Sooner or later, all that is old becomes new again – it applies to fashion, to the economy, to music and, it emerges, also to the values that govern the insurance ecosystem. It was a recognition of the need for a return to a more traditional ethics and a partnership-led approach to insurance broking that led to the creation of Partners&, according to CEO Phil Barton (pictured).
Barton, who previously served as CEO of Jelf (now Marsh Commercial), has spent the best part of 40 years in insurance, which has granted him a holistic perspective on what the industry gets right and wrong. Partners& was crafted from an ambition to create a challenger business, built to address the shortcomings he has seen in the marketplace.
“We love broking, but not the way it’s done today by many of our larger competitors,” he said. “There’s a real short-termism in the industry and a real focus on scale-based acquisition, neither of which ultimately serve the clients well. So, we wanted to launch a business which would challenge some of that short-termism, hence the branding Partners&. By the very definition of the phrase, a partnership is a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.
“Our driving purpose is to create long term, positive relationships with clients, with the people who work with us, and also with our ecosystem - of which our insurers are a key part. So that’s our essence, we want to change the pendulum swing in the market, change the direction of the market and bring clients back to the centre of activities.”
At its core, the broking firm aims to be not the biggest but rather the best advisory business in the UK, Barton said, as its team believes passionately in the power of advice. When others are focused on short-term profit, commoditisation and the dumbing down of the insurance proposition, the Partners& team is heading in the opposite direction. It is an aspiration that has proven the value of its proposition during the COVID crisis.
COVID has been a human tragedy and an economic disaster in so many ways, Barton noted, but it has played to the strategy and the strengths of the firm as clients need valuable and trusted advice more than ever. They’re more risk-aware and risk-averse than they’ve ever been, he said, and they’re looking for an alternative offering to the short-term approach adopted by too many across the industry.
“We’ve grown dramatically since launching in April 2020,” he said. “We’re now projecting about £27 million of revenue, we have 360 people working in the firm and we have 16 offices around the UK. I think we are really appealing to great talent in the industry and fantastic clients. The thesis that we began the business with 18 months ago, is now a proven theory. And our growth strategy is different to the large consolidation vehicles in that half our growth, at least, will be through the attraction of talent.”
This talent focus is exemplified in the individuals Partners& has onboarded since its inception, including the recent addition to Ross Dingwall to the team, Barton said. People want to be a part of a proposition that they can believe in, he said, and when the firm first launched, he and his management team wrote two specific papers before they sought funding. The first outlined what the best client proposition in the market needed to look like and the second discussed what the best people proposition entailed.
“We explored what is the best, most dynamic, most client-centric culture that we could possibly create? And we were fortunate enough then to find the funder who was prepared to back us to build both of those things. That’s what we do and that’s why we’re succeeding,” he said. “I would like to think we are the natural port of call for an ethical, high-quality advisor that wants to put their clients first, and wants to be a part of a team that collaborates to deliver seamless advice to clients.”
It has been fascinating to watch the evolving demand for ethical-based insurance services sweep the insurance ecosystem, he said, and it feels like going back to the future. Partners& is intent on delivering the very best traditions of broking, albeit through the smart utilisation of technology and this blend of tradition and innovation is allowing the firm to look beyond the way things are done, to explore the way things should be done.
“If you’re so focused on your own growth, you lose sight of your primary purpose, which is looking after clients,” he said. “And the larger brokers, in my view, can use clients as fodder for their own journey. And that is why you get market characteristics such as administration fees always increasing, profiteering out of premium finance, narrowing placement strategies - not because it’s right for the client but because it enables the financial model of the large broker. And we are saying there is a better way, there is a different way where you can serve clients, and in the long term generate sustainable profit.”
Barton and his team believe passionately in what they are doing and aim to establish Partners& as a “very credible alternative to the global brokers”. And that goes back to his point about not seeking to become as big as the larger consolidators but rather focusing on quality and advice.
“We’re building a great team and we have so many really talented people across the whole business,” he said. “[The] acquisitions we’ve made are of super businesses that share our values and want to be a part of the journey we’re travelling and we’re recruiting some great people from global brokers and from larger vehicles. So, we’re delivering on the vision we have for the business, which is massively exciting.”
