Follow the Advice ep1 - Sam Bowen

David Brown, a former insurance and financial services professional, hosts the "Follow the Advice" podcast to highlight the positive impact of the industry and interview owners and directors of small and medium-sized advice businesses. In this episode, he speaks with Sam Bowen, the managing director of Opal Black Insurance Services. Sam shares his journey in the insurance industry, starting as an employee at a high street broker and eventually setting up his own insurance brokerage. He discusses the changing expectations of appearance in the industry and the importance of a diverse workforce. Sam also talks about his experience working with high net worth clients and his decision to start his own business. Hello and welcome to the follow the advice podcast. I'm David Brown. I spent 30 years of my career in the insurance and financial services business and one thing I'm clear on is that we don't do enough to publicise the good that the industry does and the commitment shown by many professionals within it to look after our customers. In each episode of my podcast, I'll be talking to the people who make the wheels of our industry turn, the owners and directors of small and medium sized advice businesses that make such a massive contribution to sustainability. Maybe you're a potential customer of an insurance broker or financial advisor, or maybe you're interested to get into those industries as a career, or maybe you're even considering starting your own advice business. Then this podcast is for you. I hope you enjoy listening. Welcome to follow the advice. In this episode, I'll be talking to Sam Bowen. Sam is the Managing Director of Opal Black Insurance Services. They're a general insurance broker focusing on providing advice to private clients, SMEs and property clients. Sam began working in the insurance industry in 1997 when he took his first role at high street insurance broker. And since then, he's typically worked for independent owner managed businesses until he joined the NFU Mutual as an agent in 2018. Following a four year stint there, he decided to set up Opal Black Insurance Services and started trading in August 2022. Sam's an ambitious business owner, and he's got plans in place to grow his business significantly over the next 10 years through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions. I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Sam. I hope you enjoy listening. So Sam, welcome. It's fantastic to have you here. I really appreciate you giving up some time for this conversation. I'm really interested in, I guess, like many people, we all have our own story of how we ended up in insurance and how we got to where we are today. So I'm really interested in starting at the beginning with you. Where did it all begin? Yeah. Pleasure to be here, David. Thank you for having me along. Yeah, it actually started for me when I finished my A-levels and went and did a bit of traveling around the US with a few mates. So I spent a few months traveling around. Came back to the UK and thought, well, you know what? I need to get, inverted commas, a proper job. So started having a look around. What was a proper job to me? It was a job where I could progress. There was some stability. So yeah, just looking around locally, really, and applied for things like the local bank, a couple of office-type roles that had come up and didn't get them. And one of the feedback, actually, was, oh, yeah, you passed all the tests. You came across really well, but your hair looks a bit silly. I had quite long curly hair at the time, shoulder-length curly hair. And so I thought, oh, maybe that's holding me back. So I went and got my hair cut, went and got a new suit, and then went into my local insurance brokers, which was just a high street broker in Woking in Surrey. And yeah, after a couple of interviews, was given the role there. I think it was for the princely sum of about £8,000 a year, which I thought was fantastic at the time after coming out from A-levels. And so yeah, started there, just initially processing the renewals on personal lines customers, home and motor insurance, because at that time, that's what people did. They still went into their local insurance broker to arrange their policies. So this was back in 1997. It's really interesting you mentioned hair and appearance, a subject close to my heart. So if someone's listening to this now and is thinking about joining our industry, what's your take now on that appearance thing? Because that's changed since 1997, right? It has changed massively. So yeah, I think that back in those days, you'd have to be wearing your suit and your tie when you're in the office, and looking clean cut, hair, looking neat and tidy, well-groomed. And now, a lot of that isn't so important, because less and less is done face to face. But also, just the industry itself has changed, and people's expectations has changed. So it's a much more diverse industry than it was when I first joined. It was very male-dominated, very middle-aged, middle-class, which has thankfully changed a lot since then. So you get a lot more, a much broader spectrum of people coming to work in the industry, which is fantastic. Yeah, I agree. So take us then from 1997-ish, with your new haircut and your new suit. So what's the next chapter in your story? Yeah, so I was there for a couple of years, and then a sort of friend of a friend was setting up their own insurance brokerage. So they had come out of a career, well, two of them actually, two guys had come out from one of the large sort of high street brokers and set up their own business. And I was their first employee. So that was in 99, I think. So yeah, I came in as the first employee. Again, predominantly home and motor insurance, but also FME business as well. And while those guys were out building their business, I was effectively running the branch. So they're doing everything from cashing up at the end of the day, to sorting out the IT, to servicing existing customers. So two years within