You can ask any mathematician – a triangle is a strong shape, a marker of geometric sturdiness and a structural foundation to the roads and bridges and buildings that make up our physical environment. Yet even the metaphysical structure of a triangle has an inbuilt hardiness – a fact well-represented by the strength that exists within tripartite relationships, including the ones that exist between insurers, intermediaries, and consumers.
This is a relationship that seems to have had increased attention levelled at it in recent months. In a recent interview, John Stephenson of Victor Insurance UK emphasised how COVID had accentuated the need for strong relationships across the insurance landscape and has had the effect of strengthening strong partnerships.
Partnership is a fascinating word – derived from the Anglo-Norman French parcener or ‘joint heir’ it is a word that has equal relevance to relationships of both a professional and personal nature, simultaneously offering a fine compliment and a powerful tribute to the time spent nurturing such affiliations. It is a word that it is easy to be guilty of overusing – a misdemeanour that I can admit to freely – as a descriptor for any and every deal struck between two firms, or new entrant to a network, or charitable donation.
But the fundamental nature of what a true partnership entails remain unpolluted by such association, and it is something the insurance profession should welcome with open arms. The sector could do worse than to draw connecting lines between the traits required to make a success of a professional partnership and a personal partnership – be that romantic, platonic, fraternal or otherwise.
Each requires time, care, consistent monitoring and, perhaps above all, the ability to compromise where a compromise does not interfere with any deep-held ethical considerations or boundaries. The ability to compromise is an art form that seems to have been neglected by some in recent years. And I could not deny that in the vast majority of situations it can feel a lot simpler to lay blame at the feet of another and consider the matter dealt with.
The fact remains, however, that insurance as a profession, must play a longer-term game as the abiding success of the industry is founded on longer-term relationships and decision-making processes that can be thrown off course by short-termism and insular thinking. None of that is to say that there is never a clear-cut case of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, merely that there is rarely a right time to point that out.
Insurers, brokers and other intermediaries need to move beyond knee-jerk reactions of blame or protestations of innocence to work together for the benefit of consumers. On the flip-side of that consumers need to be receptive to the efforts being made by many insurance associations to increase their own understanding of what insurance means and what insurance services entail. All three points of this triangle need to work in tandem, particularly as the COVID crisis appears to wind down and the question of what insurance will look like post-COVID steadily becomes more relevant.
COVID-19 brought with it a lot of lessons – it highlighted the importance of strong partnerships, it emphasised the need for the transparency and the perils that shadow a lack of that essential quality, it encouraged the more traditional insurance firms to embrace new channels, and it has perhaps irrevocably altered the future of work. Each one of these comes with their own messages for insurance businesses and the way these businesses operate as they move beyond the crisis.
An old adage states that the wise man learns from his own mistakes, and the wiser man from the mistakes of others. But COVID has hit just about every business and every individual, and so it offers the opportunity to do both. And it would be a poor showing for any insurance business to simply internalise the lessons they have learnt or instead just limit them to external partnerships. These experiences are relevant and essential to all partnerships, and the ability to learn from them will be a key differentiator going forward.
In this way, it is to be hoped that the tripartite relationship that underpins the insurance sector will be strengthened by what has happened and will, in turn, provide a strong groundwork for all that is to come.
