LV= is ploughing ahead with the integration of its personal lines business obtained from Allianz, bringing in three senior account managers to handle the new broker relationships.

LV= bought the policy renewal rights to the personal lines policies as part of the deal which saw its commercial lines business move to Allianz.

Victoria Price joins as head of strategic accounts alongside Ilona Cottrell and Darren Bringes who will be strategic account managers.

LV= personal lines director Michael Lawrence told Insurance Times that the move showed the company’s commitment to the broker markets.

“We need the right people. The team we have now is probably the strongest sales and distribution team that we’ve ever had”, he said.

The move also saw LV= Broker taking on about 100 new brokers. Lawrence insisted that not many brokers were lost in the transition, which was concluded at the end of last year. Those that no longer wanted to continue were by “mutual consent”, where they felt it wasn’t in their best interest to move.

“There wasn’t anybody who really said ‘I don’t want to deal with LV, which is what we hoped would happen. Some people take it as an opportunity to review what they’re doing. They weren’t interested in personal lines. They were just going to let it run off”, Lawrence said.

Transition

Efforts were made to make sure that service was not compromised in the transition. Lawrence insisted that there was no drop in service.

“We were actually moving our business forward. We didn’t just stop. We organised ourselves to make sure we could carry on doing that so brokers wouldn’t have noticed the blip.

“One of the principles we agreed upon when we did this deal was ‘we can’t stop brokers from losing an insurer because Allianz is no longer writing personal lines business in the UK’. But what we could do was make sure brokers didn’t lose product. So that’s why we took the decision to replicate those products as far as was possible.

“We had people sitting down reviewing the policy wording, the underwriting rules, pricing etc and comparing with what we had and then making sure we replicated those. We cloned what was already in place from Allianz.”

One criticism that has been levelled by some brokers is that insurers prioritise larger brokers over their smaller counterparts, but LV= insists that each broker receives the same standard of service. 

”There are no higher or lower standards of service. Some brokers might want  you to do more for them, but that is usually priced accordingly. But we don’t prioritise their service”, Lawrence said.