Diary of an Insurer: Markerstudy’s Amanda Fox

Monday

My morning starts with week four of C25K, a running program that has been designed to get just about anyone from the couch to running 5km or 30 minutes in just nine weeks.

I used to run a few years ago, but after I caught Covid in December 2021, I never got back into it. But now is the time.

My work day starts with a review of the week ahead; it’s set to be a busy one but I’m pleased to see there’s only one trip to London.

The first meeting of the day is a full performance review with capacity providers, which sparks lots of lively debate about the market trends, rating, new products and performance. 

Then I have some time to read through our new fraud strategy. We’ve been doing a lot of work on this recently, including running a broker webinar series, and I have a meeting with our head of fraud later to discuss next steps.

A quick walk at lunchtime to clear my head is followed by a bite to eat and then on to my monthly direct report meeting. There’s lots of exciting projects on the go and it’s great to hear how they are progressing and to catch up with the team. 

The last meeting today is the fraud update. We’re passionate about leading the agenda and have lots planned in the next couple of months. 

Tuesday

Today starts with me chairing the customer conduct risk meeting.

I love this forum – we’re challenging ourselves to really understand our customer needs and striving to do better. There are always lots of great ideas and discussion in these meetings, but many of the challenges are industry-wide such as shortage of parts, courtesy cars, shortage of repairers, et cetera.

All of this puts strain on the ultimate service we offer but we do our best to manage good customer outcomes. 

End of the day is spent working on the next stage of our broker strategy for 2023. I brief the team on our goals, answer questions and we start the next phase.

Wednesday

I’ve got an early start today as I’m travelling to London for a full day of meetings. I leave my hubby in bed with a cup of tea, as I head off to the station and thankfully the trains are all running on time.

When I arrive at the office we start the day looking at how we can drive efficiencies through our bike and schemes areas of business.

It was a really productive meeting with lots of ideas to help simplify processes to help us deliver a better service. I brought in some chocolate cupcakes – nothing gets the ideas flowing like a bit of a sugar rush.

After lunch I spend some time with our chief risk officer. We look at how we evolve our governance structures and reporting to ensure we continue to drive the best customer outcomes.

The last meeting of the day is out of the office over a bite to eat with our head of marketing to discuss the plans for broker communications in Q2 and a catch-up about our plans for the British Insurance Brokers Association Conference. 

Thursday

First things first, I head out on my next C25k run. Then after some breakfast, I get myself ready for the day ahead.

The morning is quite busy with a team meeting. I have two separate teams and I join their meetings on a regular basis.

I like to keep connected with my whole team, and these catch-ups are an opportunity to check on work life balance and gives me a really good insight into their well-being.

Then I’m straight into an operational review meeting with our capacity providers where I enjoy sharing the great work we are doing for our customers and debating with a wider audience.

After lunch I get a few hours without a meeting – now let’s see if I can clear some of those emails.

Friday

A nice calm start to Friday. I have a training session on our new invoice systems in the morning, which promises to speed up processing.

After lunch I have a weekly virtual catch-up with my team. I always look forward to this on a Friday as it’s more of a social meeting. We do talk shop, but it’s the new equivalent to taking your team for a quick drink at the end of the week.

We’re all in different locations and rarely get the chance to meet socially, in fact, we only managed this twice last year.

It’s been a busy week but they are all in good spirits and looking forward to the weekend. I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment.