From job creation, to GDP growth, to nurturing the spirit of entrepreneurship – the critical role SMEs play in shaping the UK economy is underpinned by their access to the right insurance programmes and risk management expertise.
As regional director of the North and Scotland for WTW, Chris Milnes (pictured) works with businesses of every shape and size, and so sees first-hand the responsibility insurance businesses have to support their clients at every stage of their growth journeys. Entrepreneurship drives growth for everybody, he said, and getting the right support structures in place is what enables businesses to scale-up and develop.
He noted that working in the North of England brings incredible variety to his day-to-day life, because there is capital in the market that is being invested (albeit cautiously) across the region. Looking to Scotland, he highlighted how he gets to work with some amazing family businesses which are undergoing exponential growth journeys without losing their entrepreneurial spirits.
“People in the North and Scotland tend to be quite resilient,” he said. “They’ve been through industrialisation, through the lack of investment in infrastructure projects and they just crack on and get on with what they’re doing. It’s great to see that resilience within some great businesses, who maybe haven’t yet had the external investment that they need but are still providing amazing growth stories.
“And when you get to know these businesses and you become trusted by them, it’s fantastic. No two days are ever the same, no two clients are ever the same and everybody’s risk profile is completely different. So, I get to work with some super interesting businesses and support them getting to the next stage in their growth.”
It’s a particularly interesting and rewarding time to be doing his role, Milnes said, as businesses are crying out for the right advice. The current risk environment is incredibly complex with inflation, the cost-of-living crisis, geopolitical instability and talent pipeline concerns all impinging on clients at the same time. So, clients’ recognition of the power of ‘value’ above price when it comes to insurance is coming up against the brick wall that is their financial constraints.
“For quite some time now, it has felt like one crisis after another,” he said, “Whether it’s political instability within our country, or war elsewhere, or supply chain concerns, people are more aware of just how risky the world is today. But I think sometimes, as humans, we can be a bit myopic and just focus on the thing that’s right in front of us and forget about everything else.
“For us [at WTW], it’s about supporting our clients through that immediate challenge while also helping them map out the broader risk environment. And we recognise that everybody’s a little bit more price conscious because of what’s going on in the world in terms of inflation, the energy crisis. Cost is on our customers’ minds.”
Insurance is a significant outlay for businesses, Milnes said, and with cost proving such a critical consideration at this time, clients have heightened expectations of value from their insurance programmes. Clients are more aware than ever of how accurately their insurance programme reflects their risk profile and they’re more willing to ask questions from their insurance partners about whether these programmes are fit for purpose.
“We’re actually seeing a lot of our clients ask for analytics as well,” he said. “They’re actively using the data we can supply them to give them real meaningful insights into what they look like as a risk, how they compare with their peers, the total profile of their risks and how they can restructure those risks to make sure they’re deploying their capital effectively.
“Clients want more of a partnership with [their brokers and risk managers] which is where we’ve really been able to step in. We’re holding a 99.2% retention rate with our clients in the North which is absolutely amazing but where we’ve picked up new clients is through that ‘Insights’ piece, by spending time with them and going through their risk profiles with them.”
Where WTW stands out is that it isn’t looking to be all things to everybody, he said. Milnes and his team are not interested in building short-term or transactional relationships with their clients but rather to evolve genuine partnerships with them as a trusted broker and risk advisor that is looking to add value to these businesses through insight and analytics, as well as the right insurance coverage.
There’s a great team within WTW who have been nurturing these client relationships for many years now, he said, but there has been a tendency in the past to “hide our light under a bushel”. For Milnes, who stepped into his role at the beginning of the year, a key area of focus now is on communicating WTW’s client-centric proposition better across the wider market, and on capitalising on the group’s reputation while leveraging it for further growth.
“I think we’ve got a great brand, but I just don’t know whether enough people know about us,” he said. “So, we’re just looking to have more conversations with more people about what we can do. Because we’ve got so many things within our armoury that we probably don’t talk about enough as it stands. And I’m looking to change that record.”
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