Broking Initiative of the Year
For the second year in a row, Ed was the proud winner of the Broking Initiative of the Year award at the prestigious Insurance Insider Honours. The award win was based on the creation of TradEd, the radical new insurTech system that is revolutionising the wholesale broker’s role: TradEd transforms the placement process, harvests complex, granular data about risks and markets, and strips rekeying from the chain, and is allowing carriers to reduce costs and ultimately will allow Ed to reduce commission.
Broking Initiative of the Year
This award celebrates the role of brokers as the lifebloods of innovation in the global market. The judges were looking for a broking innovation that has either broken boundaries in terms of of its originality and success in increasing the size and scope of the market or brought insurance solutions to satisfy emerging customer demand.
Our award win was based on the work our Energy team completed to re-open the Iranian energy market to London underwrites despite continued barriers to insuring in post-sanctions Iran. We secured clients and markets and overcome legal and practical barriers.
Broker of the Year
The judges were looking for a company that could demonstrate continued incremental business expansion and improvement in turnover, margins and profits over the previous 12 months. Judges were looking to see how management and staff have embraced change in the pursuit of these goals as well as improvements in the customer service and retention
Our award win was based on the rebirth of Cooper Gay Swett & Crawford to Ed. Transforming ourselves into a broker with a bright future and setting ourselves apart as a new kind of risk wholesaler. The transformation was about more than just a name change, with Group CEO Hearn undertaking a major transformation. The pace of change has been rapid and has included the sale of US subsidiary Swett & Crawford resultant repayment of the Group's outstanding external debt which has been weighing down the firm, London operation integration, strengthening of 'team Ed' dramatically with key hires, sale of our Canadian MGA, Creechurch Underwriting , to the highly reputed Lloyd's agency Beazley, design, development and build of TradEd, a state-of-the-air insurTech trading platform which dramatically improve our efficient and increase our accessibility.
Broking Team of the Year 2016
Our Energy team overcame enormous obstacles to re-open the vast Iranian energy market to London underwriters despite continued barriers to insuring in post-sanctions Iran. We secured clients and markets and overcome legal and practical barriers. Whiles others shied away we delivered the goods for Iranian clients and London insurers.
Newsmaker of the Year 2016
The rebirth of broking group Cooper Gay Swett & Crawford as the curiously named Ed certainly grabbed the London market’s attention. But the transformation of the broking group under former Willis executive Steve Hearn was about more than just a name change, with Hearn undertaking a major restructuring of the business to turn it into a global wholesaling operation.
This process – which included the sale of the group’s US wholesale broking unit – generated a considerable number of headlines over the course of the year. At the same time, the transformation story also provided some important commentary on the challenges facing brokers and how they must adapt to the evolving needs of customers. The restructuring culminated in the rebrand to Ed – removing the 50-year-old Cooper Gay name – which became quite a talking point at an otherwise uneventful Rendez-Vous in Monte Carlo.
