Martin Werth
Setting up Fortis Life
20 June 2008
So what have you been doing over the last 20 months?
I've been building a life insurer and wow, what an experience it's been! I genuinely started from nothing, except a strategy and a very supportive parent company. It took a month to get a desk—my first meetings were held at Waterloo station or various coffee shops (a throw back to Edward Lloyd's Coffee House), and it was five months before the first employee joined me.
We are now a business with what I believe are 50 of the best people in the industry, some leading edge products, 21st century systems, and many good friends and business partners across the market.
Before becoming the MD at Fortis Life UK, I was a reinsurer—passionate and on a mission to convert everyone to more effective protection. Fortis gave me the opportunity to move from talking the talk to walking the walk (surely every consultant's worst nightmare?)—and my future reputation and living would—and still does—depend on it.
Having the right mindset was critical. Even with no legacy systems, it was still too easy to have a legacy mindset. So I spent a lot of time listening to customers and distributors. Whilst I was a true believer in income protection, customers told me that this was not their biggest issue and they wanted protection for things not in their control, such as death, heart attack, stroke or cancers. If we are to reinvigorate income protection, it needs to be packaged in a different way. The biggest message from distributors was make products simpler and faster to purchase. Another key concern was dealing with failed claims, of which Total Permanent Disability was a significant failure spike.
As the team came together it was fantastic sitting amongst them and hearing the quality of "can do" debate as we worked through this feedback. We also learned a lot from our general insurance colleagues in Fortis.
Unfortunately, great products and systems alone don't make a life insurer. You also need to be authorised and that means regulation. My psychometric profile was very high on ideas and persuasion, but lower on detail, so this could have been my nemesis. What genuinely surprised me most was the helpful, engaging approach taken by the FSA—I really do mean it. Our application went like clockwork and we had provisional authorisation within four months. Any delays were down to us.
So 20 months on, the strategy has really taken form and I remain as passionate as ever about protection, supported by a great team and partners we can make our way of doing business the new standard in protection business.
Going forward, working together is key. I know we won't have everything right at the outset and some of the things we do won't make sense, or work for you and your customers. This is where your feedback is invaluable. Please tell me and I will see how we can make things even better. With your support we will look to continuously evolve.
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