10 years : paying claims, listening, innovating

So, it’s 10 years for ARAG in the UK. From a standing start with six of us in September 2006, to the 100-strong organisation that today has over £44 million premium under management. Numerous industry accolades have marked our path and recent awards reflect our positive market stance. An anniversary is a great time to confirm you have held true to the business’ core principles, to assess who has benefited from them, and to decide whether the future course should be set in the same direction.

Having marked our birthday with a party or two in Bristol and with Board members and German colleagues in Düsseldorf, city of our parent office, we are focussing on the future. Brexit, NHS test cases over clinical negligence and higher small claims court limits may cast a shadow over 2017 but as a company, we are not frightened by this. ARAG will continue to provide access to justice for all, regardless of their means.Our research indicates that after the bumper year of 2013, pre-LASPOA, the overall legal expenses market shrank 11% in 2014, but added another 6% in 2015. Such growth will be difficult to achieve in the post-LASPOA world for ATE but at the same time, we have succeeded in growing our BTE book to 50% overall, correcting our 2013 split where ATE accounted for two-thirds of our premium income.

ARAG’s growth areas for ATE will be in motor, employers’ liability, public liability and non-personal injury. We have also pioneered a Practice Protection Policy that covers sizeable law firms for all their clients, avoiding the need to insure each client individually.

We modelled this firstly for a certain firm in Scotland and are finalising deals with firms in England and Wales to support them in this way too. We have also made a determined effort to bring in more commercial BTE clients and opening the London office has contributed significantly.

Expect continued, strong growth in home emergency business as bundled covers from insurance brokers take over from expensive offers from utility providers. Anticipate, above all, that our core values of providing premium service, innovation and, most importantly, of listening to our business partners, will still be guiding us as we go from our first decade to our second, and beyond.