For Robert Cooper (pictured), founder and director of Cooper Professional Risks (CPR), 40 years of experience in the insurance industry has changed how he interacts with both current and potential clients.
“When I started out in insurance, brokers were essentially door-to-door salesmen selling an insurance product to solve a potential problem. To many, we still have that image. However, I’ve found that people don’t like pushy salesman. These days they want to deal with trusted advisers who have the skills and knowledge to find cost effective solutions to their risk exposures,” he told Insurance Business.
“We rely on receiving referrals from satisfied clients, or relationships we have built up in our local community, and essentially leave it up to them on whether to seek us out. This has worked well for us and is an approach that I really prefer. You are already in the box seat if they already know all about you. I’m not out there trying to steal customers away from other insurance brokers – I basically want to provide a long-term relationship if they don’t have a broker, or if they’re unhappy with their current provider,” Cooper clarified.
“Doing things like rewarding long-term loyalty needs to be something that we practice in insurance.”
For Cooper, restoring a sense of honesty and trustworthiness to the profession of insurance broking is a long-term goal – one that has become easier to realise through the work he and his wife, Mandy, do at CPR.
“When you start your own business, you’re able to do things in your own way, which offers a great amount of freedom,” he stated. “In this respect, I think there’s a great deal of importance in being an ethical kind of broker, one that acts in the client’s best interests.”
“We need to raise the bar and improve our image – insurance brokers need to take on the role of being experts and trusted advisors to our clients, to educate them on how to manage their risks,” he added.
Cooper is a strong believer in acting locally but thinking globally. He is currently the president of the Windsor and Districts Historical Society and is a past president of the Rotary Club of Windsor, while Mandy sits on the management committee of the charity ChaplainWatch where, among other responsibilities, she organises their annual charity ball.
“People do get to know us and trust us through these community initiatives and sometimes it does lead to them doing business with us, but really, the reward is the chance to get involved with the community itself and contribute to it,” he commented.
When it comes to an issue like climate change, however, Cooper is adamant that things need to happen on a much larger scale.
“Insurance is a global industry, and that certainly applies when we’re talking about climate change,” he said. “These natural disasters and catastrophes are increasing in frequency and severity, and so we need to be acting in ways that will reduce the likelihood of such events happening as the world increasingly deals with the fallout from this issue.
“Premiums are increasing, particularly in the property area due to the effects of extreme weather events, and it’s clear – we need to come together as a community and deal effectively with climate change.”