that business. And it's amazing when you work within a small business, you have to do such an array of jobs, that it builds your confidence and experience quite quickly, actually. And also you get to see kind of how the business grows. You see how other people grow a business. And you learn from what goes well, and you also learn from their mistakes as well. But the thing for me, it gave me a really good broad overview of the business itself. And also a really good grounding in all the various different types of insurance policies that they offered. So yeah, I was there for a couple of years. And it then got to the point where there wasn't really anywhere for me to go within that business. It was still in its infancy. The two main shareholders who are the guys that owned and ran it. And I thought, well, what do I want to do next? And because I'd left education at A-level stage, and I have to admit, I hadn't done particularly well at A-levels, because studying wasn't high on the priority list at the age of 16 and 17. There were more interesting activities that one could be getting up to. So I didn't do particularly well at A-level. But I knew academically, I had the ability to go beyond that level. So I went as a mature student at the age of 23. I went to university at that stage and went and studied law for a few years at the University of Hertfordshire, which was actually based in St. Albans at the time. So I studied law there for three years, did all right, got a 2.1 at the end of it. But by the age of 26, I'd run out of money. So I didn't have any funds to go on and pursue the law career in terms of going on to do the LPC and all that sort of stuff. So what did I know best? Well, insurance. So I then went to work for a broker in Twickenham in their private clients team. So that was the first exposure I had to working with some high net worth private clients. So I joined there in 2004. And after a few years, I was running the private client team there. It was a small team, sort of six people. I had some very nice, very nice clients, actually, some really interesting clients, again, really diverse background. And you get exposure to a lot of different people, everyone from celebrities, CEOs, CEOs of 1,100 companies. So you turn up at people's homes, and you just don't know what you can expect. And every client is completely different. And I just found it fascinating how these clients had built their wealth. And also what they spent their money on as well, which is which is really interesting and eye opening to me as well. So yes, I got to the point where I was managing the team there. I was doing more and more of the management stuff. So you know, it's the performance reviews, the appraisals, it's the budget, all that sort of stuff. And I was kind of moving away from what I actually really enjoyed doing, which was working with clients. So an opportunity came up to work at a specialist high net worth broker in their sales and development team. So I took that role and ended up being there for nine, nine years, I think it was. And again, by the end of that nine year period, I was head of sales and development looking after high net worth clients. So as well as looking after the clients, which is really fun and interesting in itself, I was also looking after and introduce a network of people that would introduce business into that brokerage. So I've built up a really good network of professional advisors who are working with the high net worth community. Now, this was ranging from private banks, wealth managers, accountants, lawyers, luxury brands, luxury retailers, all that sort of thing. So I developed a really, really good network. And yes, really enjoyed. I enjoyed the job that I was doing and enjoyed the sorts of clients I was working with and enjoyed the working with the introducers that I was working with as well. So I got to the point where, again, I was looking for that next stage in my career, because I seem to constantly be looking for that next stage, that next big challenge. And then the opportunity came up to become a self-employed agent for sort of a big national insurance company. And again, that seemed like the natural progression, going to that self-employed model. So I kind of took the leap of going from a salary position into the self-employed world and took to it really well. Again, really enjoyed the work that I was doing, really enjoyed the clients I was working with, but still felt that it probably wasn't the challenge that I needed, wasn't the challenge I was looking for. So what is it, 18 months ago now, I kind of took the decision to go and set up my own insurance brokerage, independent insurance broker, focusing on three core areas, private clients, because that's naturally what I know, SMEs, so typically with a turnover of up to about £20 million, and property-related clients, because I've always worked with property in the insurance business. So that's property owners, managers, developers, and anyone providing advice in the property sector. So yeah, fast forward to where are we today, and yeah, my business has now been going for well, about 18 months, and yeah, really enjoying the challenge of self-employment. Excellent. Sam, I'd love to explore, I guess, a bit more about some of the inspiration to set up your own business. Before I do that, let me cycle back, though, I'm not going to ask you about what was more interesting to do around the age of 17 or 18. Use your imagination, David. Yeah, that's probably best not mentioned in this podcast. But what I am interested in is, you said that you were fascinated by some of the things that people with money spend their money on. So I'm wondering, what's the most unusual or maybe most valuable, if you're allowed to disclose it, what's the most kind of notable thing you've ever been asked to insure by a customer? The most unusual ones, yeah, people that know me in the industry, I've told this story a few times, so they will have heard this, but the most unusual was a husband had a replica of his, how do we put it, manhood