented to me afterwards that he felt that the event had been well received, that Kevin Reid was very informative and that the meeting room was almost full.

Kevin talked about his experience and background in insurance fraud and on the importance of encryption when it comes to protecting consumer details. Also, he spoke about how the difference kind of encryptions work and the importance of insurance companies accurately capturing and safely storing the data, as well as how criminals are able to obtain data and use it.

Ollie said “one of the topics that Kevin spoke about that stood out for me was how automated insurance company data capture systems produce inaccurate data and how this can be costly when streamlining the process, as it can lead to ambiguity when it comes to the process of claiming or renewing a policy”. Another successful, well attended and well received event – my thanks again to Jo, Ollie and the rest of the Education Committee.

A day in the life of….

This month I asked Lisa Fox to tell us a bit about who she is and what she does. Lisa joined our Council at the start of my Presidency and has been a regular and enthusiastic contributor at Council meetings and sits on our Communications sub-group.

I remember being at a school careers meeting and confidently advising the teacher that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do however I did know I didn’t want a desk job…………….the next thing I knew I was stepping into my first job at Sun Alliance in Ipswich and to be fair getting that “desk job” wasn’t a bad move………insurance has been pretty good to me.

On that first day at Sun Alliance in 1987 I was in a group of 10 new starters, 9 went through the door to Personal Lines and I rather nervously and alone went through the door to Commercial Lines. I began by learning my trade as a Casualty Underwriter. I moved on to specialise in Professional Indemnity underwriting which I found really interesting and exciting!

The training offered at Sun Alliance was excellent and they encouraged me to begin my CII studies in addition to the more specific Professional Indemnity training.

After merging with Royal Insurance, I helped train new recruits, sales staff and Graduate Trainees at RSA. It was good to see some of those people enjoy Professional Indemnity Underwriting as much as I did and go on to have good careers. Then, after many years underwriting I wanted to expand my skill set and moved into a team management role. I hadn’t realised how challenging and rewarding managing people would be.

After 17 years at RSA the opportunity for voluntary redundancy immerged – after a lot of thought I took the plunge and was lucky enough to land a role in AXA Ipswich as a Commercial Lines Team Manager. The move to AXA re-ignited the ambition in me and AXA delivered some unexpected opportunities which have enabled me to test my capabilities:

Working in India for 6 months to help set up the back-office servicing team
Becoming an A/C Manager looking after a group of local brokers & developing their accounts
Supporting the Relationship Manager of AXA CLI’s largest strategic connection
Becoming the Ipswich Branch Commercial Lines Operations Manager (my current role) where I get to work with and lead a great bunch of people. I like the mix of having to react quickly to the many daily challenges and also constantly think strategically to look for those marginal gains.

Supporting colleagues Wellbeing is incredibly important to me and it’s very motivating for me to see staff who I have appointed enjoying their role, and maximising their potential.

I recognise that the local CII provide a vast range of quality, free/low cost, training which helps support mine & my team’s development. Rather than just continue to “take” I felt I owed it to the local CII to at least try to “take part” and therefore, after a great PR job by our President; Richard Brame, I joined the Ipswich CII Council a year ago.

If I’m honest I was a little nervous about a) being seen as an Insurance geek; and b) how much of my time the role would take up…..

NEWSFLASH: the Ipswich CII Council definitely aren’t insurance geeks! What they are is a diverse group of enthusiastic, welcoming people whose sole aim is to provide a fantastic offering for their Institute members in terms of CPD sessions and social events. The Charity Fund Raising has also been impressive.

I have been able to observe and bed in to the group and I look forward to contribute more going forward. Outside of work I love cricket (photos relate to an Ashes tour in Australia) and rugby.