26 Sep 2024
by Sara Tweedale
What is your role and where do you work?

I have been with Maven Public Sector as an underwriter since the end of August 2023. This is my first public sector role after spending the last 20+ years working for insurers and Managing General Agents in commercial insurance, as well as working within the broking side of the industry. I am extremely lucky to work with a hugely experienced and skilled team who have been very generous in passing on their knowledge.

What is your expertise, specialism or main area of interest?

Prior to my time at Maven my expertise has leant more toward the property side of things, with previous underwriting roles focussing on that and motor in the commercial sector. While I continue to utilise and share that knowledge, I am keen to become more involved in the casualty cases Maven deals with to expand my skill set and assist the team. The public sector presents new challenges, with some unique complexities, which I continue to learn more about.

Is there a particular aspect of your work you are interested in or passionate about?

I am passionate about problem solving, whether that be finding a resolution for an unusual client query or creating a solution to assist in making the team more efficient overall. Our top priority is providing a positive outcome for our clients and the more time we have to achieve this, the better.

What are you working on currently?

Having made it through my first extremely busy tender and renewal season, with much needed support from the rest of the team, I am now meeting clients, broker partners and insurers to ensure we maintain a truly collaborative approach on our accounts. I enjoyed attending the ALARM National Conference which allowed me to further develop some of these relationships. The sessions I joined provided some great insight into areas I haven’t previously been involved in.

I have also been involved with a working group within the team, concentrating on ways to streamline our existing processes to allow greater efficiency and accuracy. This has been an extremely rewarding project which has been receiving positive feedback and we are looking forward to implementing the resultant process changes.

What topics and trends are emerging?
The intent to phase out sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 is leading to various authorities reviewing their existing fleet arrangements and we are seeing higher numbers of electric vehicles being included in some cases. While EVs are not a brand new risk, the higher number on the roads has led to an increase in electric vehicle fires, which are not easily extinguished and can therefore lead to significantly higher levels of property damage. Also, there are considerations to be made about where safe charging can be undertaken, which can impact under both property and casualty covers. In addition, EVs will potentially utilise software that has the potential to be hacked in ever evolving cyber attacks.