New direction for Norwich insurer as Alan Boswell steps aside

The Big Interview: Alan Boswell Group. Interview with Alan Boswell and Chris Gibbs Group Director.PHOTO BY SIMON FINLAY (Image: Archant Norfolk)

How do you react to the most bitter financial times in living memory?

It's a headache question with no clear solution that has induced its fair share of sleepless nights for business leaders.

Perhaps you rein in your staff and endlessly pore over the figures – searching for that economic epiphany.

Or, if you are Alan Boswell, perhaps you just put your finger in the air, follow the financial winds, and see what happens. Because, by his own admission, that is what he has done – and he hasn't done too badly.

In the last 30 years, Mr Boswell has transformed his one-man-band insurance brokering business above a Wroxham chip shop into one of the leading insurance and financial planning operators in East Anglia.

And even when the economic winds edged towards gale force last year, he stayed steady at the helm – guiding the Alan Boswell Group to a 5pc growth in turnover for the year ending March 2012, from £10,368,793 in 2011 to £10,900,846 in 2012, according to Companies House figures.

But this is about to change.

This week, he has announced that he will be stepping aside from his role as managing director of Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers and appointing Chris Gibbs, the group operations director, as the new MD.

For Mr Boswell, the change is not as significant as it sounds.

'These things don't just happen. He already took over the responsibilities some time ago,' he tells me.

And by all accounts, Mr Boswell will not be leaving the company, nor will he simply take a back-seat role. He is keen to stress that he will still be the chairman of the firm, and will remain 'hands on'.

And with the move to establish the firm's new offices in Peterborough still a work in progress – with 15 staff set to move into the new premises in May – and a recently-established office in London, there will certainly be no shortage of work to do.

But as the company continues to celebrate its 30th anniversary this year, it raises the question: how did a single insurance broker in Norfolk build such a successful enterprise?

At first, Mr Boswell is a little reticent to indulge in nostalgia.

'It's all in the brochure,' he answers initially when I ask for his memories, but it is a story he is subsequently happy to tell. 'I started on my own when I was thirty something in Wroxham in 1982,' he said.

'I chose Wroxham because it was the major town near me and I had an office above a fish-and-chip shop, which was actually quite funny at the time because we had this fabulous window that looked down on the river, but the rest of the time it just smelt like fish and chips.

'I remember one of my clients, who is actually still one of my clients, said, 'You have got to get some more help because every time I ring up, there is no one there.' So I got a two-way radio – this is pre-mobile phones – and you had to go via a base in Norwich. So you would get on the radio and say the call sign '223 to base can you get me such and such' and they would patch me through so I could be in touch with the office.

'It was a different world back then,' Mr Boswell says – and he means it. His first turnover was £110,000 and now the figures have reached the £10m mark.

But what does an expression, used so often when delving into the past, mean for an insurance chief.

For Mr Boswell, it is all about industry legislation. Regulations surrounding compliance are the biggest challenge his company has faced, he says. And he is not overly happy about the money he is having to fork out for it.

'Back then there was nothing stopping me being an insurance broker and providing financial services,' he said.

'But it is a totally different world now. The compliance and financial services authority, that didn't exist in the 1980s. I would drive off to Great Yarmouth to sell a client some endowment for £50 a month and you would earn money, but now we have a full-time compliance regime and I bet we spend about £300,000 on compliance each year – if not more.

'Meanwhile, we now have to pay about £50,000 a year into the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) because insurance brokers have been rolled into paying for the banks' mistakes with payment protection insurance, which is nothing to do with us.'

But while the legislative changes may come as a frustration, they certainly haven't put the brakes on the company's ambition.

Most recently, the firm, and its 223-strong staff, acquired two insurance broking businesses in the Peterborough area – the city office of Sutcliffe Insurance Brokers and Bentley Charles Insurance Services.

And in August 2011, it established a London presence by opening its first office in the capital.

It is a series of recent acquisitions that lead back to the first business he took over in 1991.

'The big thing that changed it for us back then was that we took over a business in North Walsham, which was LS Skipper,' he said.

'At the time it was not a major thing, but it set us on a path in 1991 that kick-started us.

'And then we took over several other little businesses along the way and then opened up in Norwich in Merchant's Court, and then we grew out of that. We bought a few businesses in a bit of a flurry in the '90s.

'But Norwich was the natural place to be as a business because it was difficult to get staff in Wroxham and people could get to Norwich.

'But we were coming into a different environment then as a business than we are in now. It is mega competitive now.'

The environment Mr Boswell describes comes with its fair share of players – with the biggest threat coming from internet insurance providers, which have encroached on to what he describes as the 'tradition-al insurance broker business'.

But while he admits that the likes of Money Supermarket and Go Compare can beat the company on price, it is a victory that comes at a great cost to service, transparency and trust.

'We are still an old-fashioned insurance broker and you can still walk in here and take out your car insurance and have a cup of tea while you are doing it if you want to.

'But we can't be as cheap as chips. We try and add something by giving advice. The web is largely offering personal insurance as in motor and home, so there is a challenge when it comes to meeting that bit. But don't forget, a lot of people do not understand insurance. They are not sure what they are buying. Insurance has been commoditised – it is like buying a tin of beans now. But I still think people need a bit of advice. They may not know that they have a £500 excess on their policy because they thought they had £50, so an insurance broker can still add something. It is about trust, transparency and advice. Online it is do you want it or not? and if you do, you just press a button to say yes.

'But compliance is the biggest challenge. With the retail distribution review, you can't have any commission. You have to charge fees.

'So there is a whole tranche of the public that cannot get financial advice because we cannot afford to give it for nothing.

'But we are no different to a solicitor or an accountant: we have to pay 'x' pound an hour, otherwise we can't afford to go on. But it is not just the money, it is the whole culture.'

The culture change he describes is one the whole insurance sector will have to get used to. But if the past is anything to go by, it is not likely to stop him anytime soon.

So what's next for Mr Boswell? Will there be any more acquisitions? He bristles a little. 'I get people who say to me all the time, 'Have you bought any new businesses lately, Bos'?''

He later adds: 'I am a bit of a finger in the air and see how things go person, really.'

But you suspect, for a man so used to crunching numbers, he is too modest to let on the scale of the calculations that have taken the company to where it is today.

ben.woods@archant.co.uk