Building capacity and capability – An interview with Senior Agent Stephen Hepburn

After spending a thirty-year career in banking, circumstances led Stephen Hepburn to take his future into his own hands, becoming a self-employed Senior Agent with one of NFU Mutual’s agencies near Aberdeen. Stephen has been growing the business for about three years now, so we sat down with him to talk about how things have changed, what he enjoys about being an Agent, and what led him to take the dive into building an insurance agency.

Thanks for taking the time to speak to us, Stephen! Can you start off by telling us a bit about your life leading up to joining NFU Mutual?
My family upbringing was around agriculture - but straight after leaving school back in 1987, I was one of those loyal guys who started working for a bank, then stayed there for multiple decades! I think the circumstances that led me to becoming an Agent with NFU Mutual were quite fortuitous. It started with my time at the bank coming to a natural end - I was in quite a senior role, basically overseeing all banking operations in the region. There were six people doing that job in the whole UK, but when the bank had to make cutbacks, the role basically just disappeared. It seemed like good timing anyway - I had just turned 50, still a lot of life left, and I didn’t want to be too old before getting a chance to start something new.

But what were my options? I’d spent 20 years in leadership roles, learning about business, going out to various companies, and talking strategy - so I had a lot of commercial skills, and that seemed like a good path to take me away from financial services. I didn’t necessarily want to own my own business, but I wanted to help grow one. At first, I went self-employed, working on various projects with customers I’d made connections with during my banking days. But then when COVID hit, that came to a complete halt. I had to start looking around again for other roles and that’s when I found the NFU Mutual Agent opportunity, the reality is, if it wasn’t for COVID, I don’t think I would be here!

At least someone found a silver lining to the pandemic! So, what appealed to you about the Agent opportunity?
It felt like all my background and experience could come together in this one opportunity. My financial services background, my knowledge of legislation, my customer focus, the leadership and strategic experience – it was all extremely relevant. Not to mention, being part of the NFU Mutual Agency Network felt like going back to my agricultural roots. Probably about 50% of our book is rural, and the other 50% is commercial – shifting about 1% towards the commercial side every year. If you look at what banks are doing more recently - withdrawing from communities, getting further away from the customers, putting everything into digital channels - everything I’d read about NFU Mutual was the exact opposite. It was about meeting with locals face-to-face, building real connections with the people and businesses in your area.

As I said before, I wanted a chance to really help grow a business. And the mutual model has a focus on building a strong team around your customer base, looking after it and driving the company forward. One of my favourite parts of my old job was rebuilding and growing teams over and over – I became a bit of an Alex Ferguson within the bank! I know how important it is to have a good team around you if you want to be successful. Once you’re here, your income is directly tied to how well the business performs, but what drives me is simply the enjoyment I get from building it up. You can either strip everything back, run your business on a shoestring and turn a profit that way – or you can invest in your people, put that work into growing your team and know that it’s going to pay off in the long run. That’s what we’re doing here, and I think it’s a much more enjoyable and effective way to do things. The team we have now is looking really brilliant, and I think we’re ready to start reaping those rewards.

It sounds like a lot has changed at the agency since you came on board. How do things compare now to when you first started?
A funny story about when I first started: there were originally two agencies working out of the same office. We had one sign, one door - but when you walked in and looked left there was one agency, and if you looked right there was another! It was probably the most obvious merger in business history! The role I applied for was available because a Senior Agent on one side was retiring. Part of my job was bringing everyone together as one. It was a challenging process to nurture those relationships, but we quickly did come together in one strong partnership.

We’re also now up to four Agents – and although I technically get the badge of “Senior Agent”, it very much feels like an equal partnership. Someone tried to put the title on my office door, but I took it down again. I don’t want to be seen as above anyone else. I do have respect from the other partners, and they often leave me to take the lead, but we all make the decisions collectively. We’ve each naturally fallen into responsibilities that match our strengths and interests and it just works. When I joined, I wanted to do everything - my weakness was doing too much and not delegating enough or trusting others. Now with some age and experience, I’m trying to pass some of that trust down. It also helps that I’m out of the phase where I was learning how to be an Agent and getting to grips with the insurance industry. I’m now doing less reviews, focusing more on our largest clients, and doing more external work like business development and driving commercial pipeline and revenue.

How did you find learning about the world of insurance?
With banking, you do touch insurance a little bit. Back at the beginning of my career, banks were also insurance brokers and there were insurance desks inside banks. That changed over the years, but we’d still have agreements with external brokers and pass certain clients across, if it was relevant to a mortgage or commercial loan. So, it was adjacent to our services at the bank, but I certainly didn’t have a deep understanding of what goes into a policy. The learning process was very thorough – lots of reading, courses, shadowing Agents, taking Teams calls – all mashed together. The process of me actually getting my licence took longer than most people coming into the company now, but they’re singularly focused, whereas I had a lot on my plate making plans for the Agency and building the team.

The important point is it wasn’t insurance per se that attracted me to the Agent opportunity. Like anything else, you can learn insurance, I was drawn in by the leadership challenge, growing a business, promoting, and building reputation in the local region. It could have been a different sector entirely. But now I’m here, it’s a nice thing to be on the other side of. Being able to help people out when they’re in a rubbish situation, I see it as a privilege. That’s what insurance is, something that’s there to catch you when you fall into a difficult situation. It feels like an opportunity to be more involved with real people, rather than just selling a product and making money. It takes the right kind of people to do that - people that care and want to support the customers, people who don’t think of it in terms of a cost. Money is part of any business, but we want to be the best at what we do, and that’s what drives us forward.

Thanks again, Stephen. One final question – what do you enjoy about being an Agent of NFU Mutual?
What I mentioned about supporting our people and our customers is a big part of it. My personal, and the agency’s values really align with those of the wider group, so I’ve felt very aligned and supported over the last three years. Every time I’ve gone to NFU Mutual with a plan to invest more in the business, they’ve been on board, and believed in both my, and my partners ability to grow it. We’ve done what we’ve said we were going to do, investing in our people and our capacity, ready to get growth out. A great example, we’ve got a young lad working for us who went from an apprentice to getting his commercial licence in just 18 months and he’s now out doing customer reviews on his own. It would take years to get there in a corporate environment, but we’re building our team and individual capabilities as quickly as we can. And I’d love to see someone rise up through the agency into an Agent or Partner role someday.

Other than that, I do really enjoy the numbers side of the business, seeing growth and getting to witness the results of our efforts. We’re in a good place right now and I’m sure being even more proactive with marketing and promotion is going to take us to another level. As we build capability and capacity, our existing customers have seen such a big improvement in what we can provide, so the word of mouth is out there. Our retention rate would be the envy of any insurer, and there’s been an increase in new enquiries coming in, too. So, if you enjoy nurturing and shaping a business while it grows, this is an amazing place to be.

Join us on our journey
Like Stephen, you can have the chance to grow your own insurance business with the support of NFU Mutual. So, take a look at our latest Agent opportunities or sign up for job alerts by email.