Q&A with Peter Wright (He/Him) Broker Relationship Leader, Commercial Insurance Zurich UK
12/14/2021
How did you get into the insurance sector?
I was at university in Portsmouth, where I studied History and Politics, after leaving uni, a few career and job opportunities had either fallen through or not materialised the way I hoped, so, as was a popular approach at the time, I took matters into my own hands and peppered local businesses with my CV.
My mum actually worked for Zurich in Portsmouth, and she kindly agreed to help me too. I ended up getting an interview, and was subsequently offered the job, to work in the accounts team helping to produce captive bordereaus.
What have been your career highlights?
Some of my key highlights have come about from the individual jobs I’ve enjoyed. I worked in the service team in Portsmouth, we were known as the Global Service Team, or GST. The base knowledge I got from that role I still use, almost daily. I also worked as an Underwriter in the Liability team, I had some amazing tutors in that team who gave me a really good grounding.
When I think about specific moments that I’ve enjoyed, we did an event with a school in East London which involved spending the day with the students there helping them with various life skills and showing them how insurance fits into it all. That was really rewarding.
I’ve done a lot of work with different customers and brokers, both individually and through the Customer Advisory boards we run, and that’s been a highpoint too. You learn a lot through these events, and it really broadens your understanding of what’s important to customers.
Being part of the CDM Team has also been a real highlight. The individuals and characters in the team, both past and present, have been wonderful to work with. I’m not ashamed to admit that I learn from them all the time.
I could easily fill a whole page just with highlights because my career has really been full of them, I feel very lucky.
What does a typical day look like for you?
A typical day? Ok so I’ll get up, and I try to get some exercise done in the morning or if I don’t have the energy for it, I’ll walk the dog and help with getting my son up. If I’m working in the office I will commute by bike, but if I’m at home I get myself setup for the day with a cup of tea.
My days tend to be quite meeting heavy so I try to review my inbox first thing each morning to see what needs answers, or attention urgently before my meetings start. Using today as an example, I’ve got four hours of broker meetings, various internal catch ups and some 121s with the distribution team. I set myself a goal each day to speak to at least one broker as I see this as being a key component in building, and maintaining, relationships.
How do you develop and maintain your broker relationships?
We do have some really mature and successful relationships with our brokers, and the reason we have these is because of our customer offering. I’ve been with Zurich for 15 years and I’ve worked with some incredibly talented people in our sales teams, but you can only sell what you’ve got. At Zurich you’re selling some of the best claims teams in the market, talented underwriters, an incredible finance team, the servicing teams and all of the mechanics that sit behind our offering is what makes us so good. And that is what creates that mature relationship with a broker, if they believe in you and believe that if they place a risk with you, they know it’s going to be serviced well, invoiced accordingly, policies issued and claims paid. So that’s why we have the mature relationships we have, its Zurich’s whole service offering and the talent we have across the business.
How did the pandemic affect the way you work with brokers?
To be honest it didn’t, if anything it has shown how well-oiled we are as an organisation and how good we are at coming together and fighting adversity when we need to. When brokers were concerned about responsiveness with underwriting and claims teams being at home it wasn’t really a complaint levelled at Zurich. We were there, and we were able to stay in communication with them throughout. It was a real testament to our organisation and processes.
Before the pandemic you and your team would have been out in the market meeting people face to face, has it felt different maintaining relationships in a more hybrid way of working?
At the start of the pandemic, we had to have a lot of challenging conversations with brokers, and we were doing all of that over the phone. That was tough. Things were changing so quickly, pretty much by the day, so we were having to call up again and sometimes almost reverse the position from the day before.
If I stop and look at that now, all of the effort we’d put into building our relationships pre-pandemic made it all so much easier. We’ve got the maturity with these brokers to be able to call up and have those difficult conversations. So yes, it was tough, but not because we couldn’t talk to people face to face, but because of the messages we were having to share with them. As time progressed, we got into a rhythm of having more general catch ups or virtual coffees and there was something quite nice about us all complaining about the same things - you know when we couldn’t get eggs or flour in that first lockdown because we all wanted eggs and flour, and it was good because once we got over the initial hurdles it did feel like we had something resembling business as usual.
