RSA's Brown eyeing personal lines broker growth

RSA UK chief executive Adrian Brown admits there is still room for further growth in its personal lines broker business despite 37% growth so far this year.

RSA had adopted a “deliberately underweight” position in the channel in previous years due to pricing and market conditions.

“We are still underweight relative to our natural market share in that business, so just regaining our natural market share would give us significant growth,” Brown told Insurance Times shortly after RSA posted its half year results earlier today.

By way of illustration, he said that RSA’s share of business from a panel of major brokers had previously been around 1-3%, and had increased to 5-6% this year, while RSA’s natural market share would be around 10%.

Brown also sees opportunities in its More Than direct channel. “If the market continues to harden you will see us grow our direct book,” Brown said.

“We have got some exciting opportunities in the aggregator space so I think we can still win more business in that area.”

He added that the pet insurance deal with UK supermarket chain Tesco was due to come into force in the fourth quarter, which would add £100m of new premium in 2011.

However, Brown stressed that any growth would not come at the expense of profitability. “We need to see continued price discipline for me to be comfortable to continue to grow,” he said.

For more, read next week's Insurance Times.