2023 is well underway but I believe it’s important to reflect on the past year, celebrate what’s been good, recognise what the challenges have been and how our experiences will shape the future.

At Premium Credit, ‘purpose’ is our true north and drives our business, no more so than in the last 12 months. We believe that a clearly communicated purpose continues to act as the underlying link between a healthy culture, the right business model and positive outcomes for our customers and partners. Ultimately, our performance is entwined with that of our partners.

£4bn in net advances

In 2022, we continued to provide award winning instalment financing to commercial and personal lines customers, even when others were reluctant to in the aftermath of Covid-19, supporting the purchase of insurance policies and a range of other services when they were needed most. With our partners we talk a lot about a 100% offer of finance as we know the more our product is offered the higher percentage of customers will take it – just offering the product in a consistent, professional and compliant manner often leads to increased take up.

Through our partner relationships we hit a new milestone lending well over £4 billion in net advances across the UK and Irish insurance markets, creating multiple benefits and growth opportunities for our partners. This figure continues to increase through use of integrated technology originating over two million loans annually through a network of nearly three thousand partners – in fact our group lent over £4.5bn last year in total across all products.

New wins

New business wins were a significant feature in 2022 and we took great delight in onboarding new partners, like Bennetts, Inshur and Somerset Bridge. Existing partners also renewed which was particularly pleasing, often with additional business or acquisitions to add into the portfolio. It means a lot when a business selects us again, confirming they are happy with our service and consider us as a preferred partner that they can entrust their customers to.

Refreshed sales team

We believe that our people, both front and back office, are our most prized asset and a key route to success. As a result, we continually look to strengthen our team and align ourselves to our partners and customers.

In sales, we have made some key appointments by developing existing talent or introducing new faces, recognising the bespoke needs of the Commercial Lines, Personal Lines and e-Trade markets.

Christy Chisholm transitioned to Deputy Director of Commercial Lines. Dave Howell expanded his focus on Commercial Risks with the business’ largest commercial customers. Mark Coffey, formerly of Atlanta, Oak and RSA joined us as Personal Lines and e-Trade Director. And Glen Murphy was promoted to Sales Support Director. These changes will enable the whole IPF Sales Team to deliver our ’100% Offer’ strategy through existing partners, new partners and new propositions.

Award success

As the year came to an end we were recognised as ‘Business Partner of the Year’ at the 2022 Insurance Times Awards. Our entry focused on how we adapted our proposition to meet the bespoke needs of large commercial customers. This latest achievement acknowledges and celebrates the business’ delivery of industry leading premium finance solutions – we couldn’t have been happier. We never take accolades like this for granted and will always look for ways to improve our products and services.

2023

The year ahead will no doubt provide challenges but we look forward with great optimism. Our premium finance solutions will continue to provide partners’ customers with the opportunity to spread the cost of insurance premiums, protecting their cash flow and the risk of underinsurance – it’s a strong option and one that we expect to continue delivering double digit growth in all lines. We will adapt to customer needs and trading conditions presenting significant opportunities for those we work with. We look forward to partnering with many more brokers, insurers and MGA’s in 2023.

Owen Thomas, Chief Sales Officer

*********

Premium Credit is BIBA’s only accredited provider of insurance premium finance. Please make contact if you would like to find out more.