We shadow Stephen Smith, Trading Manager (North), to understand the role the newly formed Trading Team plays in developing new and existing relationships, and matching brokers with appropriate partner markets:
How does a typical working day start for you?
I tend to arrive in the office for around 8am. I’m an early riser and I like to get a head start on the day.
My first job, like everyone else, is to check my emails, which usually include correspondence or enquiries from our broker community regarding platform opportunities.
As a team, we have a number of tools that we can use to help support our strategic partners and brokers, so I load these onto a second screen, which gives me a data view of trading insights, alongside a screen with emails and project information.
Once that’s done, it’s lock screen on, swiftly followed by kettle on for the first cup of coffee!
What’s the busiest part of the day?
We monitor platform analytics, which show that our busiest time of day for log-ins is around 10-11 throughout the week. This is reflected in interaction with our partners, who tend to call around the same time to chat through opportunities.
Our new alerts and notifications system is helping with this, as platform users are notified of opportunities in real time, which lessens the mid-morning peak of log-ins.
The afternoons tend to be a mix of internal calls amongst the wider business, and planning calls with our strategic partners or broker community.
What are you most proud of?
We are seen by many of our partners as an extension of their team and as a result, we have some great working relationships. For me, this is a big deal. It feels productive; like we are doing something different and new, which is making a big difference. I’m proud of the position we find ourselves in. I’m also excited by the future, both in terms of growth within our broker community, our insurer partners, and upcoming platform developments.
What’s the biggest challenge?
Time! Getting a chance to speak to brokers can be a challenge as they are all very busy. This is getting easier as, in simple terms, our platform saves broker’s time. The easiest way to explain this is to look at the new calculator on our website. The more wasted effort we remove, the more time members of our broker community have. It’s helping our strategic partners also, as the quality and relevance of their broker engagement is increasing, thanks to the role of the platform and work of us as a Trading Team.
How has your role changed over the past year?
We are increasingly seeing our partners utilise the system and the Trading Team to help them maximise the potential of their data and meet their commercial objectives.
What was once a ‘side of desk’ platform has become far more of a mainstream solution for our partners, who use the system’s tool kit at a case level and to inform their strategic planning. Our data team have undertaken some analysis of platform usage metrics, and these have shown that brokers now average two visits per week to the Policy Placement page.
My role has evolved along with the evolution of the platform as I now have more insight and data to support discussions. The platform insights drawn from data help brokers to better understand their book and identify opportunities that fit our partner’s appetites, bridging the knowledge gap between the two.
Lastly, what’s your favourite part of the job?
Ahhh… It’s the people. Yes, we are a technology company, but commercial insurance is still a people business. It’s also full of great characters and I can speak for the whole team when I say that getting to know our counterparts within insurers or members of our broker community is a big benefit of the job.
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