From a sixth-month maternity cover contract in November 2015 to being named the first woman executive director of FUW Insurance Services, Karen Royles’ trajectory through the market is a masterclass in the opportunities made possible by a career in insurance. “I had no idea when I first walked into the Ruthin office that in less than 10 years’ time, I’d be made director,” she said. “I couldn’t be more grateful to the company and the development opportunities they’ve given me.”
Reflecting on her “exciting but surreal” journey, Royles (pictured) said she’s delighted to be able to share the news of her directorship, having had to keep it under wraps while the FCA confirmed approval. It’s a great testament to how far the business has come in the last five years and its ongoing commitment to nurturing an organically diverse and homegrown talent pool.
Royles highlighted that the vast majority of the broker’s management team have come up through the ranks of the business, and started their respective insurance careers as account handlers. That focus on talent development is a real point of differentiation for the agricultural brokerage, and Royles is deeply committed to continuing to bring people along on the firm’s growth story.
“We have a couple of very good managers that we’ve brought in from elsewhere,” she said. “But I honestly believe the best of our people are usually the ones who work their way up because they have that knowledge of the business from the ground up, which helps in understanding what needs to be done.”
Coming from a hospitality background herself, having managed her first pub in Cardiff at 23 before moving to take on three pubs in Cardiff, then three in Bristol, before taking on a major site in Liverpool, she couldn’t have predicted a move to an insurance career. “It was 24/7 work and I loved it for years,” she said of her publican background. “I thrived in that environment but eventually it was time to slow down a bit.”
After returning to North Wales, she was considering her next steps when the opportunity arose to join FUW in a temporary role. “I loved it from day one,” she said. What was interesting was the number of transferable skills that made her entry to a brand-new career and industry much smoother than might have been anticipated.
“People management was a big part of that,” she said. “Coming through student pubs, where we employed a lot of students and young people, you get a lot of experience in managing people who have very different backgrounds and styles of working. You learn a lot from managing in those sorts of environments. And pubs are so fast-paced. If you stand behind a bar in Cardiff on a Wales-England rugby match day, you learn a lot about yourself and about other people!
“It’s also a great up-skiller in terms of multitasking skills, organisational skills and how to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. Also, managing pubs requires a lot of skills around financing, auditing and budgeting. It was surprising for me, going into an office job and seeing how many similarities there were within the two industries which, on paper, would appear worlds apart.”
As someone who thrives in a busy working environment, joining the fast-growing brokerage was a natural fit and Royles said she still appreciates that every day working in insurance brings something new. People don’t tend to think about insurance as being fast-paced or varied, she said, but the reality is that no matter how closely you plan your day, a single phone call can send it careening off in a different direction. A puzzle-solver by heart, she relishes the awkward claims and complaints that mean you have to put your trouble-shooting hat on, and dig into 100s of pages of policy.
“Take for instance, recently we had one of our insurers lose their capacity, and it was a £3 million account,” she said. “ It was a huge account, and I could see all the other managers’ faces falling, but I do love a challenge. So, I was saying, ‘that’s fine. So, how are we going to fix this one?’ It’s that piece which really excites me.”
Royles noted that her time in the market has really drummed home the power of building and maintaining great relationships. She made the decision early on to do her cert CII, and has seen the fantastic grounding that gave her from a technical standpoint, and has since gone on to do her diploma. But that’s not how you learn, she said - you learn by doing and speaking to other people, and building great relationships in the sector.
Within FUW alone, she said, there are people with a tremendous wealth of knowledge and insight, some of whom have been with the business for decades now. With that in mind, she’s a passionate advocate of the need to take a multigenerational approach to talent development – and cautioned against the loss of expertise that will occur if brokerages allow more senior talent to depart the market without having the opportunity to share their insights.
“We just launched an internal academy to support our handlers who are moving to account executive roles, because it is a big jump,” Royles said. “This academy will see us train up and invest in the best of our handlers, and the best people to train them are our experienced account execs. Because they’ve been here years, they are heading towards retirement and if we don’t absorb their knowledge before they leave the business then it’s gone for good. Who better to train those coming up the talent pipeline than those who have made that journey already?”
FUW invests heavily in its new starters as well, she said, supporting them in being CII qualified within 18 months of joining the firm. From her own experience, she understands the power of having a clear trajectory that you can work towards, as it’s what separates a job from a career – which is a distinction the brokerage is very clear about.
“It’s about creating clear targets for them, both personally and professionally, so they know where they’re going,” she said. “It’s something I’m really proud of, to be able to show them that path can go as far as director. I don’t speak Welsh, I don’t have an agricultural background, and I don’t have an insurance background. I think if I can do it, anyone can – you just need to be given the right opportunities, and have the right mentality required to seize and make the most of those opportunities.”
