Information about NIG and FarmWeb joining RSA

From 15 July 2024, e-traded business on Acturis, other software house mid-market business, the online schemes book and all policies with an effective date of 2 September 2024 started to migrate.

The CV business which is written via CDL migrated on 30 September 2024.

You have been provided with a schedule that clearly maps out those effective dates for renewal and new business and at what point they started to be written by RSA. If you haven’t received this, you can download here.

We want to ensure there is minimal disruption to customer service as we move the business across.

Our teams will be co-located and working side by side as soon as possible and this process has already completed at a number of our offices. Creating and embedding the culture of the new organisation is fundamental to our future success.

Our regional footprint, which has always been fundamental to our strong broker relationships, remains unchanged, and we will continue to have a strong presence across all key locations.

Our focus is, and will continue to be, to empower our regions by giving them local underwriting authority. This ensures that our decision-making is not only as quick as you need it to be but also as close to the customer as possible.

NIG’s underwriting appetite remains in place on our core products. We’re committed to bring one product and one price to market this year but currently there are no plans to change appetite in the short term.

We will not quote on business written by NIG. New business presentations which clearly state NIG as the holding insurer will be declined, and you will receive an email confirmation of this.

While we anticipate the instances of this to be rare, we have established an internal process for those cases in the Upper Mid-Market where we will manage follow-lines/cumulative capacity across RSA and NIG on single risks.

Our underwriting teams will collaborate to find the best way forward for you and your customer.

Please continue to send the enquiries to either business or both as you would have always done. In a non-e-trade environment, we will triage in-house and determine locally who and how we will respond.

The process will improve as we move towards our future operating model of one system, one product, one value proposition to market.

We are working towards a single account plan and Account Manager for all our partners.

For SME/e-trade existing business held by NIG and FarmWeb, the high-volume nature of this business means we will continue to quote on NIG and FarmWeb business (and vice versa) until the integration is complete.

For Delegated business, it is less likely that we will both be quoting on individual MGAs/schemes, but customers have the right to choose the wording and terms that suit their needs.

FarmWeb remains a standalone division, with its own brand and products operating on the Acturis system, which is bespoke to the FarmWeb business.

The underwriting will continue to be managed by FarmWeb underwriters. But as of September 2024 it will debit into the RSA background environment.

You will have seen from September 2024 that your policies looked the same, but the underwriting entity changed. Instead of saying UKI Limited, it now says "underwritten by RSA".

Each arrangement will be considered on its own merit. In these situations, they will be considered by the RSA leadership team for a prompt decision.

We're already working hard to bring everything together internally; we are coordinating our approach with regards to individual quotes on individual risks.

Please continue to send your enquiries through the channels you have always used in the past as we will triage internally and respond accordingly.

Policy numbers will not change, and they will transfer across. However we will add a prefix to help us identify and ring-fence existing and new business.

If you need to speak with us, please make a note of the policy inception date and link it to our migration timeline to help you easily navigate the options in our phone system. Our IVR process will route you to the correct team depending on the inception date.

This isn't necessarily a typical straight-forward acquisition of a discrete business. We bought an asset of DLG, so much of the work that we've had to tackle in the first year has been in relation to the segregation of the business from DLG.

By early summer, we successfully migrated the business and customers, and then worked to migrate data and systems over to RSA.

For Claims, the process is slightly longer and will take us into early 2026 to achieve, in line with the Part VII legal separation process.

We don't want to be operating as two separate trading companies. We are working hard on how we harmonise our combined product sets and our rating tools. We want to be in a position to offer one best-in-class product under one price underpinned by one TOBA as soon as we possibly can. This will be happening this year and we will be in a position to tell you more about it soon.

We will not compete on held business. If you submit a held risk to RSA, as a new business enquiry, we will not quote. We'll explain that to you as and when the situation arises.

The recent purchase of NIG positions RSA Commercial Lines as a lead insurer in the Regional/Mid-Market space.

RSA Speciality Lines UK and RSA Speciality Lines Europe will continue to operate under our Global Specialty Lines, where we pursue our strategic roadmap in line with Intact’s Global Speciality Lines plan. This gives brokers and customers who require a Specialty solution, access to a far broader set of capabilities and expertise at RSA.

We find that one of our weaknesses in large corporate business in the regions is that sometimes the coordination isn't what it should be from a broker experience point of view.

Therefore, we've appointed Steve Salter as the Regional Trading Director for large corporate business, and he will pull together all the coordination aspects to create a seamless proposition service to Brokers.

We know that it currently doesn't work how we want it to work, and we certainly know it doesn't work if we want to outperform in that segment.

