Verlingue London Markets plans to enter professional lines market in 2025

Wholesale Lloyd’s broker Verlingue London Markets plans to broaden its distribution footprint by entering the professional lines market this year (2025), according to Barry Reynolds, the firm’s executive director.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Reynolds noted that Verlingue London Markets’ current wheelhouse includes property, casualty, marine, construction risks and motor, with clients serviced by a headcount of 15 staff.

However, Reynolds confirmed that supporting the business’ panel of 100 brokers to place professional lines risks – such as professional indemnity, employers’ liability or directors’ and officers’ cover, for example – has been ringfenced as “the next step for us to complete the jigsaw”.

To get the ball rolling on this earmarked development, Reynolds said that Verlingue London Markets will “bring somebody in to head [up] that area of the business”, with the expectation being that this team will “be fully up and running” by the end of 2025.

Reynolds continued: “What we’re aware of is that it completes the picture for our producing brokers, for our clients. We entirely deal with other brokers. We don’t do any retail business.

“[Professional lines is] the one area that we don’t currently do. And this is why, during the course of this year, we’ll be fully up and running on that side.”

‘Stage two’ of relaunch

This move to broaden the classes of business Verlingue London Markets handles forms part of the broker’s overarching relaunch strategy, which Reynolds devised and started to implement upon his appointment at the firm in December 2023.

Previously, Reynolds worked as managing director of Jensten Group’s London market division. He joined the intermediary after selling the business he co-founded in 2000, Tasker Insurance Group, to Jensten in 2021.

A month after Reynolds joined Verlingue London Markets, its current moniker was adopted – replacing prior name NBJ London Markets – and the organisation’s relaunch officially kicked off as Reynolds was tasked by French parent company Adelaide Group with setting a clear plan for the division that would ultimately lead to business growth.

In Reynolds’ first year in post, he established a platform to enable Verlingue London Markets to trade with its European colleagues, integrating what had previously operated as a “separately regulated business” into the broader group to sit alongside Adelaide’s other British arm, Verlingue UK.

He also “changed the book of business” managed by the firm to create a “heavy focus on new business generation and on our broker panel”.

This year, however, Reynolds described the broker as being in “stage two” of its revitalisation journey, seeking to build on the foundations he established in 2024. This next phase will include a tranche of recruitment, including senior hires – Reynolds said two of these senior appointments will be confirmed this year.

Reynolds told Insurance Times: “There’s a lot going on, a lot of changes. We’re a very different business to what we were. We’re at stage two.

“We’ve built the business. We’re now going into the phase where we know exactly what the strategy is [and] how we can develop the business, but it’s then having the right teams and the right people.

“We’re at the stage where we’re bringing in the extra team members we need, some quite senior people, to help us go to the next level.”

Finding ‘answers’

Another component of Verlingue London Markets’ relaunch in 2023 was the establishment of 10 “core service standards” that all employees adhere to day-to-day. Reynolds described this as “by far the most important thing that we set up”.

Although he declined to go into the minutiae of these service standards, he emphasised that “it really just comes down to communication” and a focus on in-person, face-to-face broking.

He explained: “Our clients want to know what’s the plan with a piece of business they’ve sent through. Is it moving forward on time? Are they going to get a response on time? If not, what’s going on in the market and why? And it really just comes down to communication.

“Since [the Covid-19 pandemic], everybody got into the position of trading via email. Part of our service standards is that wherever possible, we face-to-face broke. It’s clear that we get much better responses when we sit in front of an underwriter than when we send something by email. Sometimes email can’t be avoided, but most of the time, face-to-face broking really wins through.

“It’s being open and honest because if you’ve got a problem with a risk, there’s no point in waiting to tell the broker right at the very end or when it’s a real problem for them – they need to know about it and they need to know we’re doing something about it.

“We’re placing business that our producing brokers can’t place for themselves – it’s more problematic business. There are capacity issues, it’s not going to be smooth running to find solutions. But, if we’re dynamic and we communicate, we will find answers.”