An article by Vicky Rowlay, VP, Director of Transformation, Arch Insurance (UK)
At Arch, we are committed to being more visible, accessible and responsive to our broking partners across the U.K.
Through our network of U.K. offices, our underwriting teams are supporting our chosen broker partner on risks across our various product offerings.
We continue to invest across our underwriting, operating, digital and claims environment to deliver a market-leading broker service.
Our Ongoing Broker Investment
We are investing in our hybrid approach to digital placements, delivering a robust e-trading function while building our highly experienced digital underwriting team. This enables speedy underwriting of non-complex risks and effective off-ramping of those risks requiring referral and an underwriter’s attention.
We are also committed to fostering an environment that attracts, develops and retains stellar employees. Our drive to bolster our talent continues at pace – and while Arch is not immune to the market-wide challenge of recruiting and retaining experienced talent, we have made several key appointments in the past year, successfully attracting market-leading practitioners to the positive underwriting environment we offer.
In addition, we are focused on promoting from within, and we operate a comprehensive development programme that enables key talent to rise through the ranks. Over the last 12 months, we have announced a number of key promotions across the team.
In support of our drive to build future industry talent, we launched the Arch Academy last year. We have attracted a wealth of new entrants to Arch and support them through a two-year development program to fast-track their professional development. We complement our recruitment efforts with both our internship and graduate programmes.
Building the Right Infrastructure and Reducing the Burden on Brokers
We’re investing heavily across our infrastructure with new technologies and data enrichment offerings for our underwriting ecosystem. These will reduce friction in our proposition and create a trading environment with space for conversation and collaboration for our brokers.
With effect from this year, we will operate on a single policy administration system, enabling us to adapt and continuously improve our products and proposition with agility and pace.
Arch is also making a big push in 2024 to enhance and advance our claims capabilities, with investment in more claims handlers, improved processes and a better digital customer journey for brokers.
A Defined Culture
A positive and productive culture based on collaboration continues to form the core of how we work with our brokers. We have a set of values or behaviours that underpin every aspect of how we do business, informs an inclusive and collaborative culture across Arch, and is foundational to our award-winning service culture.
These behaviours range from be the solution and be passionate about the voice of the customer to be relentless about improvement and ensure that no matter which office our brokers are working with, the commitment to and standard of is the same.
Our culture is also one that promotes and thrives on diversity. Through the work of the Arch Academy and our Summer Internship partnership with SEO London, we are opening our doors ever wider to a much more diverse pool of applicants for roles at Arch.
The Arch Commitment
Arch is committed to keeping brokers at the heart of what we do and where we are going as a company.
We are eager to ensure we articulate our broker strategy clearly and deliver value through clarity of cover, scope of product, willingness to problem-solve and quality of service.
The consistency of Arch’s underwriting approach, customer commitment and willingness to collaborate is central to the strength of our broker relations.