As somebody who decided she wanted to become a broker at the age of eight, the insurance journey of Lucy Hodgson, director at Eastwood and Partners, is an example of the variety of routes into the market. Speaking with Insurance Business for a recent IB Talk podcast, Hodgson highlighted that her interest in the profession was piqued when her father used to take her and her brothers into his office on a Saturday morning.
“We’d roam around and play while he opened the post,” she said. “His office always seemed to me to be a place of fun… It’s somewhere I liked to be, probably because I also liked to spend time with my dad. And as he was always working, it gave me the chance to spend time with him. But as I got older, I started going into the office during my school holidays, doing filing and writing cover notes.
“Then, when my dad realised I had a genuine interest in what he did, he started to tell me about insurance, how it works, the clients he went to see and what they did. And I remember him telling me about Lloyd’s and how people would go and see underwriters who would be sitting in boxes. And I was fascinated to see actually, when I finally went to Lloyd’s as a grownup, that they actually did sit in boxes - although they were slightly different boxes to the sort my child’s brain had imagined!”
Now with almost three decades of insurance experience to her name, Hodgson’s interest in insurance has shown no signs of wavering. The variety of her job is what keeps her enthusiasm alive, she said, as well as the deep and meaningful connections she is able to form with her clients. She noted that she’s especially keen never to lose that connection with her clients’ businesses and the work that they do.
“But I also like being part of an industry where no two days are the same and you meet lots of different people,” she said. “I did find the pandemic very challenging as my world became very small. And it made me realise that being around other people, including my colleagues, clients and insurance friends was very important to my well-being.”
What are your thoughts on Lucy Hodgson’s insurance story? Please feel free to share your comments below.
