Facilitating broker and insurer networking despite the pandemic is vital as insurance is an industry that ‘thrives on relationships, thrives on connectivity and thrives on having meaningful engagement’, says networks and products managing director
A two-day virtual trading event organised by Ardonagh-owned Compass and Broker Network saw brokers and insurers ink more than £4m worth of deals, demonstrating “that you can have some really meaningful engagement in a virtual setting”.
Designed for Broker Network and Compass members, the Press Play event aimed to facilitate conferencing and networking between brokers and insurers, filling the void of Compass’s cancelled in-person annual conference that is typically held in March.
The networks invited 19 of its insurer partners to participate in the event, which took place on 16 and 17 March 2021.
”The main purpose of the event was to connect our members and our insurer partners in virtual trading rooms to talk about the things that were really relevant [to them],” Jaime Swindle, managing director of networks and products at Bravo Group UK told Insurance Times.
”We had 340 members join us live, which is just fantastic in terms of engagement. There were 267 virtual meetings that took place over the course of the two days [and] 89 hours’ worth of meetings, which is just incredible in terms of connecting members and insurers because this is a business that thrives on relationships, it thrives on connectivity and it thrives on having meaningful engagement.
“For us to be able to facilitate that on behalf of our members and insurers was brilliant.”
Swindle confirmed that around £4m worth of deals were completed via the event’s online trading rooms.
She continued: “It’s been an incredible success for us. It was a bit of a response to the pandemic, but not necessarily new from an engagement point of view.
“What we have discovered is that you can have some really meaningful engagement in a virtual setting and actually, there may be an opportunity to think about that moving forward – not just have virtual conferences that [are people] talking at you or presenting stuff to you, but make them far more engaged, far more interactive and bring other people into the mix.”
Press Play also featured keynote addresses from Swindle, who spoke on the networks’ mission and strategic objectives; Becky Carter, the firm’s group risk and compliance manager, who talked on regulatory issues; and Ant Middle, chief executive of insurer Ageas, who provided industry thought leadership.
Hybrid events timetable
Taking the networks’ conferences online is not new territory for the business. Swindle explained that Broker Network’s event, Networks Live, typically had “a live audience, but actually the event was livestreamed out to the whole network because when you’ve got that number of people, you recognise that you can’t necessarily get everybody to travel”.
“It wasn’t new to us to do a livestream event, but having trading rooms was very new to us,” she added.
Moving forward, Swindle believes industry events will include a mix of in-person and virtual events, ensuring that conferences and networking can be inclusive and time efficient, as well as offering in-person connectivity for those that want it. She added that the networks will be surveying its members to find out exactly what balance between online and in-person events its brokers would prefer.
She continued: “You’re never going to get away from, in this industry, people wanting to see each other face-to-face and connect because it’s one of the strengths of what we do; [online] won’t be the only way that we’ll be doing conferences in the future but I’m sure there’s a place for it.
“There is an opportunity for us to be able to do something in a really efficient way. Coming out of the pandemic, there’s a few things that we’ll have learnt. So, being really effective about time and being able to reach the broadest audience that you can. Clearly there are huge benefits from a virtual perspective. We have to be really conscious from an environmental impact [perspective] as well.
Swindle concluded that although virtual conferences “definitely won’t replace the in-person events”, she thinks they “will be a really nice compliment to them, but with a slightly different spin on how we do it”.
Broker Network, Compass and Ethos Broking, were bought by The Ardonagh Group last July. They now form part of Ardonagh’s advisory business.
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