made for his wife out of solid silver. So obviously, this wasn't directly told to me, I was just going through a list of value, a valuation list of various items within the property and came across the description of the piece, which was a solid silver penis stored in a sheepskin sheath. And it was valued at £11,000. Well, so yeah, he'd obviously liked his wife so much that he produced this wonderful gift for her at a cost of £11,000. So yeah, that's the one, as you can probably understand, why it's always stuck with me as being one of the most unusual things that I've insured. Yeah, in terms of most valuable, it's got to be a piece of jewellery, a ring or something, probably five million quid, something like that. But yeah, it's the solid silver object that's always stuck with me. Wow, I am almost wishing I hadn't asked, Sam. Yeah, you might want to cut that out of the interview. I think in truth, I'm going to leave it in because I'm not sure that can be topped. There's a challenge to anyone listening to this who would like to be a future guest on the podcast, if you can beat Sam's quote, unquote, solid silver penis. It's not mine, by the way. Then there's an open invitation. So fabulous. Thank you very much for sharing that. I didn't know that story. I genuinely am glad I asked. So Sam, I'm really interested. You talked about that whole network of people around the client and you talked about, or at least you touched on, I guess, some of the principles that, if I read between the lines, seem to now come through in your business offering. What I took from what you said is there's a feeling of depth and quality, I think, to what you offer. So have I got that right? Have I joined the dots between, I guess, some of your past and where you are today in terms of what you do for your clients? Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I noticed as the years had gone by is that lots of brokers, as well, we all know this, brokers get acquired all the time. The big boys come along and acquire the small independent brokers. A lot of the personal service gets lost and a lot of the client contact gets lost because they get funneled into a structure within the larger corporate brokers that suits the larger corporates. It doesn't necessarily suit the client. So what I mean by that, I mean, there's much less client contact. It's much more reliant on telephone and email. And there's still, whilst there's a large chunk of the population who are quite happy to do things remotely online, that's absolutely fine. There's still a significant chunk of clients, probably a majority, who want to have that face-to-face contact or the absolute minimum. They want to be able to pick up the phone, speak to the same person, get high quality advice from someone who knows what they're talking about with industry experience, who can then go and find them the right product. And I find that so many brokers now are hiding behind the keyboard. They'll have a panel of insurers who are their preferred markets. And the reason they're preferred markets is because, let's not beat around the bush, they probably pay them the most commission. So I just felt that the industry was commoditizing clients to such an extent that we had lost the whole raison d'etre of being a broker, which is being there for your clients to provide that high quality advice and high levels of service. So I was speaking to a number of entrepreneurs, lots of them in the digital space. And they were saying, oh, it's all going digital. And everyone needs a platform. And clients need to be able to access their information 24 hours a day and get cheapest quotes possible. Actually, there's a large chunk of the population that don't want that. They just want someone they know, trust and can rely on to provide them the right advice and the right products. So whilst it may seem a little archaic to some, actually, that quality advice, quality service is something that I passionately believe in, and I'm building my business around. And if clients want to find the cheapest option and go online, that's absolutely fine. No problem with that at all. But they're probably not the right clients for us. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think that the need for interaction with a human being, do you sense that's making a bit of a comeback? Yeah, I think we're almost going full circle on it. Because the industry, the insurance industry, gets a bit of a bad rep, let's be honest. Now, a lot of that is because people aren't getting the right advice. You know, if someone picks up the phone to me, and tells me, I don't know, they've got a building project planned, I can advise them from start to finish what needs to happen throughout the life cycle of that project, what the insurance risks are, what they need to consider, and put in place an insurance program that covers them throughout that process. If they go online and try and buy something and press the wrong button, yeah, it might spit out a quote at the end of it and give them a certificate or policy schedule. But they've got no idea if that's going to pay them out in the event of a claim. So I think that, yeah, what I say to clients is, would you rather give me the information and I go and find you the solution? If I get it wrong, that's on me. If you go online and try and buy something and press the wrong button, if you get that wrong, that's on you. So just by engaging with a broker, you're getting that extra level, an extra layer of protection, as well as getting the right advice and the right products at the end of it. So I think, yeah, there is still a large chunk of the population that want that service. And there's still actually a large chunk of the population that probably want that service, but don't know it's available. Because they probably think, oh, an insurance broker is only for the super rich, or it's only for massive corporates. But it's not. I think my message to clients now is, everyone can access an insurance broker. You don't have to be super wealthy. But you just have to have a