It's Truly a Career for Life- Alison Gilliver
Alison joined the Insurance industry over 20 years ago after first joining a call centre. She stayed for two years as it ‘had a good team vibe and gave you a good grounding. They bring in new people all the time, so it’s a great way to immerse yourself in the world of insurance.’ Tiring of shift work, she switched to broking. When asked why she decided to stay in the industry, Alison replied, ‘With insurance, once you’re in you find there’s no way out. It’s not fast-paced change and you don’t have to learn just to keep up. You can take it at your own pace. There’s obviously things that have changed but it’s still fundamentally the same as it was a hundred years ago. The principles, the focus on relationships, are all still there.
‘For me, the best parts are getting to work with clients and educate them on how to best look after their business. You’re helping them protect what they’ve worked hard to build up. When you’re doing the commercial side of things too, you see different types of companies you never knew existed and how it’s all connected.’
Relationships and Networks
Relationships are key to being a good broker, and Alison has built up a great network over her career. She explained how insurance is ‘really one big community. I’ve worked in the Birmingham insurance market for nearly 20 years now, and only know one person that’s escaped…! It’s a true career for life; the fact that I’ve come here and I know people that I’ve worked with before is great. I took time out to have kids but I was able to come back really quite easily after 4 years out because it was all more or less as I left it, which allowed me to basically jump straight back in. It’s an underrated career path that schools don’t tend to tell you about.’
Alison joined Konsileo three years ago, having been a client advisor at different companies prior. Asked about her experience since joining, she replied, ‘in all honesty, bumpy. I’ve kissed a few frogs. But that’s also one of the great things about working here, it gives you the chance to try everything and anything. I wanted to try and go out and get my own clients in after being a handler for a long time, but I didn’t enjoy it.’
Finding Her Style
‘I know my stuff and I’m quite confident talking, it’s just trying to get past the gatekeeper. Then I realised there was a gap for a supporting role. Not just admin, though. Because of my strong technical knowledge, I help people review their books and provide feedback from an external perspective to help retention rates. Dealing with the bad stuff opened my eyes to what goes on behind the scenes. Problems like fraudulent clients also introduced me to David, who’s now a close collaborator.
‘It’s so varied here as well, with so many different personalities than you’d get in your average brokerage. We’re all on different journeys, which is amazing to see. It does feel a bit like family, in terms of the closeness of everyone and the willingness of people to muck in and help each other. Most of the time, it’s not about the VTC (an internal process to facilitate collaboration), it’s more like helping out a mate. There’s no need for one-upmanship here; we’re all working together and helping each other out. Collaboration definitely gets rid of competitiveness. Obviously, we’re still in insurance, and there’s still processes and compliance, but we’re looking at it from a completely different place.’
Changing Roles
Recently, Alison moved into the Central Team as Head of Operations, alongside maintaining her existing book of clients. Talking about the move, she explained how ‘it was more wanting to get involved at the next level and helping to develop brokers. I think it’s important that there’s a broker’s perspective at the central table. Sometimes certain ideas are so normal and entrenched, that an alternative perspective is appreciated. When I joined, I realised the broker part of Konsileo is just the surface. The things going on in the background are insane. Seeing the couple dozen people working on all the projects is really eye-opening; there’s a lot more to it than I realised.
‘I enjoy helping people identify or figure out a solution when they might not be doing things the best way. I’ve faced a steep learning curve since I joined the Central Team, partly because David was promoted quite soon after, and we had to understand processes, learn the Konsileo language, and everything else. I do feel like I’ve grown, and in moments of self-doubt, David won’t give me the answer because I know it. I can no longer pass on responsibilities, and I now recognise my potential and step up to the task. We’ve also recently had Jackilyn join, so within 12 months the Operations team is now three people. Looking at what just myself and David have achieved, now that we’re a power trio the possibilities feel limitless.’
Self-Management in Operations
‘The self-management helped a lot in getting there, because I’m already used to just getting stuff done and not waiting for someone else to fix it. The way of working also means you have to take ownership for your work; the client is central to everything, and I’ll make sure nothing is detrimental to them. It’s sometimes hard sorting out tasks, but it’s mostly just knowing who to talk to when you’re stuck. There’s definitely a mindset shift of responsibilities once you work in a self-managed environment.’
When asked about how she comes back from a rough patch, Alison replied, ‘a positive mindset helps massively. We all have bad days – clients have bad days and take it out on us, sometimes – but it’s just about trying to start each new day afresh. If it’s going badly, I’ll just put whatever it is down and return to it a bit later. With everything going on, I can bounce off to something else if needed. There’s also the element of just eating the frog to get it over and done with, so it’s about finding that balance. My hobbies also help things percolate; something will click suddenly when I’m out doing something completely different.’
Are you an insurance professional, or want to get into insurance?
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