Underwriting Service Awards - accentuate the positive… but scrutinise the negative

It’s nice to win awards, especially when they’re the result of a market survey, but the feedback we get from such sources is always much more valuable than the accolades themselves.

We were really chuffed to pick up two Underwriting Service Awards towards the end of last year, for the Legal Expenses Team of the Year and Managing General Agents Team of the Year. You might think we take such gongs for granted, having collected a total of nine different prizes in the seven years that these awards have been running, but the voting process in the legal expenses category offers a rare chance to hear what brokers really think about ARAG.

Awards ceremonies can be fun. Even if you don’t come home with a prize, they offer the opportunity to catch up with friends from around the industry and even let your hair down a little. However, even winners can get some very clear, honest and valuable feedback from the market, if they take the time to look at the data and anonymous comments.

Digging deeper though, the anonymous comments from voting brokers offer some very genuine insight that is not easy to gain elsewhere.

First, it is gratifying that positive comments outnumbered the few negative ones by about 4 to 1, and that words like ‘service’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘relationship’ are cited time and again. But it is the few “weaknesses” to which we pay the most attention. Whether they appear to be minor niggles, requests to fill gaps in our product line-up or pointers about particular service areas, we know these are the things we need to work on, to maintain our reputation and stay at the very front of the market.

Awards surveys can only offer a snapshot, of course, and are far from our only source of feedback about the quality of our service. We have recently started the journey to Service Mark accreditation with the Institute of Customer Service, which will give us a broader, more rigorous and continual measure of  service quality, than we have ever had, but feedback in all its forms is vital.

Best Employer

We pride ourselves on being a quality insurer. But what defines quality? Sure, we know our products are some of the best in the market, and our prices offer great value for money.  It’s the people of ARAG that deliver the service which our customers have come to expect and we believe it’s this that separates us from the rest; it’s this that makes us a quality business.

Quality service comes from those who are motivated, happy and engaged. Best Companies is the gold standard when attempting to gauge the engagement of your people; it’s the benchmark that underpins the Times Top 100 Companies to Work For.

We’re proud, for the second year running, to have been awarded outstanding employer status (two-star).  We therefore know that we’re doing things right in terms of Leadership, Teamwork, Personal Growth and Giving Something Back to name a few. Being outstanding reaffirms our belief that we’re on the right track.

But we want to do more; our drive makes us look for continuous improvement. We have aspirations to be a three-star company within two years and to compete against those in the Times Top 100 list.  We want to have engaged, motivated, inspired, happy, learning people who can not only deliver against our customers’ expectations, but go beyond them.