Revealed: Insurance Times Awards 2019 – winners and reaction

It was a very lucky night for some at Insurance Times’s Awards last week on Friday with both Aviva and LV= walking away with three golds as well as Allianz also winning three golds.

Greg Davies – British stand-up comedian and star who plays Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners was the host of the night’s event set in Grosvenor House Hotel’s iconic Great Room in the heart of Mayfair overlooking Hyde Park.

Aviva bagged three gold’s for Best Digital Customer Experience, General Insurer of the Year and Marketing Campaign of the Year – B2C. As well as a bronze for Marketing Campaign of the Year – B2B, while Paymentshield got the gold. Aviva won a silver for Excellence in Professional Development, with Club Insure and NDML getting the gold in this category, the judges felt the passionate and enthusiasm in this entry and they were impressed with the strapline “make people the best version of themselves,” and Make it Cheaper the bronze - a scheme that was pioneered by a woman.

Phil Bayles, chief distribution officer at Aviva told Insurance Times: “We’re delighted to have won three golds at this year’s Insurance Times awards. Winning both the best B2C Marketing campaign and also Best Digital Customer Experience is absolutely fantastic. 

”But we are particularly delighted to win General Insurer of the Year for the 6th year in a row – a remarkable achievement. What makes this so special is that it’s decided by a combination of broker votes and five-star broker service ratings. This continued recognition by brokers reflects the hard work and dedication from our team and our emphasis on developing mutually beneficial long-term partnerships with our brokers. We will build on this so we continue to provide the best possible service to our brokers and their customers.”

Commenting on the the company’s win for Marketing Campaign of the Year, Aviva’s David Burn said: ”It is really important and nice to get outside recognition of all of the work of 100s of people across the business over at least two years and to see that the campaign has been noticed.”

Bayles added after bagging the prestigious General Insurer of the Year award said: ”You might be surprised by how important it is to win this award.

”We set out each year to win this award as it’s a reflection of how you’ve done over the last 12 Months. It means a massive amount to us because it’s broker voted and the fact they’ve chosen us makes me delighted.”

Paymentshield’s head of marketing Jennifer Ripley said their gold award ”means everything”. ”This is the third year on the trot. We didn’t expect to win it in the first year or the second year and we definitely didn’t expect to win it tonight so it just means so much to us.”

Meanwhile LV= also won a gold for Best Digital Customer Experience – this was the only award that had two golds. The joint win being a clear indicator that the Allianz – LV= partnership is going well. Including this LV= also scooped three gold’s like Allianz, the other two being Digital Media Campaign of the Year and Insurer Innovation of the Year – Product, the latter of which was sponsored by ACORD, Flock got the bronze and Bupa got the silver.

Heather Smith general insurance direct managing director at LV= told Insurance Times: “We had a fantastic evening at the Insurance Times awards and are so proud to be able to display our three golds and two silver prizes in the office today.

”Our brilliant staff work tirelessly to provide exceptional service to our customers, so these awards are added proof that it’s all worth it. When you couple this with Allianz also picking up awards, the future is certainly bright for LV= General Insurance.”

Allianz  scooped three awards including a gold for Commercial Lines Insurer of the Year, Fleet Product of the Year and Jon Dye being named Insurer CEO’s CEO of the Year.

Allianz head of motor Gerry Ross said the company was proud to win, ”It’s come from the brokers and it’s representative of the hard work we’ve put in this year.” 

Hiscox won two golds – Cyber Product of the Year and Personal Lines Insurer of the Year. 

Policy Expert walked away with two awards, a gold for Customer Champion of the Year – Insurer sponsored by WNS Assistance that the judges thought was “focused and customer-centric” deeming it a company to watch in the future. The insurtech also grabbed a silver for Excellence in Technology sponsored by Brightside Insurance Services which the judges deemed “a firm that bigger companies should be scared of from a competitive perspective”. Policy Expert’s chief operations officer Adam Powell said the win ”means a huge amount”.

”We set up eight years ago so to win this award is a great achievement and testament to the hard work we’ve put in over the years,” Powell added. 

For the latter award RSA grabbed the gold of which the judges were impressed with the triage tool to target vulnerable customers, while Avantia nabbed the bronze despite it being somewhat different to their entry.