It meant we could get back to talking more strategically and still get the engagement from the relationships. Now, coming out the other side of it (even if it was briefly), it’s amazing how welcome the face-to-face catchups we have are. The newfound flexibility is brilliant, and everyone is welcoming the change, but this industry is built around being able to have those conversations with people and being able to see people in the process. The technology works, but when you can meet face to face it changes the dynamics.
What opportunities do you think this more hybrid way of working offers the insurance sector as an industry?
If I’m honest, I don’t think we know yet. I suspect it might well be easier to schedule meetings when you can do them virtually instead of location based.
Where I’ve found it to be particularly good for me, is if I’ve got a lot of work I need to concentrate on and I don’t need to be around the team. Being at home is really useful for that. But on the opposite side, I love being around my team and hearing the buzz and picking up things from their conversations. It helps me understand what the market is doing in general, and it feels more collaborative and immersive.
You can’t underestimate the value of all being together in one place and how quickly that enables you to get things done as opposed to trying to arrange multiple meetings to cover four different things. That’s what I think you miss without an office.
How do you stay ahead of insurance developments?
I read a lot, mostly newspapers, and online articles about insurance. I’ve also got a great network and know a few people who have gone on to work for insuretechs … they’re always great to chat to. I lean on the Carrier Management teams at Brokers for about 50% of my knowledge. Because they see so many different markets, they have a lot of insight into what’s new, what’s emerging, what’s interesting and new technology. They’re always keen to chat to you too, mainly to see if you’re interested in something … it’s a great way to see what’s happening in the industry.
What’s the top lesson you’ve learnt in your career so far?
I’ve had to learn a lot of lessons, because I’ve made a lot of mistakes … so maybe that’s the lesson. Mistakes are an opportunity if you learn from them.
My biggest learning is that I’m not always right. I know it sounds simple, but that revolutionised how I worked, and to some extent, my happiness. Listening to other people’s ideas and opinions and challenging my own thinking brought about a different way of thinking for me. It made me very open minded, and if I look at the current team I lead, we all think differently and often have different solutions to the same problem. Ultimately, those different solutions are not wrong, and now I take great satisfaction from listening to and perusing these.
Listening and not always wanting to be right also helps hugely when building relationships. Who would’ve thought it!? One model wouldn’t work given our brokers all have different set ups, so being able to listen and adjust behaviours to get the best out of all my broker relationships is really valuable.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve been given, and that I love sharing, is around presenting. Nobody knows what you’re going to say, so you can’t say anything wrong. It makes such a good point, the only person in the room who knows what you are supposed to say is you, so when people worry about ‘what they meant to say’ nobody in the room knew it was any different. It has made public speaking so much easier. I’m still not great at it by the way, but it’s certainly easier.
Maybe my other piece of advice relates to things you can do for your mindset. I find it very easy to get disheartened, so one of the things I’ve been working on is reframing mistakes and problems and turning them into positives. Rather than berating myself (I would never speak to anyone the way I sometimes speak to myself), I ask myself what I’ve learnt and how I will do things differently the next time. If you can create that same mindset in a team, you actually eradicate mistakes quicker because people don’t feel they have to hide things and can be far more open.
What do you think you would be doing if you weren’t working in the insurance industry? My biggest passion in life is probably eating, and food in general. I think about eating from the second I wake up. It would probably be something in that industry, working in a kitchen perhaps. I love cooking and I love eating, that’s definitely my passion.
What one thing would people be surprised to know about you?
I’m half Argentinian, so I speak Spanish. I’m from Warrington and I grew up there, but I started school in Paraguay, eventually moved to Portsmouth and now live in London so I guess I’m a bit of a nomad really.
What do you love about working for Zurich?
It sounds so cliché and I think many others have already said this, but it’s the people. The number of individuals I’ve met and worked alongside over the years is amazing, and the amount of people who have gone on to leave Zurich for other parts of the industry but remain close friends also speaks volumes about the type of people we employ. All of that is built on this cultural bedrock that we have at Zurich. I think it can be underestimated, but it really is at the very heart of the firm. We can be seen as quite a conservative organisation, but we employ people with real flair and character; a combination that makes for a vibrant and exciting place to work.