The idea of that appointment is to improve service. We know it's business we like, we have a strong position in that upper mid-market space, and we want to continue that.

We want to grow it but equally we want to grow the small Mid-Market space as well.

We're looking to improve the service proposition of the manually underwritten smaller business and will be heavily investing in technology to support this.

The first drop of migrating packages policies happened in June 2024, but you may not have noticed a massive difference for a month or two as that settled.

In Q3 2024, you will have seen an improvement in the trading performance in the packages area, and later in the year we built on further product sets.

We're trying to move away from the minimum entry thresholds to Mid-Market new business of £10,000.

We do had a small Mid-Market proposition offering that we are expanding in line with our wider distribution strategy. 

If you have a TOBA with no corresponding RSA access, you should have received an email inviting you to start the process to sign an RSA TOBA, giving you access to our full suite of propositions and products. Please contact your usual sales representative if you haven’t heard from us or have any questions.

If you didn’t take up this option at the time we will be asking you to sign a new RSA based TOBA in 2025 and we will be in touch soon in order to arrange this with you.

Our sales teams are armed with all the information to help support you through these changes. We have multiple routes for escalation and will equip each regional trading site with a clear list of contacts to share with you.

The priority has been to separate the asset from the DLG family. We aim to transfer it smoothly into the RSA world with minimum disruption as soon as possible.

We have been carefully examining every single decision. This includes the processes and the systems that we are employing to do exactly that. But we're in a cyclical business and what happens with the combination of these two coming together is we've got a much richer product and data set.

There has also been a continual focus on the performance of our portfolios, both good and bad, to look at emerging trends and this will evolve as part of our BAU in the months to come.

To give some specific examples:

• We have a Funeral Director scheme that looks at both the motor and the non-motor risks

• We have a Charity scheme which is a package product, so Property, Liability and also some Financial Lines

• We have a scheme that targets the early years setting, so child minders and nurseries

These schemes are often packaged products but, as you can see from those 3 examples, they're all targeted at specific customer groups.

No one partner looks exactly like the others. Some partners have worked with us at the start on product development. Then, once we've built a product, they are happy to work within a set of rules that we govern. Other partners have sophisticated underwriting capability, and therefore the nature of delegation to them is a little bit broader to make use of those skills, in order to give the customer the best service that we can.

RSA doesn’t currently have a Motor Trade product, so it is very much focused on what we offer currently in the space.

Motor Trade covers everything from a small Motor Trade Repairer or Car Sales Outlet, all the way up to some of the largest Dealership Propositions we've got in the UK.

We continually look at policy wordings and scan the market for the best ones, then work out where we should be positioning ourselves. But we have no plans to change what we're doing in Motor Trade at the moment.

Both brands will continue to operate alongside each other, providing existing products and services for the foreseeable future. 

While the brands remain the same, as policies start to migrate over to be underwritten on RSA paper at renewal, brokers and customers can expect to see RSA branding and legalities on NIG and FarmWeb documentation going forward.

The sale of our Personal Lines direct business (More Than) involves the transfer of renewal rights for direct Home and Pet insurance. Along with around 300 colleagues and relevant assets including our brands and data to Admiral.

This is unrelated to, and has no impact on, our appetite to write specialist PL products within our Delegated business. This remains a core part of our Commercial Lines strategy.

We’re very keen to widen the product range available to brokers as a result of this transaction.

We are working hard to give all brokers access to NIG and RSA. If you haven't done so already, we will be in touch soon to invite you to start the process to sign a new TOBA, giving you access to our complete suite of propositions and products.

FarmWeb has restricted distribution because of the specialist nature of agricultural insurance. In the short-term there are no plans to change that. We will continue to review this as we move forward with the integration.

If you feel that there is a requirement for you to have access to that element of the proposition, speak with your account manager and we'll engage to understand the account portfolio.

We have identified brokers who do not have a reciprocal RSA agency.

You will have received an email inviting you to start the process to sign an RSA TOBA, giving you access to our full suite of propositions and products. If you didn’t take up the opportunity to do so in 2024, we’ll be in touch soon to ask you to do so and details will be shared with you soon.

Please contact your usual sales representative if you haven’t heard from us soon, or have any questions.

Brokers will remain on their existing commission arrangements and credit terms for now.

In the medium-term, as we look to create one offer (product and pricing), this will also include harmonisation of commission arrangements.

We will communicate more information on this in the first half of 2025.

As renewals and new business start to be written on RSA paper, you will receive one statement from RSA which will include all transactions.

In addition, you will make just one payment to cover all items on your RSA statements using the existing RSA bank account details.

