David Nichols: Zurich UK’s ‘best ideas’ driven by broker engagement

Zurich UK’s head of retail David Nichols has spent over two decades with the insurer, having joined from Aviva in 2003.

Following a career with the Swiss-owned group that involved roles across Europe and as COO for then Zurich-owned broker Endsleigh Insurance, Nichols joined the UK c-suite team in 2016 chief as COO.

After 18 months in this role, he became the insurer’s UK chief claims officer for nearly six years – taking on a role he says has informed his understanding of his job as head of retail.

“Claims is the ultimate shop window of the insurance industry,” he says. “That is where the customer gets what they’ve paid for – and I don’t think you ever lose that [perspective].”

And it is this philosophy about service delivery that shapes how Nichols approaches running a UK retail operation that spans across mid-market businesses up to £250m turnover, all the way down to SME business and personal lines.

“Service quality always stands out,” he says. “It comes back full circle – if you’re placing one of your valuable customers with an insurer, you want to know that the claim support is going to be there when they need it, because that’s a reflection of broker partnership as well.”

Personal lines pivot

When Nichols took on the head of retail role, one of the first decisions he faced was what to do with a broker-distributed personal lines book that, at the time, lacked the scale to be competitive.

“One of the most pressing things when I joined was sorting out personal lines and what the strategy was going to be there,” he explains. 

“We did not have a material personal lines intermediated book and so I took the decision that it was probably not reflecting the things that we wanted to be as an organisation. But what that did was allow us to double down where we can be really strong.”

This strategic pivot meant meant exiting directly written personal lines in favour of redeploying capacity through specialist MGA partnerships in the non-standard space – such as KGM for non-standard motor, AllClear for non-standard travel and Plum for non-standard home.

The logic, Nichols explains, is that sector specialism within these MGA partners, combined with Zurich’s developed underwriting capability, creates a more powerful combination than trying to compete with other insurers on volume in busier, volume-play markets.

The results have been striking and Nichols says that Zurich now finds itself “over 50% bigger than we ever were before”, with the entirety of that volume written on a delegated basis.

“It’s not that we’ve pulled out of personal lines,” he says. “We’ve deployed our capacity in a very different way.”

And, having established this strategy in personal lines, Nichols tells Insurance Times that the next wave of MGA partnerships will come in commercial lines, with several already in the pipeline for 2026.

Feedback as fuel

In the core retail business – which Zurich defines as SME trade, schemes and mid-market – Nichols is equally keen to chase improvement through a constant process of repositioning and updating informed by leveraging broker feedback at scale.

Zurich received 90,000 items of broker feedback on its eTrade capability in 2025 alone – and Nichols says every piece is read and acted on.

“The best ideas do come from broker feedback, because they’re the guys using the self-serve platform,” he says. “We committed – and we continue to commit – to read every piece of feedback and then do something with it.”

Recent examples of implementing this feedback illustrate how “this fundamental part of how we operate” becomes real.

A new no-claims discount fleet product launched on Acturis in 2025 was driven by broker feedback. Enhancements to the tradesperson product – including the addition of listed buildings to its real estate insurance offering – came from the same source. Two further eTrade products are also planned for launch in 2026, both designed around identified broker needs originating from this feedback.

To encourage brokers to engage with that process, Zurich also partners with charity Magic Breakfast to donate a meal to a child in need for every response received – an arrangement Nichols sums up simply: “Doing good is good business.” 

A five star rating in the latest Insurance Times Five Star Rating Report: eTrading, published in May this year, attests to the success of this approach, with the insurer retaining five stars in the 2025/26 version of the Five Star Report: Commercial Lines.

Empowered and empathetic

On trading with brokers in the regions, Nichols points to a recent expansion of new trading hubs in Chelmsford, Bristol and Southampton as evidence that the insurer is committed to working more closely with brokers where they are.

“I don’t think anyone, from a broker point of view, is interested in how efficient we are internally. They’re interested in the end service that they receive.”

In these centres, the model is built on local decision-making authority and Nichols says 99% of underwriting decisions are made in the service centre local to the broker relationship, with no reliance on head office referral.

“There’s no one better placed to make that decision than the underwriter on the ground,” he says. “If we couldn’t stand up the centre to do that, then we probably wouldn’t offer the centre.”

Alongside that structural investment, Zurich rolled out a company-wide empathy training programme last year. Nichols is careful to define what that means in practice – with Zurich staff trained to respond to broker cues, rather than strictly following a service delivery plan that may unintentionally annoy brokers looking for quick responses. 

“If somebody comes across as a bit punchy on the phone, that person just wants the fastest response possible,” he says. “So deliver that. That’s a far better outcome.”

The programme sits alongside eight AI developments being deployed across eTrade this year, all of them focused on speed and responsiveness rather than internal cost efficiency.

Nichols says: “I don’t think anyone, from a broker point of view, is interested in how efficient we are internally. They’re interested in the end service that they receive.”

Looking ahead

Despite market-wide tough trading conditions, Nichols says Zurich’s retail business delivered more than 10% growth last year during softening market conditions.

Nichols is focused on sustaining that growth through into 2026 and beyond via share of wallet growth with existing regional broker relationships, continued MGA-led distribution expansion and eTrade development.

A mid-market replatforming onto Acturis is currently also underway, creating what Nichols describes as a continuum from SME through to mid-market that will allow the boundaries of what is eTradable to be pushed progressively further.

“I don’t want us to be in a position where we can’t up the limits on eTrade,” he explains. “When it’s right and when people are comfortable, we can push the boundaries quite quickly.”

And, in a softening market, his philosophy on continuing to succeed is straightforward.

“We don’t have the right to demand growth,” he finishes. “We have to show up and earn respect to get it.”