Industry Challenges

The UK General Insurance Market is one of the most sophisticated & complicated insurance markets in the world, & it is still developing & evolving at a rapid rate. The models in the market around distribution, pricing & underwriting, are constantly being challenged, by new entrants, innovation & the necessities of trading in a recession.

The role of brokers, insurers, managing agents, & aggregators, change & become blurred as the models change & many traditional ways of operating have become quickly obsolete. For example, brokers advertising & marketing budgets have been drastically re-profiled to take into account the rising aggregator channel, sales of policy add-ons have become more important commercially than selling policies on their own, pricing policies, services, & add-ons has become a dynamic & shifting art in itself. All this change & flux is a huge challenge for everyone in the channel, however they are involved in this market.

What it has meant for SSP is that it has become essential to keep close to the market overall, & our clients, & our insurer partners. With so much change going on, SSP has had a huge role in enabling brokers & insurers do more with less, & to add flexibility & innovation to areas on insurance that have not seen change for many years.

SSP have some fantastically entrepreneurial & innovative clients. By working closely with these clients, & by applying our technical skills to solve their problems, craft new solutions & use our distribution skills, we have enabled some of our businesses to be hugely successful in these difficult times.

Unfortunately, we do not see the climate improving much in the next period, nor do we expect the pace of change to slacken at all. As long as trading is difficult & challenging, the pressure to seek that competitive edge, cut out waste & duplication, & find new opportunities drives change by necessity.

We think that the area around underwriting & pricing is one area that will see a massive amount of change in the future. Consumers love the internet for researching & buying pretty much everything these days, & the current aggregator model has some significant flaws in it, often with issues ending up with the insurer, or with an unhappy consumer. We feel that there is a great deal that SSP can do to help solve these issues, using that unique blend we have of technical knowledge with insurance industry experience & expertise. We believe that our role is to bring together the needs of the consumer with the needs of all those who work in the broker channel, to facilitate good service, value for money, & slick, efficient straight through processing. We have some great ideas & initiatives in this area, & think that we have a way to improve the broker channel for all of our broker & insurer partners.

We really believe in this channel, & are committed to making it a successful & prosperous place for our partners to do business. We see big opportunities for our partners to use our skills & experience, to solve issues & meet the challenges they have now around change & innovation.