If you don’t already have a relationship with RSA, you will be contacted directly to ensure you are made familiar with the RSA process.

For NIG Run Off Business you will continue to receive a statement via DLG until all outstanding items are settled. You should continue making payments via the existing DLG bank account for these transactions.

RSA will continue to operate discretely for the time being, and any remuneration agreements will run to the agreed contractual period and terms and conditions.

Maintaining our trading momentum and providing good service is a priority throughout integration. We will review any expiring remuneration agreements on a case-by-case basis, and will work with you to agree the best way forward in the interim to help you meet your customer’s needs.

We are very keen to listen to your views and requests. Please speak to and raise any questions via your usual RSA, NIG or FarmWeb account representative.

RSA have engaged Premium Credit Limited (PCL) as the credit lender for direct debit payments for all NIG policies. PCL will have a direct relationship with the policyholder as a credit lender of the full premium amount (including insurance premium tax).

• Know Your Customer (KYC) data – this is required by PCL to meet their regulatory obligations in completing a full credit assessment of the policyholder. We will ask brokers to complete a direct debit application form for each new or renewing policy to collect this.
• Bank details
• Policyholder contact details – this is required as there will be a direct relationship between PCL and the policyholder. PCL will provide correspondence directly to the policyholder and will therefore require the correct contact’s name, postal address, and email address.

There will be 12 monthly instalments. Unlike our previous credit arrangement there is no deposit premium to pay, even for new business.

Our interest rates are variable, and we are confident they will be comparable to other insurers. Please contact your regional trading teams for more details.

There is an annual Minimum Service Charge by PCL. If the interest rate applied results in an annual fee paid of less than £15, PCL would increase the fee paid to £15 annually. This is confirmed in the credit agreement and welcome letter.

The only other charge would be applied if PCL are unable to collect a direct debit payment – see below “What happens if the policyholder defaults on payment?

There are application forms for completion which are based on the policyholder’s type of legal entity. Once completed, brokers should email the form to PCLSupport@uk.rsagroup.com. The application form will capture all the details, including Know Your Customer (KYC) data, PCL needs to complete credit checks and set up a credit agreement for the policyholder.

Policies currently paying by direct debit will not be automatically set up to pay by direct debit upon renewal for any products, including policies that auto-renew. There are actions for both the broker and policyholder to arrange for payment by direct debit:

• For each new or renewing policy where direct debit payments are required, we will ask brokers to complete a direct debit application form
• This should be sent to pclsupport@uk.rsagroup.com and will be passed on to PCL in order for them to carry out credit checks
• Once PCL have carried out their checks, assuming credit can be offered, they will send an email with a link direct to the policyholder so that they can sign their credit agreement

To ensure we have all the information PCL need, we will ask brokers to complete a direct debit application form. This is for new business and at renewal.

The policyholder will need to sign a new PCL credit agreement for new business applications, at migration renewal, and again at each annual subsequent renewal.

PCL will provide a link directly to the policyholder by email. They can then log into the PCL portal to review and E-sign the credit agreement.

When the policyholder logs into the PCL portal to check and sign their credit agreement, they will be able to see confirmation that the agreement has been signed and a copy of their payment schedule.

PCL informs RSA daily which credit agreements have been cancelled. RSA will then confirm whether the policy has been cancelled and contact brokers to advise and agree next steps, either arrange policy cancellation or an alternative payment method.

The policyholder will need to wait until renewal when we can set up a direct debit as the payment method for them.

Payment by direct debit can be cancelled at any time, either directly by the policyholder with PCL or via your NIG/RSA contact. Any outstanding premium can then be collected via broker statement. The policyholder can also pay the balance of their agreement early by contacting PCL.

If a policyholder wants to change from paying monthly to annual payment at renewal, then brokers should let underwriting know in pre-renewal conversations or through triggering a referral via a software house.

In the first instance, brokers should contact their usual underwriting contact.

If the policyholder defaults on a payment, they will receive a letter directly from PCL advising them that their payment has not been collected. This letter will tell them about the date on which PCL will attempt to collect payment again, which will be 10 days from the missed payment date. It will also advise them that there will be a £25 default charge added to this payment. The default will feature on RSA’s daily default report received from PCL.

If the payment is rejected a second time, PCL will write to the policyholder again and advise that unless the policyholder contacts them to make payment the Credit Agreement will be ended by PCL 18 days after the first payment was due.

Our direct debit team will be in contact with brokers to advise on any policies that have defaulted on a direct debit payment.

