Vizion Insurance Brokers Limited is a new broking venture in the UK, attracting business while simultaneously offering entrepreneurial partners a platform to manage their own destiny, free from red tape.
Building Vizion Insurance Brokers is industry veteran John Sims’ long-term dream, having watched the service offered by most brokers deteriorate.
‘I’ve seen good and bad brokers first hand but I haven’t seen many great brokers,’ Sims asserts.
He decided to run with the opportunity to create a home for brokers who are frustrated, unwilling to accept the status quo and who want a better way of life.
‘Vizion is a service led retail insurance broker with a twist,’ he says.
‘As well as looking to attract our own clients, we have created a platform that will facilitate bringing in entrepreneurial, client-facing partners who will have an equity stake in their own business,’ he explains.
‘Vizion offers a well-run, regulated platform for these entrepreneurs who have their own clients or ideas, and want to run their own businesses with a clearly defined exit route for when they decide to retire.
The new Vizion model provides all the back office and regulatory support required plus financial support as partners work through their restrictive covenants.
Commission will be shared based on how much day-to-day input the client facing partners wish to have.
Cutting red tape
Launched in January 2017, the boutique broking company’s services comprise Vizion Insurance Brokers Limited, Vizion Private Clients, Vizion Commercial (property and financial lines) and the Vizion Partnership, a platform for broking entrepreneurs.
Sims, who is the company’s managing director, has 30 years of experience in insurance under his belt specialising in products for private clients with Chubb and AIG.
Leading beside him are insurance and finance heavyweights Chris Blackham, who is Chairman of the board and a major investor; Vizion Commercial founding partner Russell Sessions; Trevor Davies, a company director and partner of international specialist insurance law firm Kennedys; and Development Director Jeremy Guscott, a UK rugby star.
Wholly funded by shareholders, Sims says the biggest challenge Vizion faced was getting the business regulated.
‘Regulation and compliance in the UK is a necessary evil but it does make it so much harder to set up a new broker,’ he says.
But Sims says the hard yards are worth it.
‘The Vizion model combines the high level of personal service traditionally associated with smaller owner-managed business, while offering the safety and security of a much larger, financially robust business,’ he explains.
‘This allows partners to concentrate on winning new business rather than being tied down in admin and regulation.’
Soft broking underbelly
Sims maintains there has been enormous change in the insurance industry over the past ten years and none more so than in the broking community.
‘That has been heightened in the recent past by a host of takeovers and consolidation in our market,’ he says.
‘Most brokers now try to squeeze every last penny of commission from their clients to prop up their balance sheets.
‘They ask their people to do more for less and so customer service inevitably suffers as a result.
‘The drive for growth by the consolidators has created a soft under belly that provides opportunities for smaller, more efficient, niche businesses to start up with their focus being firmly on the client.’
Alternative business model
With this in mind, Sims says he created the Vizion business model as an alternative that addresses the three key factors he observes impeding value and service in the market.
‘Excessive earnings is the first,’ he says.
‘Brokers have leveraged commissions and over-riders from insurers to an unsustainable level.’
Second, staff are disillusioned.
‘Client managers are less able to offer superior service to their clients due to pressures on the number of clients they are being told to look after and/or the lack of appropriate resources in their backup team.
‘Finally, clients are undervalued and consequently experiencing declining levels of service.’
Sims, who was brought into Chubb to lead the launch of its award-winning Masterpiece offering in 1996, says his team changed the face of the market by taking service and cover to a completely new level.
‘Today insurers simply can’t compete unless they excel.’
Runs on the board
To that end, Sims says Vizion is all about exceeding our customer’s expectations and bringing in the very best people to work alongside him.
‘I have built a good reputation as one of the leading figures in our industry segment and won’t risk that by lowering my standards in any way,’ he says.
‘We have come together to provide a platform for talented, entrepreneurial, insurance professionals who share our core values and wish to build boutique insurance broking and underwriting businesses with us.’
He adds the model has been really well received so far and the management team has already signed up three partners ahead of Vizion’s official launch.
‘We’ve been in the business a long time and it’s really nice to be giving back by helping smart, conscientious, entrepreneurs control their own destiny, have fun and make some money as well.’