You have the freedom to run your agency, with the backing of a huge company.

Kayleigh Pimblett joined NFU Mutual in a Customer Service role straight from school. After moving into a sales role, she found herself running an NFU Mutual agency at the age of just 21. In 2017, she recruited a partner and now they jointly run an £8m NFU Mutual agency in Bishop’s Stortford. We caught up with Kayleigh to find out more about her agency, the clients and what she enjoys about being a self-employed Agent of NFU Mutual.

Kayleigh, can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became an Agent of NFU Mutual?
When I joined NFU Mutual, the intention was to work for six months and then to go travelling. But it didn’t turn out like that! After six months I went into sales, and then when the Senior Agent in the agency left, I was offered the chance to stand in and run the agency.

I was very lucky – I had good people who backed me, and I think confidence gets you a long way. And I was always prepared to learn – one of the things I realised early on is that clients don’t expect you to have all the answers. So, I’d go to a client and if they asked me something, I’d say “great question – let me get back to you on that.” And if you’re honest with people, and go out of your way to ask the right questions, so you really understand their business needs, you’ll pick things up as you go along and get on well.

When you moved into a self-employed Agent role in 2015 – how did that change things?
I went from being a paid employee of NFU Mutual, with my team’s wages paid from Head Office, to being self-employed and paying the team myself. It was a big change!

Usually, if you start your own business, you have to do everything for yourself. But when I made the change, I was handed a book of business and given the opportunity to grow it with the huge backing of NFU Mutual. It’s a really nice balance. You have the freedom to choose how you run your agency, how you recruit and do your own local marketing, but you have the support and stability of a huge company that you wouldn’t have if you were starting out completely on your own.

It was quite a big leap for me to move to a self-employed commission-based role, but I was pretty confident about it – and financially I was a lot better off, because your earnings are only limited by your ability to retain your existing clients and grow your book. You get out what you put in – and for us, that means constantly planning and adapting the business, and investing in the team – that keeps the role interesting.

How does your agency partnership work?
Kevin, my Agent partner, and I are like chalk and cheese – but we work so well together. We both have the same business vision. He takes on client retention and looks after reviews for key accounts, while I enjoy networking and sourcing new clients. So, when I find a new client, I do a handover to Kevin to manage the account. I organise a client meeting to introduce him, so they know who’s going do the review. It’s something that works really well for us.

We share the other responsibilities – he enjoys looking at the detail and areas like IT and pilot schemes with Head Office. And I prefer looking at the bigger picture, so I look after areas like business planning and staffing. So, we complement each other’s skills, working to the same end goal.

It sounds like a good working relationship - what kind of clients do you work with?
Over the last five years, we’ve been focusing on High Net Worth and commercial business clients. This is my focus and I’ve been working closely with the commercial salesperson in our team to build a pipeline of commercial clients. That’s coming to fruition now – in the first ten months of this year, we've already done £900,000 of new business, against a target we set of £500,000 for the whole year.

We work with a lot of different clients, from large manufacturers and property owners to a national food chain, diversified commercial farms, and fleet, so there’s a lot of variety.

Do you think clients see a difference in working with a mutual, rather than a broker?
Yes, most of our commercial clients have usually been with a broker for years. But, once they appreciate that we do the underwriting, deal with the claims, and don’t charge a broker fee or direct debit fees, they see how we can make a huge difference to their insurance experience. And we also talk about how good the claims experience is, the mutual bonus saving on renewals and the fact that our agency’s retention rate is 96%. That all helps to get the business across the line.

I always say to people that I’m their trusted advisor – we’re not a cheap insurer, we’re a quality insurer. So, we take the time to find out about their business, understand their worries and advise on what they need to be insured against, so if there’s a claim, it’s a smooth process. For some clients, this is a new way of working and they really like it. Other clients really appreciate that we focus on providing great customer service, because that’s how they like to treat their own customers.

So, what kind of support do you get from NFU Mutual?
We work very closely with the team who help us to get cover in areas where NFU Mutual doesn’t ordinarily have the risk appetite. I find the more you collaborate with them, the better results you get. We use them all the time and have a strong relationship with them – and their work is vital in helping us to pick up larger accounts, because with larger accounts there’s usually an element that doesn’t currently sit with NFU Mutual's underwriting appetite.

When we took on a big new food client recently, the NFU Mutual teams gave us fantastic support. The client wanted to know what other food clients we had, so the marketing team got a testimonial from another client. And we did some funded risk management services for them too, so I worked with the underwriter on that. There are lots of different parts of the business that can come in and give you the support when you need it.

You can also have direct relationships with people at the highest levels in NFU Mutual. There’s an agency liaison group that I sit on and when you raise any concerns, you know your voice is being heard, because you can see things being implemented.

It sounds like you really enjoy your work – what’s the most enjoyable aspect of it for you?
I do really love it. NFU Mutual is a great brand – I don’t think there’s a better insurer out there. You can be confident that you’re selling the best insurance. They’re great to work with and when you’re selling their offering, you know they’re going to deliver and that the clients are going to have a good experience. And because we’re so local, you do see a lot of clients socially, so you have that peace of mind that they’re getting the best.

Kayleigh’s built a varied and rewarding career as a self-employed Agent of NFU Mutual Agent – and she’s still progressing. Find out how you can build an equally successful career with us, here.