In Conversation with: Steve Greenwood

What drew you to the insurance industry and Arch? 

Like many who work in insurance, I ’fell’ into it rather than chose it, joining a small independent brokerage at a young age, after realising retail wasn’t for me.  In the end, I was broking for nearly 15 years.  

When I left broking at the end of 2019 and joined Arch, we were a relatively new player on the UK scene. But, from the day I joined, there was a clear long-term growth plan and strategy about where the business wanted to be, which I was excited by.  

I joined as a Broker Relationship Development Manager in Colchester and loved every aspect of the job, meeting brokers, bouncing ideas and trying to get under the bonnet of their business and how they want to work with Arch. 

Towards the end of 2022, Mike Bottle, our Head of Strategy & Distribution reached out to me to ask me to set up a new team, which wanted to better service independent brokers across the UK, as we felt they were being under-served by the market. I jumped at the chance to develop a new team and see how it could help the continued growth of the Arch business by doing what we do best: servicing brokers.  

With the launch of the National Development Team, which brokers are you looking to work with?  

Within the National Development Team, where we are looking to work with smaller, independent, brokers, as we see a huge opportunity within this segment of the market. Many of these brokers tend to be owner managed with an extensive knowledge of their loyal client base.  

I also work within Arch’s Maidstone Hub, where our focus is on network brokers who haven’t previously been aligned to a regional Arch branch or if they have, aren’t trading extensively. For these brokers, we can offer solutions for Property, Casualty and Motor Fleet as well as access into Arch for PI, Marine Trades and Accident & Health.      

Where are you seeing the most opportunities for growth? 

There is strong appetite across the market to write standard Commercial Combined and Commercial Property Owners. However, in addition to this we have had a huge amount of success writing tricky product-led Commercial Combined business through our Solving Complex Risks solution, and we see this as an area for continued growth.  

I also see huge opportunity within the new suite of Arch digital products which will be coming to market over the next few months. We will have further products launching on Acturis, and solutions planned for other software houses throughout the year.    

What are the most pressing issues currently facing your brokers? 

I speak to a lot of brokers and lack of underwriter availability and the knock-on effect this has on service levels continues to come up as their most pressing issue 

Brokers are looking for proactive communication and reassurances that their enquiries are being handled in a timely manner. Our underwriters are back in our regional offices so that brokers know they can pick up the phone or visit one of our branches and speak to a person if a risk requires a more in-depth conversation.  

How does Arch look to differentiate its offering in the market? 

Our flexibility, responsiveness and speed of service has helped us to differentiate and grow in the UK market. We’re proud to have won a number of recent awards recognising this, most notably the British Insurance Awards, Broker Partner of the Year award and top of the Insurance Times 5* Survey  

We have also set up the Hub in Maidstone as a dedicated underwriting resource for those brokers who are part of a network, providing them access to regional underwriters and products.  

Arch is focussed on investing in its products, systems and people which will enable us to carry on delivering our award-winning service.    

It all comes down to trading the way our brokers want to trade, striving to find informed solutions for both our brokers and clients and doing the simple things well time and time again.