It’s been a busy few months for Coversure Insurance. The broking franchise has bucked the trend for high-street closures,
opening new offices, and just weeks ago revealed
changes to its board and a new CEO.
Sarah Darling, who was named group sales and marketing director and managing director in the reshuffle, has been central to the action. Insurance Business caught up with her to find out about her unusual pathway into insurance, and what she’s focused on right now.
How did you get your start in insurance?
I didn’t actually choose insurance, it was an evolution for me. I studied fashion and design and worked in the fashion industry for 10 years. I was designing womenswear, and I became really involved in branding – what happened is that people stopped buying the garment, and they bought the brand, so I kind of naturally moved into marketing.
Then I went to work in the financial services sector for a building society, which is quite a unique move to go from fashion to financial services! I took my chartered marketing qualifications while I was there, and that helped me understand the broader business environment. I really appreciated the investment in me, and also, working in a regulated environment was a massive shift – you have to consider so much more. As I moved up within the building society, I started to handle the development of mortgage products, which was really complex, and then I handled a massive project on insurance, because they wanted to move from a single provider to a broker proposition, and I just found it really fascinating. I then moved into sales and marketing in the insurance broking sector [at Saffron Insurance] and finally on to Coversure.
What about the insurance industry interests you?
I think it’s the breadth, actually. No two days are the same. Also, because Coversure is a franchise business, our model gives entrepreneurial insurance experts the opportunity to prove themselves and prove to themselves what they can achieve. We give them the support and the infrastructure to drive everything forward, and every one of our franchisees is different, from the way that they trade, to the products they specialise in, and the types of customers they attract. But all of us want to deliver really good service – we all want to develop the same thing. And I think that’s why the franchise model is so fascinating, because it’s not just about insurance broking, it’s about being an insurance owner as well.
What are some of your career highlights?
I’ve got loads actually! I suppose its watching success and feeling really proud of it, the growth of our franchisees. We have a franchisee who within two years had opened two offices; she’s just so driven, she’s an amazing business owner. Also, we held our conference in March, and we have an exhibition for insurers, and we sold out of stand space, so the backing of our insurers is amazing – we’re going to have to move venues next year.
I’m a great advocate of qualifications, so when staff or franchisees pass their qualifications I get quite a kick from that, really. We’ve also just done some leadership training with our senior managers and seeing them inspired and excited is brilliant. I get involved in business planning with the franchisees, so watching them develop their plans for the future is really exciting too.
What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced, and face today?
The biggest one for me at the moment is we really want to improve customer experience. From the sales and renewals process right through to the documentation, it’s just making sure everything is really clear and understandable for the customer – we have to make sure the customer is understanding what they’re purchasing and what they’re protecting. It’s not a negative challenge, it’s a positive challenge because we’re trying to do something good for the customer, but it’s hard because we’re having to go through all that documentation and all that process and refine it, tweak it, and improve it constantly.
How is technology and digital affecting your business?
We trade with our customers on every platform, whether they want that to be face-to-face, by telephone, by email or buying online – we’ve got that flexibility. We try and embrace that, rather than shy away from it. I think you have to accept that your customer wants to engage in different forms, so they might want to research, and then buy online, or they might want to just talk to somebody about it, and often when we speak to a customer they’ll end up purchasing from us, because they are nervous about purchasing online – they’re concerned sometimes if they understand what they’re buying. But then other people feel very comfortable with it, so I think it’s more about the customer and how they want to engage and interact.
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