Like so many of his peers, Beam Insurance MD David Johnston’s (pictured) route into insurance was the result of chance and opportunity – those natural accompaniments to any successful career. Working in the finance sector was always on the cards after leaving university, he said, but banking, accounting and insurance were all in the mix.
In the end, it was an offer to work with Provincial that piqued his interest and over the course of the next eight years, Johnston moved all around the UK, obtaining his FCII. Looking to broaden his experience with a larger insurance company he moved across to the Guardian Royal Exchange (GRE), where he had the opportunity to work with a significant panel of brokers.
“Working with them as a sales inspector, it was starting to dawn on me that actually, brokers in many respects were better off than a lot of underwriters,” he said. “The poachers were better off than the gamekeepers, so to speak… I started to look at the broking side of things and realised that from a technical point of view, as a qualified and experienced inspector, I could really do the work of the broker.
“What I maybe didn’t appreciate at the time is that to be a successful broker, you have to build great relationships with people. The technical part is only one aspect of it. Looking back, I can understand why it doesn’t work out for some people who think they can make it in broking. Every broker should have the right technical abilities but what separates the great from the average, really comes down to personality and relationships.”
Taking the approach of blending professional qualifications, technical skills and personality – Johnston took the plunge of entering the broking world via an IFA who had a small, general book of business. Broking soon proved a natural fit and 1995 saw the launch of Johnston Park McAndrew (JPM) as an independent intermediary which was later authorised through the FCA in 2005.
Building up a business from scratch while working from the proverbial dining table with the company of his one-year-old daughter was a lot of fun, noted Johnston – and 28 years later, the firm is still going from strength to strength. The company – which rebranded to Beam in February 2019 – now boasts a team of 36, four of which have been with Beam for 20 years or more.
“We’ve been through the journey,” he said. “What’s been critical to us is looking after our staff along the way. That’s always been my philosophy for running a business – to appreciate that people have got a personal life as much as a work life. And that’s a philosophy that has come into its own with the world being turned on its head in the last three years… It’s all about recruiting the right people who fit in with each other and help each other.
“When people ask me what’s the one thing that prevents [brokerages of our size] getting to the next level and to the size we want to get to, it is recruitment and being able to find the right type of people. Technical abilities we can always train, but it’s finding people that have got the right attitude and who want to learn is a challenge facing business of every size.”
Looking back on Beam’s history, Johnston highlighted how his early-doors insight into the power of relationships quickly proved accurate. If you make a lot of high-quality, trusting relationships in business and you keep doing things the right way, he said, then good luck will come your way. For Beam, that came in the form of an opportunity to broker the conversion of the largest Royal Mail sorting office in Europe to the iconic Birmingham mixed-use development - the Mailbox.
“That was what really established our reputation in the Birmingham market,” he said. “I was so fortunate to be given that opportunity by Mark [Billingham]. I was fortunate to have the right technical background, which was probably key but we would never have tended for that piece of business without that existing relationship. Because compared to the likes of Marsh and WTW and everybody else who would have liked to do it, we wouldn’t have thought we stood a chance.”
Among the key milestones achieved by the Beam team include its successful tender for the Cube building in Birmingham, the news that Broker Investment Group is boosting its stake in the business, and its acquisitions of Absolute Risk Solutions in 2021 and Andrew Phillips Insurance Brokers earlier this year. Beam prides itself on taking a very ethical approach to dealmaking, he said, and has no intention of rebranding businesses that wish to retain their long-established and treasured identities, or cutting costs or staff.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite, he said, with Beam keen for local brand names to be retained and actively looking to support their continued growth via its insurer schemes, sales and marketing strategies, and other resources. With that in mind, the group is on the lookout for other acquisitions to form a hub for local insurance brokers – and firmly believes that it offers a viable and healthy alternative to the consolidator route.
“Most of our business still comes from introduced leads and we still build that way now,” he said. “That’s just gone from strength to strength and our business model has always been to work within an hour’s radius of our offices, just so we can make sure that, from a servicing point of view, we’re always very personal and very available.
“There’s plenty of business, this is a booming market and we’re only scratching the surface of it. And we’re just continuing to build out as a high-quality independent broker, doing things a different way.”
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