realization that, is it going to be the absolute cheapest thing possible? No, it's not. Because obviously, there's a cost that comes with that advice and that service. But yeah, we're going to be competitive. And we're going to give you great advice. Or hopefully, the broker you're dealing with is going to give you great advice. So that comes with a cost. And there's value attached to that. So yeah, I think, from what I've seen in the 18 months of starting the business, is there's still a significant portion of the population who want that. Yeah, and certainly, my take on it as a customer or as a consumer would be that that would be important to me. I'm happy, for example, to self-serve when everything's going smoothly. But at the moment, something goes wrong and I need to talk to someone, that's critical to me to have that facility or that option to do that. So I think you're right. I think it's a need that people will have for the foreseeable future. Yeah, and I think there are certain products, as you mentioned, that suit the online marketplace. Car insurance is a classic one. If you answer the questions fully and properly, at the end of the day, it's a metal box. If you have an accident, it gets taken away, it gets repaired, and given back to you. There's not a huge amount of value I can add as a broker unless you've got a significant car collection or something like that, or high-value assets. Something like your business insurance or your property portfolio or your residential property, there's such a big difference between good quality policies and ones that are cheap and perhaps don't provide you with the cover that you need. That's when you need to engage with a broker to make sure you get the right level of cover. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess, moving on from that, Sam, but still focusing on the customer, I'm really interested in what people out there are saying about our industry now, right? Because I'll be honest, having worked in the industry for over 30 years, I don't think we've done a particularly good job in the past of either promoting ourselves or of being transparent about what we're there to do or not do, as the case may be. Our reputation hasn't always been the strongest. What are people saying to you now about the insurance industry and how we're perceived? Yeah, it's a difficult one because it's such a broad industry that it's almost difficult to say, well, this is the perception because there's so many different facets to the insurance industry, as you'll well know. I think people fall into different categories. I see it quite a lot online now. Insurance prices are going up, so they think insurance companies are just there to rip them off. They think, oh, it's an absolute scam. My car insurance has gone up 50%. I've had no claims. I've had a maximum no-claims discount. I've got the same car. I haven't moved. They think it's all a big rip-off. So there's that portion of the market. There's another part of the market which thinks, oh, well, they're never going to pay me out when it comes to having a claim. What people don't realise is that actually, I think it's 95-plus percent of all claims that get reported are paid out. That's across the industry. So actually, insurance companies are here to pay claims. That's what they're there for. And if they're not paying a claim, then there needs to be a very, very good reason for them not paying it. Again, that's why having a broker involved can often pay dividends because we're there to push back to the insurance company and fight on behalf of policyholders as and when the need arises. But I think a lot of this distrust started as well during the COVID pandemic with all the business interruption claims that weren't met by the industry. I don't think there was a particularly good job done by the industry to explain what insurance is there for and what it's there and what it doesn't cover. But I think at the end of the day, the customers that have dealt with good quality brokers for a number of years actually have a realisation there's a huge amount of value that gets added. Yeah, having a good broker on board can be the difference between your business surviving or not in the event of a major loss. So those customers that are working closely with their broker have a good relationship with their broker. I think those are the ones that really understand the industry and see the value that we can add. But going back to one of your points was that I just don't think as an industry we've been very good at communicating that. What do we bring? There seems to be, again, a constant desire to try and find customers the absolute cheapest premium. So we're almost victims of it ourselves because we're constantly trying to recommend a cheaper policy to the customer because they're pushing us back on price. We're saying, oh, we'll find you something cheaper rather than saying, well, actually, this is the right insurer for you, this is the right product for you, and these are the reasons for it. So I think, and again, that's probably because there has been the message that people are getting is constantly price, price, price, whereas actually that shouldn't be the message people are thinking about the whole time. The message should be service, service, service, in my view. And I think that's – is that because we've lost a lot of good people from the industry over the years? People have retired and we've not done a very good job at recruiting and bringing on the next generation. Potentially it is. So the next generation are constantly being bombarded with price. But yeah, so it's about us sort of bringing on the next gen and making sure they're trained properly and they understand the industry correctly and the value that we can bring rather than just constantly bringing the conversation back around to price. Yeah, of course. And you talked earlier about that advice gap, which you saw starting to emerge all those years ago as you kind of climbed the ladder and worked for different organisations. So that's absolutely