Q&A with David Hadden (He/Him) Head of Deal Management
05/23/2022
How did you get into the insurance sector?
This is really cliched but like most of my colleagues in insurance I guess it was by chance more than anything else. I came out of university with a degree in historical studies and wanted something that challenged me and took me out of my comfort zone which until then revolved around books and studying.
I applied for couple of positions, in insurance and accounting, and was lucky enough to be offered a sales position with a national broker who had a local office. My role revolved around selling motor, home, travel, and commercial insurance to customers in the local area whilst working with local business to increase referrals of their customers into our business. As an industry it clearly did something right as I have never left it and have been lucky enough to be presented with more and more challenging and exciting opportunities as my career has progressed.
What made you decide to work in the Deal Management Team for Zurich?
There were several reasons. Traditionally my background is broking, which at its core is taking a customer challenge and presenting options that you believe will solve the problem and, in turn, delight the customer. Often that involved facing into insurers and negotiating with them, be that on an individual case or a portfolio or product level. What really attracted to me to the Deal Management Team was the opportunity to be on the other side of the fence within this process and gain a far deeper understanding of what made an insurer tick.
The variety of the role also really excited me. I work best when I have several different plates spinning each with their own nuances. The need for me to leap from winning some new business via a tender response one moment to ensuring we deliver on our promises to our brokers and our customers through our deal implementation plans gives me the breadth I need in my working life.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it was the opportunity to work in Zurich and with its people. Asa broker, I had taken part in many tough conversations with Zurich over the years but had always been impressed with the quality of the people and their innate desire to always do the right thing and to do it well.
What is the main focus of your role?
At its very core my deals team’s role is to make sure we take all new opportunities that are presented to the Retail business, review them, providing challenge where necessary, decide whether they will deliver the right outcomes for all stakeholders, shareholders and customers, and if so, win the business! This can involve many different types of assessment, from ensuring the financials make sense for everyone, to understanding who we would operationalise the deal through to articulating this succinctly in a tender response. This encompasses all types of deal opportunities from new start up schemes all the way through to established MGAs with proven expertise and track records. The team will also track the deals through the life span and maintain constant dialogue with the brokers involved – communication is so important in ensuring a new proposition or deal works as best it should.
I also have a team that deal with sales operations side to our Retail business - ensuring we’re governing our brokers in the correct way, meeting broker requests in a timely manner and ensure we always deliver to our customers’ needs in what is a very competitive marketplace.
How do you work with Zurich’s customers and brokers?
At the heart of everything we do with our brokers is collaboration and communication. Be it, the early stages where we are working closely to understand what each parties’ requirements are and asking the right questions to ensure we get to the right outcome. Or the negotiation phase where we agreed a proposition and are now deciding what the execution of said proposition looks like and importantly by when it needs to be executed. Then lastly the delivery phase where we carry out our respective actions working closely with one another to work through any challenges and ensuring we never lose sight of our original delivery date. Beyond the actual realisation of the deal, the maintenance of how it is impacting our brokers and customers is just as important. During this period, we have very frequent touchpoints with our brokers to ensure that if something is not working as it should then we are looking at ways to fix and resolve. Without collaboration and communication, we simply wouldn’t be able to deliver for our brokers and customer alike. This is where ensuring we partner with the right businesses is so key.
What trends are you seeing in the market currently?
Portfolio deals are our bread and butter, and we are seeing increasing numbers of these. In part this is driven by our superb Acturis offering, the recognition our SME products have been winning in the market as well as the levels of service our regional and central teams are providing our brokers. This is underpinned by the results of the recent Insurance Times Etrade survey where Zurich was awarded 5 stars. We have also seen a real increase in MGA enquiries over the last couple of years. This appears to be partly driven by capacity in the market shrinking forcing MGAs to seek alternative insurer partners. Zurich’s A rated paper and global reach mean we can provide stability and long-term commitment to our partners which is extremely attractive, especially in the current climate.
What are the biggest challenges?
The sheer volume of enquiry is our biggest challenge but let’s be honest, that’s a great challenge to have! This volume means we must be extra vigilant around our deadline management. We will always seek to find a solution to any potential opportunity but if we cannot then we need to make that known to our partners quickly. Broking is a fast-paced world, and we need to recognise that a quick no is extremely valued. An emerging challenge, and an interesting one, has been the return across our industry to offices. During COVID we found we increased our speed in completing deals. Technology and lockdowns played a huge part in this and increased key person availability. The return to offices means we are now having to find innovative ways to communicate just as efficiently, often using multiple communications channels to deliver the best results.
What is the best piece of career advice that you've been given?
The best piece of advice I was given was by an old Managing Director. We had a really challenging situation with a customer and I couldn’t easily work through a solution with multiple stakeholders to manage all with competing interests and viewpoints. Rather than try and solve the situation for me they simply said, ‘whatever the situation, it's always your move’. You can interpret the reasoning behind this in many ways but what I take from it is no matter what situation, no matter what is in front of you, you've always got a proactive response available to you that you can take and control. It’s a great way of giving you the power back to own and solve the issue.
What do you love about working at Zurich?
It's a very open and honest organisation which suits me down to the ground. I never feel, no matter what the situation or the challenge, that I can't speak up and give my opinion and know that it will be recognised. I think it's a real sign of the culture within the business. It’s a business that has a strong focus on its people. Several of my team have taken advantage of the 16 weeks paternity leave. Seeing how much time they get to spend with the new additions to their family and their ability to support their partners is such a positive experience for everyone. It’s a very moral organisation which I also respect and admire. Be it its stance on sustainability, through to its passion to increase diversity and inclusion throughout the organisation, I always see examples of Zurich doing the right thing.
Lastly, it must be the people. Insurance is always considered a people business and Zurich truly has some of the best. Be it my teams, the teams I am part of, or the leadership of the business, the people in Zurich really do make the difference.