If PCL is notified by the policyholder’s bank that they have cancelled their direct debit, PCL will send the policyholder a letter and provide a report to NIG/RSA. Both will advise that a new credit agreement is required. NIG/RSA will forward this email to the broker and ask them to speak to the policyholder and advise what they need to do next.

If the payment is rejected a second time, PCL will write to the policyholder again and advise that, unless the policyholder contacts them to make payment, the credit arrangement will be terminated by PCL 18 days after the first payment was due.

If their circumstances have changed, or they’re worried about paying their monthly premium, please get in touch with your NIG/RSA contact, we may be able to help.

Bank details can only be changed by NIG/RSA underwriting and if the policyholder wants to do this, brokers should contact underwriting who will facilitate the change.

Policyholders can change their bank details on the PCL portal but they must also notify us so we can update their bank details on Acturis. Otherwise, it will revert to the old version at renewal.

The policyholder can request a hard copy to be sent by post. Please let your underwriting contact know. Where an email address is not provided at renewal or new policy set up, a hard copy will automatically be sent.

After the credit agreement is signed, the first payment will be taken from the policyholder’s account within 14 days of the renewal or inception date. Thereafter, the monthly premiums will be collected on the same date every month, that being the policy inception date.

For example, if a policy is incepted on the 18th August then the 11 instalments after the first one will be taken on the 18th of each month.

Once a policy is being paid on direct debit, brokers will be able to make MTAs which affect premium up to 14 days prior to the next payment date to have the premium or refund split over the remaining monthly instalments.

Towards the end of the policy year, we will need to process any MTA prior to 14 days before the 11th monthly premium payment has been collected or PCL’s system will not be able to amend the monthly premium accordingly. In these circumstances extra premium charges or refunds will be processed via broker ledger.

Rest assured that we won’t cancel policies if we do not receive KYC data in time. We will remind brokers in advance of renewal that KYC data has not been received. There is a small window of opportunity post renewal for it to be supplied and a direct debit to be applied to the policy up to 14 calendar days post the renewal date. After this, the payment for the policy would be transferred to broker statement.

RSA will use a third-party provider, Motor Data Solutions (MDS), to transact with the MID database. At migration of each motor policy to RSA systems, they will update the MID database on our behalf.

The MDS MIDAS platform and portal will be the intermediary platform used to collect information and update the MID database.

Where the MID policy and vehicle data was previously updated by us, there will be no changes for brokers or policyholders. RSA will continue to complete the updates.

Where brokers and policyholders are responsible for uploading vehicle data to MID, the responsible party will now make the updates via the MDS MIDAS portal.

We will update the policy information on behalf of brokers and policyholders. We will also update all the vehicle information where we already do this.

For policies where brokers or policyholders have been responsible for updating vehicle information themselves, we will do this for this renewal (unless you advise us you do not want us to – see below). After this renewal brokers and policyholders will continue to be responsible for updating vehicle data as before.

You will need to supply an email address as part of the renewal discussions with the underwriter, the new login details for the MDS MIDAS portal will be sent to this email address. Please note:

• There will be different login details per policy
• The login details are not linked to a specific email address and can be shared with appropriate colleagues, policyholders or third parties as needed
• Any correspondence, including reminders of the login details or password changes, will be sent to the email address supplied

MDS will send login details for the MIDAS portal for each policy to the email address supplied, which will be used to update the vehicles on cover. The email address can be for a broker contact, policyholder or third party. Please share the correct email address with your underwriter during your renewal discussions to ensure continued access. If we don’t have an email address to send the login details to, the broker or policyholder will not be able to make changes to the vehicle details on the policy.

Upon confirmation of renewal, the policy will be live on the MDS MIDAS portal to view within 24 hours. Vehicle data will not be able to be viewed until we have taken our vehicle data snapshot view 7 days prior to renewal and processed it. As a result, vehicle details may not be visible until the renewal date. If vehicle details are in place prior to renewal, any changes will only affect the new policy and not be backdated on the previous policy.

It’s important to note that if there are any vehicle changes in the 7 days prior to renewal that affect the previous policy period, they will need to be updated via MIB Navigate. They will then need to be replicated on the MDS MIDAS portal on the renewal date as we won’t have migrated any changed information from this period.

You will need to make sure that the MIB Navigate portal is updated with any vehicle changes after the 7-day snapshot date but prior to MID the renewal if those changes are to be effective within the previous policy period. To do this you will need to make the changes via MIB Navigate.

They will then need to be replicated on the MDS MIDAS portal on the renewal date as we won’t have migrated any changed information from this period.

You can contact us to advise us that they want to opt out of us updating vehicle details, but this should be on a broker-by-broker basis rather than policy by policy. During your renewal discussions with underwriters, please advise if you’d like to opt out. To ensure we can make the changes we need to our internal processes, you will need to let underwriting know 14 days prior to the first renewal.