real. Yeah, and I think that advice gap comes from – and again, it's the commoditisation of the insurance market. So if you've got an SME or a private client and they're insured with a large, you know, multi-billion dollar broker, effectively, are they going to get access to decision makers within that broker? Are they going to get access to the people with the high levels of experience? I doubt it. They're probably going to be getting access to people that are kind of cutting their teeth on an account or a line of business. So yeah, and again, that's what I mean by advice gap is that people are kind of being people are kind of being forced into a – it's almost like a sausage factory type environment rather than just being able to pick up the phone and have a proper conversation with someone who knows and understands their requirements. I get that. And let's face it, as human beings, all we really want at the end of the day is, if we have a problem, someone to sort it out and sort it out quickly. And that's not rocket science. So, Sam, before we start to wrap up today, I guess I'm interested, just changing up the topic altogether, really, you mentioned before about obviously your own business. And you said that previous to setting that up, you felt like you needed a bigger challenge. So I guess I'm interested just in hearing a little bit more about the inspiration behind setting up the business, where you are now and what you see the next few years looking like. Yeah, so the inspiration was, well, it's kind of threefold, I suppose. One was, I saw there were a lot of firms out there not doing a very good job for customers. And I thought, you know what, I can do better than that. The next thing was, well, actually, I want to be able to build something and leave a legacy. So whatever that looks like, I don't know yet. I'm still in the growth stage rather than the thinking about the other end stage. But I want to be able to build something for myself and leave something to the family and all that sort of stuff going forward. And the third element was, I just like helping people. I like helping customers. I like helping the people that I work with, the teams that I work with. And having my own business enables me to do that in the manner that I'd want to do it, rather than working under someone else's guidelines or restrictions or straightjacket for a better expression. So yeah, the plan is, and just so you're aware that I'm part of a network. So I started the business on my own, but I've got a network behind me. So they do a lot of the back office function. So they'll do the accounting, a lot of the broking for me. They'll deal with the compliance and the PI costs, which is great. But the plan is to grow the business pretty significantly. Well, significantly in my head over the next 10 years. So what does the business look like 10 years from now? It looks like probably 10 members of staff, premium income touching £6 million. And these are figures that I've got a plan to get there. How am I going to do that? It'll be a combination of organic growth, but maybe some strategic acquisitions of small books of business as and when the opportunity becomes available. But there's lots of people out there looking for those sorts of opportunities. So I won't hold my breath on that. Because of my background in sales and development, as I mentioned earlier, I've got a pretty good network of people that can introduce business to me. Now, a lot of people, when they go and set up their own insurance business, they think, oh, great, you know, I've managed a book of clients for the last 10, 15, 20 years. A lot of those will follow me across. And then I'll worry about how I go and find new ones. I'm a bit different to that. And I had no clients to bring over from a previous role. So I have to go and win all of them from scratch. And because of the sort of network I've built up over the years, I'm confident that I'll be able to do that. So yeah, in 10 years time, what does that look like? I don't know at this stage. I'm sort of looking for offices, thinking of taking on staff at some point this year. But yeah, the ultimate plan is to get to, say, five, six million pounds worth of premium in 10 years time. And then kind of take stock, I suppose. And the plan will no doubt change, evolve, and mature as the years go by. And we'll see what the next phase looks like. Great stuff. I mean, it's great to talk to one of a growing number of people in our industry who've almost started out in the last couple of years, using the tools and the knowledge they've gained in their journey through insurance, but using it to do a great job for customers. But more importantly, as you've just said, who have a plan to achieve great things for themselves in the years ahead. And you know how you're going to do that, or at least you have more than a vague idea of how you're going to achieve that, Sam. So yeah, it's fantastic to spend time with you, chatting that through and hearing a bit about where you've been, where you're going, and some of the things that make up your background and your values. So of course, I wish you very good luck with the journey ahead, Sam. I'll watch your progress with interest. But meantime, I'd love to just thank you for your input today. It's been ever so insightful. We've covered a lot, but frankly, I could spend another hour or two exploring some of these topics with you. So thanks ever so much for joining today. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure, David. Thanks very much. What a fantastic conversation. I really hope you enjoyed that. You've been listening to Follow the Advice. If you'd like to get in touch with me, you'll find me on LinkedIn. Just search for David Brown Problem Solver. You can listen to other episodes of the podcast on audio.com. And if you'd like to check out my video content, you'll find me on YouTube at Skoosh Consulting. That's S-K-O-O-S-H. If you want to know what that means, visit my website at www.itsaskoosh.com. Thanks again for listening, and I hope to see you all soon.