The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has been significant – as such, brokers have been forced to change their business operations to be flexible and provide opportunities for their employees to work from home.
But according to David Coe (pictured), managing director of North West Insurance, business service standards must not be overlooked despite the challenges currently presented to the industry.
“Our brokerage took the stance of protecting both staff and clients by implementing the work at home model a few weeks ago,” he said.
“Working from home, handling client interviews, arranging claims assistance are all tasks we are used to doing but now will have to vary. However, one thing is for certain, our service standards must not drop. There is enough uncertainty out there, as an industry more than ever, let us not add to it.”
While he admits the COVID-19 outbreak caught the industry by surprise, he believes that because broking is founded on risk mitigation, brokers are well-equipped to manage the pandemic in ways that best benefit the workforce and their clients.
“COVID-19 is one of those events that has happened so rapidly and obviously caught out so many industries including our own,” Coe said.
“But we are in the business of ‘risk’ and this is just another risk that must be mitigated as best as possible with as much up to date info as we can lay our hands on. In fact, judging what this will look like on the other side is difficult so many practices have had to change somewhat in what they do every day.”
The biggest operation change Coe has committed to is transitioning into a flexible yet safe working environment – including working from home, but still enabling employees to access the office if necessary.
“Four weeks ago [we started working from home], we started by closing the front doors to the public for one week and had several meetings with staff on how we can overcome this new oncoming and adamant change… but mainly working from home with some shifts coming into the office for printing and scanning where needed,” Coe added.
“Using our website and Facebook, we communicated that out to our clients. It has been interesting and challenging but successful so far as so many clients are in the same boat rearranging their own workplace and habits, so have been understanding of our own changes.
“Most work is being done by email and phone calls to our clients and our staff meet using Zoom meetings which we hold each week.”
While Coe thinks this pandemic has the capacity to change the way we work in the future, his main advice to other brokers in the industry is to anticipate more change coming.
“Be prepared for change,” Coe said.
“Sit down and work out strategies to implement. If you want your car to run smoothly and start each day for you, then you have it serviced regularly. So, run a diagnostics test on your office and staff and see how everything will fit and respond to cases like this.
“The point is this, while this is unprecedented and extraordinary times to say the least, if it can happen once it could certainly happen again. Learn from this moment and prepare.”
