Buyers want Brexit certainty
Buyers are seeking hard answers and assurances from carriers in relation to any potential fallout from the UK’s departure from the EU, Steve Hearn, group chief executive officer of broker Ed, told Monte Carlo Today.
“Customers are not accepting a shrug of the shoulders and ‘we don’t know’—that’s not acceptable any more. We are in a renewal cycle with Brexit actually happening months later,” Hearn said.
“Speculation around another referendum, or a lack of detail, is not really helpful. You need to provide certainty—and if you can’t provide certainty in the jurisdiction that you’re offering your proposition in, then clients will find somewhere else.”
Hearn stressed that Ed has businesses in other parts of Europe, including Germany and France. It is also a Lloyd’s broker. “Yet this is an incredibly difficult and frustrating time,” he said.
The brand Ed was launched in Monte Carlo two years ago. Since then, Hearn said, steady progress had been made.
“Subject to September turning out the way we think it will, Ed will be able to report four quarters of consecutive growth, which we are pleased about.
“We’ve hired more than 170 people, with 80 this year, so we continue to invest in the organisation and bring new talent in, not just in London, but in our other offices around the world, such as MENA and Asia.
“We’re doing what we planned to do,” he said, but admitted that the company had not always enjoyed a smooth ride.
“Does anything go exactly to plan? No, but in the aggregate I’d say we’ve exceeded our expectations in terms of what we wanted.
“Has everything worked? Well, our plan was to go from an organisation that lost money into one that makes money and we’ve achieved that.”
Looking forward, Hearn said that Ed would place more effort into the company’s non-London locations, hiring more into those businesses. He said that around three-quarters of Ed’s revenue is in London, with the remaining 25 percent in its businesses around the world.
“They’re all growing at a rapid rate of knots,” Hearn said. “The next phase is to accelerate that further.”
