Eastleigh based employer Fortis (Insurance, UK) has been awarded the Incisive Media ‘Gold Standard Award for Insurance'¹ for the second consecutive year. Fortis was the first ever general insurer to achieve the standard in 2008 and was presented with the accolade again at the House of Commons last week by John Greenway, MP and Chairman for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services. This significant recognition assessed the company's performance across the five elements of trust, fair value, financial strength, service and its capability to conduct business well.
The accreditation is another triumph for Fortis this year, having been nominated in top position in a number of broker and customer nominated surveys for service levels and innovation compared to other major insurers in the UK.
Member of the Gold Standard judging panel, Deborah Benn said: "Fortis has once again shown that it is a customer-centric organisation, having been the first ever general insurer to achieve this prestigious accolade in 2008 and now achieving the award again in 2009. Its submission showed that the insurer has thought carefully about how customers buy and use its insurance products. It is evident Fortis has placed a lot of emphasis on quality of delivery. Its customer surveys and independent valuation service were particularly impressive."
Barry Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Fortis UK, comments: "We are delighted to receive this accolade, which is a true testament to the hard work and commitment that the team at Fortis deliver to achieve high levels of service and innovation.
"This year we have taken some major steps forward in the implementation of our strategy to increase the depth and breadth of our product portfolio, in particular in the commercial lines market, and further enhance the service we deliver to our brokers. We have also seen our multi-distribution strategy really take off, with the inclusion of two major deals with Tesco Bank and Toyota (GB) PLC2. I'm confident we will continue to grow in 2010 2 and am proud of the Fortis team who continue to develop a strong and successful business."
Notes to editors
¹ About the Gold Standards Awards - The Gold Standard Awards, run by Investment Week's parent company Incisive Media, are now in their seventh year. The Awards aim to identify financial services companies that demonstrate a strong structure and consistent customer-orientated ethos. As the financial services landscape continues to shift towards a greater sense of partnership between providers of financial products and services and consumers, with initiatives such as Treating Customers Fairly (TCF), those companies that can demonstrate robust structures and also focus firmly on customer needs will be better placed to cope with this changing landscape.
The Gold Standard Awards take into account financial strength and assess areas such as trust, fair value, service as well as capability to conduct business. They are designed to identify companies that not only have strong structures and procedures in place, but are going above and beyond standard business practices to restore faith in the financial services sector generally and offer a better proposition to their clients.
Entrants are asked to answer a series of questions formulated specifically to assess the above areas and provide evidence in line with their responses. The baseline for all responses and evidence supplied is based on standard requirements to conduct business. However, only those companies that can clearly demonstrate they go above and beyond standard requirements are considered for a Gold Standard Award.
² The initial three year deal with Toyota (GB) PLC is subject to the agreement of the final binding terms, expected to be complete in the next few months.
About Fortis
Fortis (Insurance UK) is a leading provider of award-winning personal and commercial lines insurance solutions in the UK. Fortis UK has two main divisions, manufacturing both non-life and life products, which are distributed through a range of channels including brokers, IFAs, intermediaries, affinity partners and the Internet, as well as various wholly or partially-owned companies (RIAS, Fortis Insurance Solutions, Affinity Solutions, Text2Insure and InsureTECH Systems).
Insuring around 7 million customers and working with a range of partners, Fortis is recognised for delivering consistent and high-quality customer experiences. It employs almost 3,000 people with a head office based in
Eastleigh and others in Belfast, Bournemouth, Gloucester, Haywards Heath, London, Redditch, Reigate and Stoke-on-Trent.
Fortis (Insurance UK) is part of Fortis, a global insurance group of significant scale with over EUR11bn gross inflow, 20 million customers and 10,000 employees worldwide.
As a major employer in Eastleigh, Fortis is committed to supporting charitable activity and the local community under the company's Foundation programme. The scheme focuses on encouraging and supporting employees involved with local volunteer activity.
Fortis provides Age Concern customers with motor, home and travel insurance together with an award winning claims management service*.
* British Insurance Awards Claims Initiative of the Year 2008 - winner.
Press contacts
Louisa Barnard, Fortis UK, Tel: 023 8031 3147, E-mail: