Acorn Group’s Mike Lloyd: Carrying the torch of ‘the best kept secret in the industry’

When Mike Lloyd – chief executive at non-standard motor specialist The Acorn Group – was first headhunted by an old contact from his four-year tenure at The AA for his current job role, he freely admits that The Acorn Group was “not on my radar”.

Although he had heard the business name in passing, at that point in time, he had no idea what the business did, the nuances of its operations or who was spearheading its growth.

Now, however, the complete opposite is true – Lloyd was appointed as the company’s chief executive elect in January 2022, assumed full leadership of the business a few months later in the summer and has subsequently steered the group’s plans in such a way as to achieve a 41% uptick in gross written premium (GWP) between 2023 and 2024.

But Lloyd’s leadership of The Acorn Group – which today includes Gibraltarian underwriter Haven, direct taxi and non-standard motor brands Acorn and Motorcade, telematics businesses Carrot and MyPolicy, taxi broker Flag and short-term motor cover firm Briefly, as well as wholesale distributor Granite Underwriting – came via an unusual succession route that has heavily influenced the strategic focuses of his tenure to date.

Lloyd tells Insurance Times that prior to his appointment, he spent around 10 hours on Zoom calls with previous boss Alan Keating, who had led the business – then just a non-standard motor and taxi broker called Acorn – since the 90s upon leaving school, following in the footsteps of his father, Peter, who founded the firm in 1982.

For Keating, ensuring his succession was spot on was vital after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He therefore “knew he needed to hand over the reins” sooner than he perhaps had planned and set about searching for his replacement in 2021.

Keating passed away the summer after Lloyd joined The Acorn Group.

Lloyd’s appointment clearly would have been an important decision for Keating. Interestingly, however, Lloyd does not have a heavyweight insurance career history.

Following the completion of university degrees in computer science and artificial intelligence (AI), Lloyd did long stints at consultancy Oliver Wyman and retirement developer McCarthy Stone. It was his four-year tenure at The AA, between 2014 and 2018, which was his “first, real, more substantive role in insurance”.

Reflecting on his appointment, Lloyd says: “I was a good fit [for The Acorn Group] in the sense that the business has always been quite entrepreneurial, quite dynamic and [so] Keating was willing and keen to make a bet on somebody who hadn’t been around the insurance block for 20 or 30 years and could hopefully support and drive that culture.

“The biggest challenge coming on board is taking over from Keating, who [had] driven [the] business for 30 years, creating a transition to somebody new and picking up with [the] team – many of them [had] worked their whole careers under Keating. [I wanted to give] them confidence that we were going to build on Keating’s legacy, rather than move on from it.”

With this mentality front of mind, Lloyd “did something different than most new chief executives do, which was not to wipe the slate clean” upon assuming control of the business.

Instead, he set about methodically finishing the initiatives and investments that Keating had started – a project he has been completing for the past two to three years – while also ensuring to “add my own colour to” the plans.

“[I] felt that everything Keating started was the right thing to do and the focus initially should be to finish that off,” Lloyd confirms.

Following in the footsteps of such an established and well known chief executive, especially when then enacting the former leader’s plans, would test the mettle of any incoming c-suite. However, Lloyd has sought to make his mark on The Acorn Group with sensitivity, care and demonstrating spades of ambition for the future.

He says: “My [leadership] style, it’s about energising and inspiring people and, at the same time, maybe on one or two really important topics, be willing to roll up [my] sleeves and get into the trenches.

“I listen, but make my own mind up. Hopefully I’ve brought a lot to this job in terms of adapting to what’s probably quite a unique situation, but I think also coming at the role with a lot of different experience from lots of different companies [has helped drive] the business forward over the last three years.”

Plans around pricing

The plans Keating had set in motion prior to his passing included “investing hugely in pricing”, encompassing the “team, systems [and] capability” of this department.

As part of this work, Lloyd has introduced a new policy management system – this was rolled out to The Acorn Group’s direct motor brands in 2022 and 2023.

He explains that the business opted for a system that is “different” to the ones used by its rivals because it is a “low code, very flexible, adaptable system”.

He continues: “That’s incredibly important because each non-standard or specialist market needs something that’s slightly different. Could be a different product, could be a different service. But to do that, you need to change that on your technology platform.

“We’ve got a technology platform that’s cheaper and quicker to adapt than the traditional ones that larger motor and home insurers are on. Without that, we would really struggle to be quick and nimble and to land what we need to land in terms of our strategy.”

Not a standard service

So, what does The Acorn Group’s strategy look like with Lloyd at the helm?

“It’s to serve the underserved in the non-standard motor and home markets,” Lloyd explains.

“Our target customer is pretty much anybody that mainstream personal lines wouldn’t look after. That’s anything commercial motor, but it’s equally anything that’s not going to be a simple annual policy, so it could be a short-term policy. [It] could be two wheels, high risk drivers, specialist vehicles.

“And each of those markets, for me, is different. They need something that’s different. They come with a heap of complications, so a standard product or a standard service or standard claim support is often not the best solution for them.

“What we want to do is get that marrying right – what’s the best product, service, claim support for that particular market. If we get that right, then we will ultimately become a market leader – not just in taxi, but in other non-standard markets as well.”

To make this ambition a reality, Lloyd has ringfenced some key actions he wants to bring to fruition over the next five years. Primarily, this will involve leaning on technology and the creation of specialist teams to become a “market leader” across four new “different specialist markets” – to sit alongside The Acorn Group’s existing monopoly in the taxi sector.

Lloyd hints that as part of this, The Acorn Group will be launching a new brand over the summer, as well as two or three new products by the end of 2025.

The second focus for Lloyd is organisational culture. Despite rapid business growth in recent years, he is keen to “stay small to grow big”.

He adds: “Culture is key in terms of our success going forward.”

As for M&A, Lloyd is keen to be “more proactive and build up a pipeline” of potential targets.

He explains: “We’ve been more reactive to this point, but we’re interested in the longer term in getting into other non-standard markets that we’re not in today and potentially doing an acquisition might be a good step into that.”

Focused on ‘different’

The intermediary’s recent growth trajectory has certainly been impressive, with Lloyd noting that the size of the business has doubled over the last three years, in particular.

Back in 2002, 16 staff handled around £10m of GWP. When Lloyd stepped up to the plate in 2022, the business was managing £300m GWP and around 1,200 staff. In 2024, GWP had grown by 41% year-on-year to reach £742m, the firm’s combined operating ratio was below 90% and customer numbers had improved 30% year-on-year to hit 600,000.

Lloyd attributes this growth to changes the firm has made around pricing, data science and its technology and systems, as well as cleverly reading market cycles to ensure stability.

He says: “We’re really an end to end insurance company. We’ve got the underwriting, we’ve got the sales, we do the pricing, we do the claims. We have our own premium financing house as well.

“We’re different. We’re trying to do something different in terms of focusing on non-standard. And if we’re successful, I think we will look different than any other player out there.

“I think it’s the almost unknown nature [of our] successes – when I joined the business, I thought we were the best kept secret in the industry. We’re a fantastic place to come and work in terms of the variety – [we are a] non big corporate, more dynamic and just the level of growth and things that you can get up to in our business is fantastic.”