This month, we turn the spotlight on Michael Carney of Maidenhead-based Penshurst Insurance Services, who specialise in providing high net worth insurance for private clients.
In our Broker Spotlight feature, Michael sheds light on what Penshurst offers, navigating business during these difficult times, and what positives we can take from the disruption.
What core business lines does your brokerage cover? At Penshurst we have two core business lines; Personal (HNW Private Clients and Sports/Entertainment professionals) and Commercial ( Property and Large Liability)
How have you found business in these unprecedented times? After the initial one week panic when lockdown was announced in March, we have actually found business to be as busy as ever (if not more). I guess adversity presents opportunity and whilst in these tough times you have to be particularly sensitive to people’s situations, we still need to move and adapt our business with the times to ensure we continue to grow in whatever circumstances.
What is your current setup, are you and your staff in the office, remote working or a combination of both? From lockdown in March we all worked from home until 7 September, when the majority of the office returned. Following the recent announcement re lockdown 2.0 we are now doing a combination of both. We will all be back in as soon as possible though.
What positives - or new ways of working - have you taken from the pandemic period? The positives have been seeing how well our staff adapted to working from home, it was a seamless transition and gives you confidence that should we have to go through something similar again we’ll be in a good place. I think the biggest and most obvious new way of working is the use of video meetings replacing face-to-face, which has been forced upon us. Personally though I don’t think you can beat a face-to-face meeting.
What is your current business focus? Retention of existing business primarily, being there for the clients through this period who have supported us over the years. Then new business/growth, something we must continue to focus on even during these times.
Which Blink products or services have been/are most beneficial to your business? To be very honest, Blink’s most beneficial service to our business is our BDM, Ant Nash! He is there any time of the day to pick up the phone to and point us in the right direction with any enquiries we have, the whole office think he is great. His relationship with insurers is fantastic, and product knowledge is endless. He is always willing to get involved in deals with us if needed to get things over the line, and there have been a number of decent size cases we were able to close on that might not have been possible without his help.
If there’s one thing we’d like from Blink it’s … more bespoke products/facilities that give us the edge, in a market that’s constantly evolving.