Insurance Times Advent Calendar: David Nichols

1. What was your insurance industry highlight of 2024?

My main highlight this year has been knowing that, yet again, the insurance industry as a whole has helped thousands of customers with incredible support when they needed it most.

The Consumer Duty has renewed focus on customer outcomes, but for the insurance industry, customer outcomes are always at the forefront of our minds.

The level of service delivery this year has been exceptional.

From a purely Zurich point of view, part of that has been the result of the continued development of our propositions. 

This is particularly true in terms of our digital capability, as well as the continued extension of our broker distribution through our Club Blue proposition and the growth of our retail sector.

2. What is your Christmas message for your insurance colleagues?

We have so much to be proud of as an industry and I want to remind my colleagues of this as we come to the end of this year.

I have every confidence we will continue to enhance the services we offer our customers and ensure that the experience they have with us is positive.

I believe that will come from the industry continuing to talk and share ideas.

Meanwhile, it is vital we continue to raise the bar on talent, diversity and inclusivity so that we ensure we are recruiting the most talented people possible into our industry.

3. What do you hope to find under the industry’s Christmas tree for 2025?

As an industry, we have experienced quite a lot of change over the last two or three years, particularly around the Consumer Duty and fair pricing.

It would be great to go into 2025 thinking that we will have a period of embedding the reforms that have come through.

Our industry has had a lot to reflect on, so it would be nice to imagine that 2025 could be a period of stability.

I think we would all like to see a period of stability that would enable us to manage the here and now and focus more on delivering for our customers.