ING Reshuffles the Deck

Earlier this year, ING Canada announced a major shuffle of its senior executive staff, placing Derek Iles at the helm of ING Insurance in a bid to strengthen its relationship with the independent broker channel.

ING is no stranger to the acquisition and growth game. The industry giant now employs more than 4,000 people and is a multi-billion dollar business – but such feats sometimes come with growing pains. Before the restructuring, Iles explained, ING’s management team had a hodge-podge of responsibilities, creating confusion as to who is responsible for what.

“If you look back at the way we have been managing our business, we’ve been growing it and managing it as one entity – and it’s multiple businesses that we’ve been managing as one entity,” he told Canadian Underwriter.

“What this new structure entails is that we’ve separated our corporate functions of the organization – those that relate to finance, risk management, legal compliance – and identified three clear business units. We’ve put management teams in charge of each of those business units to focus on those business units’s performance.”

The three new business units are: ING Insurance Company, which is dedicated solely to working through the broker network; belairdirect, an Internet direct writer operating out of Ontario and Quebec; and the third is an affiliated distribution network – a combination of some of the acquisitions made through Allianz, including Grey Power and Canada BrokerLink.

The old model of operations had more of a silo structure, with department heads reporting to separate executives.

For example, Iles said, “up until now, we would have our underwriting departments and our pricing departments reporting to separate executives. So, when you wanted to develop a product and agree on a price, you had to get a multiple of executives together to ensure that that gets done, which is always difficult, because some want to price more for profit and others for growth.”

But in the new environment, “the personal lines underwriting and pricing reports to the one executive who is part of my team,” Iles said. “So now we can move along quicker in our decision making, and we can move a lot quicker in developing products that respond to our brokers’ needs…”

So what are the implications of ING’s restructuring for the independent broker?

There is more than one, Iles says. “The first would be the clarity around ING Insurance and its complete focus and dedication to the insurance broker channel, so that there is no confusion as to what they do,” he affirms. “And a management team that has that focus and the speed to make decisions that will support the brokers and their growth.” This new management team, he continues, has been built with all the necessary resources – the underwriting, the pricing, the distribution – all of the “broker relationship pieces” – focused on bringing better products and better quality services to the brokers. In essence, in the new structure, Iles is the new “go-to man” for brokers.

Iles, who has logged more than 15 years with the company, has worked with brokers in each of the Canadian provinces. He says he believes in the importance of understanding the regional differences and needs of the brokers in different communities. “So we may have a smallish broker in Red Deer, or a large downtown broker in Toronto, and one needs to understand that the way in which they want to do business may be different because of their marketplace,” he says. “We have to position ourselves effectively to work with them. We need to accept the business model they chose, and then find a way to complement what they’re doing.”

Relationships with the independent brokers have not always been easy. A few years ago, ING Direct, the company’s banking organization, did a joint mailing with belairdirect. At the same time, brokers were lobbying to keep the country’s Bank Act from being changed to allow banks to retail insurance products in their local branches. “The brokers, and quite honestly and rightly so, said: ‘We sell the ING products and we see ourselves as promoting the ING brand, and therefore we don’t feel it is appropriate that a direct writer works and promotes ING Direct,'” Iles said. “So that has been a good lesson, a good understanding. So [now, because of the restructuring] there is no confusion that the ING brand is managed solely by ING Insurance and solely for the use of the broker network.”

Iles believes ING Insurance is already well-positioned and serves as a significant player in the broker network. But he concedes there is always room for improvement. Providing the right amount of technology and services for the brokers to easily do business with ING is a big part of that, he explains.

The company recently launched the Savers product, which allows brokers to submit new business to ING Insurance electronically. In turn, this allows ING to issue the policy automatically and facilitates the download of the data back to the broker so that their systems remain current and up-to-date.

“It’s how we can reduce double-entry and duplication that sometimes comes about between the company and the broker,” Iles says.

The new corporate structure has been implemented with the aim of making business with ING Insurance as easy and straightforward as possible for the independent brokers. As Iles says, if the broker network is satisfied, it’s good for the company’s bottom line as well.

“I think that the objective or the goal I have is, how can we further enhance our position in the broker network and earn a strong position in the broker network by providing the services and the products for them to be successful?” Iles says. “The more I can facilitate their success, I think our success will follow. That’s a key criteria.”