Some may consider moving from banking to insurance to be a major change, but Tower Insurance’s Jonathan Beale (pictured) said he never thought of himself as a ‘banker’ over his years in the finance industry, but rather a ‘financial services professional.’
Beale, who recently took on the role of managing director of partnerships at Tower Insurance, spent eight years as the general manager of wealth at ASB before deciding to switch things up and move into the general insurance sector. Beale had worked with insurance and mortgage advisers throughout his time at ASB, and said he was looking for a new challenge that would allow him to put his distribution and relationship building skills to good use - an opportunity that Tower was able to provide.
“I didn’t think of myself as a ‘banker’, but as more of a financial services professional who happened to have worked in banks,” Beale told Insurance Business.
“I was involved in wealth and advice, and then got involved in the general insurance side. It was a great place to work, but I wanted to really use the skills I’ve learnt around distribution, advice, relationship building and strategic thinking, and I wanted to work for an organisation where the culture, values and growth mindset were there. Tower definitely ticked all those boxes.”
Beale said that when it comes to dealing with customers through advisers, Tower is looking to really utilise its digital capabilities, and to find ways to have the ‘insurance conversation’ much earlier in the process.
“We really want to be part of the process that advisers have with customers, and a big part of that will be about how we use digital tools and shared data, so that we can get much closer to the point where the customer actually needs to be thinking about insurance,” Beale explained.
“We sometimes forget that when someone goes to an adviser and wants to borrow money, the borrowing isn’t the key thing - they want to buy a first home, or a rental. The mortgage industry is able to support that, but how can we get the importance of insurance into that conversation?”
“Being part of a digital process and using data will help do that differently,” he said.
“Through a lending application, for example, you can gather enough data to assess how much your home insurance is going to be, and we can try and reduce the number of questions that we ask customers and make it a much easier and simpler process.
“At heart, I’m really focused on growth and making sure that customers get the right outcome.”
