Overview and key points
Our ethos is more than just words on a website.
We’re here to challenge the status quo and establish a new level of service – holding the insurance industry to account and proving there is a different way.
We’re combining the best traditions of broking, including technical advice and client centricity, with modern thinking to enhance the client experience and create a dynamic workplace for our team.
But don’t just take our word for it…
With permission from our prestigious client – Macdonald Hotels & Resort – we’re sharing what “advice that makes the difference” means to them.
Run by a group of passionate and experienced hoteliers, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts has become one of Britain’s best loved hotel companies. From contemporary buildings in bustling city centre locations to sophisticated manor houses nestled in beautiful country grounds, the Group leads the way in offering luxury accommodation, sumptuous food and drink topped off with quality service.
What attracted Macdonald Hotels & Resorts to Partners&?
Challenge
We understand that most businesses are juggling competing priorities, face risks on multiple fronts and find insurance programmes complex and burdensome. It is precisely for these reasons that we see our role as a risk protection adviser.
We believe our duty is to work in partnership with our clients as, individuals and organisations, to fully understand exposures so that we can diagnose your risks and provide risk protection advice that is truly relevant. Our approach is in stark contrast with what most experience with insurance, a sector sometimes characterised by its lack of transparency, transactional nature and misguided practices.
For Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, this was an all too familiar story. Over time, they had begun to feel like ‘a number’ in the eyes of their previous broker, and just another client due another annual renewal visit.
Support
As part of our focus on understanding our clients, our Dundee team engaged with a whole host of different stakeholders from around the Macdonald Hotels Group gathering insights and objectives from various departments including Operations, IT, Health and Safety, HR and Finance. The team also took the time to visit over 6 different sites to conduct a thorough risk management review. We call this our “discovery” phase.
Through this process we diagnosed the Group’s key risk exposures (five of which are common across industries and are listed below) and devised a bespoke risk protection programme to be rolled out across the year in accordance with insurer requirements and regular touch points with our team.
5 key risk exposures seen commonly seen across industries (and what we can we do to mitigate them).
- Cyber risk
We deployed our dedicated cyber protection team to engage directly with Macdonald Group’s IT Director, someone who speaks the language and understands their world, to conduct a cyber resilience assessment and identify and mitigate any areas of exposure. - Property underinsurance
According to Rebuild Cost Assessment, 81% of UK properties are underinsured. With a portfolio of over 35 locations, this was a critical consideration for the group. We have engaged with Macdonald Hotels & Resorts to deliver a programme of property valuations and risk surveys for all their hotels over an agreed and pragmatic timeframe. - Liability risk and claims analysis
Historically, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts’ previous broker did not undertake any claims analysis to provide insight into any key trends within the data. Having drawn attention to some of these trends, our team is in the process of arranging a comprehensive claims defensibility assessment with our in-house loss-adjusting team to stress test the Group’s risk management practices, illuminating strengths and weakness, to facilitate further improvements. - People risk, including employee wellbeing and key person
With a workforce of more than two thousand individuals, people are rightly at the heart of Macdonald Hotels and Resorts’ priorities. As a result, we drafted in our Wellbeing, Health and Protection team to assess their people proposition and reveal how they could maximise the benefits they provide to enhance their recruitment and retention – a big issue in the hospitality sector. - Business continuity
To compliment the Group’s protection programme, the team introduced ecosystem partner BCarm to explore how business continuity planning could further mitigate exposures associated with disruption, interruption and recovery. - Personal insurance
Finally, personal insurances. Many business owners and leadership teams will ensure rigorous protection of their organisation, only to leave themselves and their most valuable personal assets exposed. It’s important for us to provide 360° cover for both an organisation and its individuals.
Perform
Macdonald Group Hotels & Resorts now enjoy the vast array of specialist advice available at the other end of the phone with regular and structured touch points in place throughout the year with our Partners& team, allowing for continuous three-way conversation with both their broker and insurer, to ensure the long-term shared success.
The Partners& Difference
Our clients are not just a policy number to us, they’re real people, with real businesses – with each business having different challenges, priorities and needs. We believe we can only truly understand our clients with thorough ‘client discovery’ – a term we use to describe our holistic and collaborative approach to learning what makes you and your business tick.
Only then can we recommend a risk management approach that protects you, your business and your people when you need it most.
To understand more about how our team can support your business, contact our advisory team today by clicking here or call one of our team on 03300 940177.