Please contact MDS on enquiries@motordatasolutions.co.uk.

You can find training videos on YouTube by accessing MDS’s YouTube Channel. If you can’t find what you need on this channel, please contact MDS direct at enquiries@motordatasolutions.co.uk.

If you don’t receive an email within 24 hours of the renewal confirmation date, then please contact MDS in the first instance who will be able to check they have the correct contact email address for you.

In the first instance please contact MDS on enquiries@motordatasolutions.co.uk.

They will resend the login details to the registered email address provided.

Vehicle details will only be viewable from the renewal date. If they are still not visible more than 24 hours after the renewal date, please contact MDS in the first instance on enquiries@motordatasolutions.co.uk.

If you need to change the contact email address for any reason, please let your underwriting contact know. They will be able to change it for you and arrange for new login details to be emailed out from MDS.

For a smooth broker and customer experience, we are not changing access to claims services for NIG or NIG FarmWeb.

That means that there will be no change to the existing telephone numbers for reporting new claims, web addresses, postal addresses or email addresses.

Your regular NIG contact details will remain the same regardless of whether the policy has migrated to RSA or not. Meaning that knowing how to contact us will not change. Claims already notified to the team prior to migration of a policy will also retain their current claim handlers and their contact details, provided to you at first notification of loss.

For policies that have migrated to RSA you will see a change in the policy number format, with a change from the current number format to one that is prefixed by the letters NM.

For new business written on RSA paper for the NIG and NIG FarmWeb brands there will also be a prefix, with the letters NG.

We have used the policy number prefix approach so that it is easy for everyone to identify a policy that is now written on RSA paper.

The only variation on the prefix approach is for Commercial Van policies – in these cases, a policy Inception or Renewal date of 2 September 2024 or later indicates that the policy is written on RSA paper. This guidance is included within both online and telephone claims journeys.

If you need to notify us of a new claim on a policy you will continue to use the existing ‘front door’ contact details.

When you call to report a new claim, the IVR system will guide you to the appropriate claims team, using the Policy Number prefix/Commercial Van effective date approach as outlined above.

Options to notify us of a claim online or by email are also presented via the same NIG link as before.

Once the claim has been registered, full claim handler contact details will be provided, just as before.

Should you not reach the right team first time, we have implemented internal transfer mechanisms to efficiently redirect any queries you have to the appropriate team.

We will continue to publish the claims contact details in the same way we do today. The NIG claims pages provide details of claims handlers. These details will be updated regularly.

In the short term, the current geographical footprint for NIG and RSA claims teams will be maintained.

Longer term, we will be looking at where things work best to provide the best service we can to brokers.

Rest assured, if or when things change, we will notify you in advance.

At the point of registering a claim, we recognise the importance of ownership of that claim going forward.

You will be given a specific claims owner, so a named claims handler’s details will be provided.

If you call us, you'll have direct access on direct dials to that handler. If that handler is already on another call, you'll be diverted into a hunt group. This is common practice across the industry, and it is possible that somebody else will answer the call. If they are unable to help, we'll arrange for the case handler to call you back.

The teams are currently working on including the RSA MI and data into the NIG MI report. This will complete over the next few months.

The reports will continue to be produced and supplied as they are today.

If you have any questions, please escalate to your claims account manager.

No decision has been made yet. As we work to harmonise systems and processes, we want to ensure we don’t lose any of the richness across either platform, as both currently do a good job and have some fantastic features.

As and when the decision is made, we will keep you informed, and all brokers will have access.

There is no change to the journey that you currently experience.

For our manually underwritten business (traditionally in Mid-Market) we are reviewing the quote process, particularly for new business.

We are looking at how AI and Data science can help us:

• Drive extra efficiency and capacity to be more responsive
• How we ingest unstructured data more efficiently
• How we triage and enrich the data to get a better view of the risk
• How we then route that to the best underwriter

For our online trade business (predominantly SME) we will continue to look at how we further improve speed of response and accuracy. With the goal of maximising the number of enquiries that go straight through to quote without underwriter intervention.

We're looking to take the best bits of two extremely complimentary businesses and work out where we can redeploy them within the wider business.

Live Chat is something that we employ extremely well in our online SME business at the moment. On a monthly basis, we're doing in excess of 7,000 chats and the level of satisfaction rating is excellent or very good. This is in the mid-90s.

That's the technology we've been working with for a number of years now, and it's exactly the sort of thing that we should be looking to redeploy into as many applicable areas of our business as possible.