We all want personal service, but what do we mean by “Big City” Experience?

Many businesses feel that the “city”, i.e. The City of London, is the only place they can go to obtain the level of knowledge & experience they need to ensure that their commercial insurance is arranged properly. For understandable, if misguided, reasons, people often think that the only way to obtain the expertise they are looking for is through one of the large national or multi-national broking houses.

They feel that the levels of expertise and knowledge, and therefore the ability to arrange the cover they need, must be greater there than in the provinces, when actually the reverse is probably true.

Most of the provincial broking firms to be found outside London & other major UK business centres, were started by entrepreneurial people who gained their experience in the “city” and left to utilise their experience and training by offering people a service that is just not available from the bigger broking organisations.

Logically this must be true; most people starting out on an insurance career begin as inexperienced apprentices with an insurer or one of the larger brokers, this means that most of the junior staff have little knowledge and obviously no experience. Gaining experience and learning their business starts at the bottom and those who continue to make their careers in insurance will advance up the ladder, and anyone who is ambitious and good at their job will naturally achieve promotion and will be moved on. This means that personnel at larger brokers is constantly changing and continuity is a problem.

This is seldom a problem with a successful provincial broker because, despite the fact that the organisation is smaller, the level of expertise is much greater, as client contact is usually maintained at a more senior level, normally by people with years of experience and knowledge; people who are fully committed to the company long term and who probably also have a vested interest in ensuring client satisfaction and longevity.

Almost by definition, the larger national or multi-national broker, whilst having the resources to deal with the insurance programmes, risk management and related issues of large national or international businesses; cannot possibly offer the same level of personal service, or indeed in many cases, the same level of experience as a local provincial broker. Many of those local, provincial brokers cut their teeth in the city and left specifically because of the lack of continuity and the lack of daily contact with clients and the satisfaction it can generate.

At J Bennett & Son, the four directors who run the company today have all gained their knowledge of all forms of insurance as a result of over thirty years of dealing with commercial and domestic clients. Much of this experience was gained early in their careers with large city brokers, and with insurers, and means that they are able to offer a wealth of expertise, often not available at the larger broking houses, personally, to their clients.

J Bennett & son are also proud of their long term staff retention, as most technical personnel have been with the company for over 5 years and have developed long term relationships with clients.

All this means that commercial and domestic insurance knowledge, expertise and experience are available locally, without the need to venture into the “city”. We also believe that face to face contact with our clients is vital in order to establish a rapport and ultimately to develop a long-lasting relationship based on mutual trust and respect.

We believe that personal service is key. Most clients want, and deserve, to be looked after, and to that end, J Bennett & Son will always make sure that our clients have direct access (we will never resort to automated answering machines) to their regular account handler and, if necessary, to the director who looks after that client, and in this way we ensure that we provide:-

“Big City” experience and personal service to all our clients.