But it was a good night for insurtechs with WhenFresh winning Excellence in Technology – Service Provider sponsored by Brightside, the judges said that their energy was infectious and admired that it was going in a different direction. Cytora bagged a silver in this category after giving a live demo to the judges who said that “in a year they could be top of their game and win a gold,” Blocksure picked up a bronze for reducing back office administration significantly.

Whenfresh chief executive and co-founder Mark Cunningham told Insurance Times: ”It means everything to win this award. It’s been three years of development, many millions of investment and a number of partners to get us there.”

One of the biggest awards of the night went to Compass’s chief executive John Lincoln who won the Insurance Times Industry Achiever Award.

Loss adjuster Crawford and Company won a gold for Diversity & Inclusion Excellence Award sponsored by Slater and Gordon, the judges said that it tackled a diversity and inclusion in a difficult sector and it was the stand-out entry in this category. 

Brokers in the industry also saw a string on wins, Aston Lark’s Peter Blanc achieved a gold for Broker’s CEO’s CEO of the Year sponsored by Applied Systems.

McCarron Coates won a gold for Claims Broker of the Year, as well as Romero Insurance Brokers bagging Independent Broker of the Year, Texel Finance Limited got silver and Ascend Broking Group getting a bronze.

Romero’s managing director Simon Mabb said: ”It means absolutely tonnes to win. It’s a fantastic award. We are a true independent broker with no private equity, external funding and we aren’t part of any networks so it’s true testament to that.”

Meanwhile Ripe Thinking won a gold for Personal Lines Broker of the Year with the silver going to Staysure and the Cuvva scoring a bronze. Schemes Broker of the Year went to Darwin Clayton UK, the firm also picked up a gold for Commercial Lines Broker of the Year, with McCarron Coates getting silver and Erskine Murray a bronze.

On Twitter Darwin Clayton said “What a night! There is no better way to head into our centenary year than with two awards.” Ashley Hoadley, sales and marketing director told Insurance Times that they will be displaying the award prominantly, and that it couldn’t be a better year for the the firm. 

Commenting on the win, account director Mark Harris said: ”It’s pretty immense to win this award. We’ve been in the sector since 1947 and sector focused insurance advice is what we pride ourselves on. It’s in our blood.”

Speaking to Insurance Times after picking up the award for Digital Media Campaign of the Year, senior marketing strategy manager Sarah Chastney said: ”Its amazing to win this award. We’d won earlier for the product and now to win for the media campaign is amazing too.

Customer Champion of the Year – Broker went to Ascend Broking Group (gold), AllClear got a bronze and Booking Protect a silver. Ascend managing director Matthew Collins told Insurance Times that the win was ”recognition for a lot of the work we’ve been doing behind the scenes. It’s about speeding the claims process, reducing spending and ultimately reducing premiums”. He said that it was really all about the recognition and how that can help grow this business.

Direct Line swooped to score a gold for Direct Insurer of the Year. Lorraine Price, head of household product and strategic delivery, said winning the award was ”an incredibly proud moment”.

”Being a direct insurer we play in a lot of spaces, but being able to talk to our customers and be there at their point of need is incredibly important to us.”

Business Partner of the Year went to Close Brothers in partnership with Ardonagh Group, Confused.com bagged a bronze and the silver went to Xceedance.

For claims Legal & General, Geobear and Sedgwick International UK won gold for Claims Partner of the Year, DAC Beachcroft in collaboration with InterEurope got silver and rradar got bronze. L&G’s head of loss and supplier management William Quibell said it meant “everything”. “L&G dared to the different and it’s benefitting our customers. It’s great to see so many people rewarded for their hard work in the industry.”

Excellence in Technology – Claims saw Aqualytics get the gold as the judges thought it was a cool product. VisionTrack won a bronze, the judges were touched that it reduced road incidents, saves lives and that the idea was so close the managing director’s heart, meanwhile Davies Group the silver.

Covéa won High Net Worth Product of the Year, Vetsure pet Insurance bagged a gold for Insurer Innovation of the Year, its managing director Ashley Gray said the win was ”fabulous” and that the firm was incredibly proud to have won this. ”To be up against such amazing competition. We are a real small company and to stand up against these guys means the world.”

And DWF Law LLP scooped a gold for Legal Business Partner of the Year for an “innovative use of data and analytics to expose the growing threat of fraud” according to the judges. 

Lastly, MGA Initiative of the Year went to Commercial Express (gold) with Manchester Underwriting Management getting a bronze and Geo Speciality a silver.