“As an organisation, our culture and our philosophy have never really changed. We like to do things with a bit of pace, a bit of warmth, a bit of wit and confidence, but always with a lot of professionalism.”
When Nick Hobbs (pictured) was appointed chief distribution officer for Allianz Commercial in the UK earlier this year, he was hailed as “the natural choice” in helping to affirm Allianz as a leader in the UK’s commercial insurance market. Now four months into the role which sees him lead all aspects of distribution for the recently unified business unit, he shared what’s at the top of his agenda and why his new position is a little bit like coming home.
“It has been a bit of a ride because I started my career in the large corporate world of AGCS as it was then,” he said. “So now, to be working in a role that brings me back into that space, where I’m back looking after elements of large corporate and specialty is a nice position to be in.”
Over two decades with Allianz has shown him what a richly diverse organisation it is, he said, as underscored by his current role which encompasses large-corporate, specialty, mid-corporate, digital/SME and engineering inspection business lines – and supports 80+ products. Allianz’s global commercial business is a €20 billion proposition, of which the UK represents circa €3 billion so laying the foundations for this realignment has involved a lot of moving parts.
“I think that’s why we’re so excited about this,” he said. “Whenever you’re building a new organisation, you find energy, driving ambition and enthusiasm around that and that’s no less the case here. And that ambition and the drive behind the creation of Allianz Commercial is really quite compelling for people like me but also all those who work alongside me as well.”
It’s a natural part of the lifecycle of organisations that different functions split and join apart again, and the coming together within Allianz Commercial of different elements that were separated 20 years ago, is having several key impacts. When you separate any business, let alone one with 80+ products, you create gaps, he said, and those gaps become clearer as the pieces slot back into the overall puzzle.
The second impact of this re-alignment is that it is enabling Allianz Commercial to fill those gaps with an expansion of appetite and an expansion of proposition, he said, which allows the team to go out to the market and offer more to customers and brokers alike. It’s been a deeply rewarding experience for his team, he said, allowing them to “scratch the itch” they’ve developed over the years from not being able to get to all the corners of the market.
“For our customers and broker partners, this brings clarity about who’s doing what because it’s one company dealing with it, an aligned organisation with an aligned appetite,” he said. “We’re going to make it easier than ever for the customer and the broker. Rather than them having try and navigate us, we’ll do the navigation on their behalf.”
Hobbs noted that it’s a hallmark of Allianz, informed by its senior leadership team, that it moves “with pace and with grace”, and the rapid evolution of Allianz Commercial in the UK has been no exception. When you’re putting a business together, he said, it has to be done quickly and in such a way that makes sense to both your internal teams and your external partners.
A lot of the work being done behind the scenes is on getting “the plumbing” of the restructure right, Hobbs said, whether that’s sorting out legal structures or trading basics. Meanwhile, the front-facing work has been around introducing the business’s internal teams and external customers and partners to the revamped proposition and appetite of Allianz Commercial in the UK.
“Bringing the business together has allowed us to identify all the great places our teams haven’t been able to fill before,” he said. “And once you’ve identified those, you can make more certain statements about what you’re going to do in terms of climate solutions, multinational solutions, etc. So, that’s absolutely at the top of the agenda as far as Allianz Commercial is concerned.
“However, it isn’t the only show in town as, within that commercial operation, we also have an e-trade offering – QuoteSME – the transformation of which culminated in 2023, allowing us to go out to market with some vim and vigour about what that digital offering means for all our broker partners – whether small or large, because it’s a volume-based part of our business. We’re not just looking at supporting the big, complex stuff, and the mid-market, we’re also making sure we go large with what we’ve been doing to transform our digital offering as well.”
Attention has also turned to the business’s engineering inspection offering, which represents such a value-add for clients, he said, and ensuring every effort is made to maintain its market-leading status amid everything else that’s happening. Plans are already in place to expand that significantly in 2024.
Underpinning all this work is the ambition to bring everyone within the business along on the transformation journey of Allianz Commercial in the UK, he said, and that all starts with education. It’s about making colleagues and the wider market aware of the full suite of products on offer and what that means for them, which is an ongoing exercise but a lot of fun.
The plans in motion for advancements in the digital space and engineering inspection space are running alongside business as usual, he said, which for Allianz is never a case of resting on its laurels and includes the launch of a new accident and health product, and the refresh of its mini fleet product. The business is also paying close attention to what’s happening in the regulatory space particularly around Consumer Duty which as an exercise “is never concluded”, and around multi-occupancy residential buildings.
ESG remains a critical priority, he said, as Allianz continues to find new ways to play a bigger part in the communities it supports. Efforts include the net-zero accelerator proposition which looks to support its prime partners in attaining or protecting their net-zero status, and its sports community fund, which sees brokers nominate teams to secure grants from the insurer. On a larger scale, Allianz Group published its first comprehensive Net Zero transition plan in September - in which the UK will play a part.
At the core of all this is Allianz’s claims proposition, Hobbs said, in recognition of the fact that a claims offering is the proof-of-concept of the insurance industry. He pointed to the work being done by chief claims officer Graham Gibson in curating a “second to none” offering, as backed by multiple Gracechurch surveys.
“And we continue to build out our segmentation philosophy,” he said. “We changed how we approach different segments of our business in late 2022 and relaunched a couple of propositions for our broker partners, and our prime partners who are brokers who are just starting to do meaningful business with us or those who’ve been doing meaningful business for a while. That’s had some significant success in 2023 so we’re going to continue to invest in that which is a great platform to build on as we head into 2024.”
