Say hello

Stella enjoys helping to make UK General the go-to insurer for schemes and the expert voice in our sector. She brings a wide range of skills to her role, especially her expertise in travel insurance and assistance, operations and call-centre management, and claims management. She is well-recognised and has spoken at many travel-related industry conferences.

Stella joined us in 2013 as director of travel. She was mostly recently head of commercial at Europ Assistance, where her team tripled the net premium across all business lines and won the largest account in the history of the group worldwide. Before that, Stella was head of sales at both Collinson Group and Aria Assistance.

Having earned a degree in French and Russian, Stella has since added a slew of professional qualifications and accreditations. She is an Associate of the London College of Music, and holds a Diploma in Management from the Institute of Leadership and Management as well as the Diploma in Public Service Interpreting. She is currently following the Magnify leadership programme.

Stephen claims we’re lucky to have the benefit of his experience, wit, charm, and sophistication (and who are we to argue?).

His biggest satisfaction at UK General has been seeing broker clients develop to the point of being acquired, merged or bought. With our support, many of them have reaped all the rewards their hard work deserves.

Stephen’s career highlight came as early as 1995, when he developed the client, underwriter and wording in his first real piece of business covering the Argentinian peanut harvest against natural perils. It provided the springboard for jobs as a broker with Russell Tudor-Price & Co, miscellaneous risks underwriter with Groupama Insurance and special risks underwriter at NIG.

His current goal is to give UK General a leading position in a new niche area – he just hasn’t found the right one yet.

Shelley is widely recognised as extremely likeable whilst also being that go-to person who will always get things done.

Her proudest - and most challenging - career moment came when she was asked to manage one of HBOS’s largest accounts (£13 million GWP), which is part of a global business operating in multiple fields.

Shelley started out in insurance with AXA in 2001. She moved to Lloyds Banking Group as corporate account manager before joining learndirect as a trainer assessor in financial services. She came to UK General in 2014 as internal business development manager.

Shelley was ‘Manager of the Year’ at HBOS in 2006. She holds the FIT from the CII and is working towards further CII qualifications.

Past roles with both a broker and a direct insurer have provided Vicky with invaluable experience across different providers and personal lines products.

She began her insurance career in 2005 on a graduate scheme with Direct Line Group, later becoming a project manager within claims. She then joined Accent Group as development programme officer.

Following that, as an account executive at Jardine Lloyd Thompson, Vicky focused on public-sector clients and tenants’ contents insurance, winning a high number of high-profile clients through competitive OJEU tendering. She joined UK General in 2014.

A career highlight was project-managing Mortgage Rescue, a government-funded scheme which allowed families in mortgage arrears to stay in their homes as social-housing tenants rather than facing repossession. One of her major successes involved introducing an IT platform for managing third-party motor claims, significantly reducing handling times and costs.

With over 25 years of financial services experience, Tony maximises success for brokers through niche personal lines product opportunities.

Tony began his insurance career 14 years ago at GE Money as a client sales manager. In 2006, he moved over to Cardif Pinnacle where his role as client relationship manager, lead to the beginning of 10 skilled years in the creditor market.

As well as a certificate of regulated general insurance from the IFS school of finance which he obtained in 2011, Tony’s proudest career moment occurred in 2012 when he won and launched a new income insurance proposition with a general insurance call centre prospect. His extensive knowledge within the household, travel and pet insurance market guarantees outstanding expertise which he applies to every broker relationship.

Joining UK General Insurance in 2016 from his role as a creditor product manager for Paymentshield Ltd, Tony brings with him a wealth of experience and a recognisable personality appreciated by colleagues and clients alike.

Joe works closely with our brokers to help them maximise their business opportunities with our niche personal lines insurance products and services.

He joined us in 2015 from The Warranty Group (a Lombard Asset Finance account), where he was insurance sales manager. He was previously area sales manager at Global Insurance Management, and prior to that Joe was a sales consultant at Alexander Lauren Associates, where he began his insurance career in 2007.

Having worked for a small family broker to a multi-national bank Joe has the experience, understanding and knowledge for what it takes to help build successful relationships and looks forward to doing this with UK General current and future clients.

Ian began his insurance career in 2002. Since then, besides developing a talent for looking after broker relationships, he has amassed considerable statistical knowledge as a result of broking into Lloyds. He is also skilled at scheme analysis and has built up substantial experience in the travel insurance market.

Ian previously worked for 12 years as an account handler at Crispin Speers & Partners, and prior to that he held a similar role at Travellers Protection Services. In 2013, while with Crispin Speers, Ian was heavily involved in the development and launch of the first employee benefit gadget insurance product – which continues to thrive.

Beginning his insurance career in 2003, Barry has developed a broad knowledge across a range of personal insurance products. With extensive experience in motor and home insurance, Barry also has a wealth of knowledge surrounding fraud and the counter measures available to ensure exposure is minimised.

Beginning his career at Kwikfit Insurance as a sales and renewal consultant, Barry later became an established renewal and retention manager in 2007. In 2011 he moved into the role of business development account manager for Ageas retail (formally Kwikfit Insurance).

Barry’s proudest moments in his career occurred upon the receiving end of multiple quarterly and annual awards spanning his entire insurance career.

A family man, Barry is often kept busy by his two young children. When he has a spare moment, he can often be found playing golf, scoring goals in football or cycling across the scenic Scottish countryside. Upon joining the UK General team in April 2016, he looks forward to developing many valuable partnerships with clients across the Scottish market.

With an insurance career spanning over 20 years, Rob has experience in B2B and B2C general insurance products, namely Warranty, GAP, Creditor, Pet and the Later Life Planning sector (Funeral Plans and specialist Legal Services).

Rob’s proudest career moment occurred in 2006 while at Cardif Pinnacle where he was instrumental in retaining the GE Money block of business by winning the tender to renew the deal for a further 3 years. Furthermore, while working with the Global Partners Insurance team, he ensured the division produced profitable and ethic business across the overall relationship.

In his spare time Rob enjoys playing golf and doing DIY however, he has been known to have a the odd mishap nearly losing his thumb on one occasion! Having joined UK General in April 2016, Rob looks forward to developing successful partnerships with his clients to maximise growth, whilst becoming a trusted and valued member of the team.

Having started her UK General Insurance career back in 2012, Amy is a well-known face around the business.

Fresh out of college, her first role as reception apprentice saw Amy complete her Customer Service NVQ Level 2 and Business Administration NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 within 3 years. A true success story of the company, in 2015 she joined the sales team to become the only business development support executive with an aim of becoming a business development manager in time.

With her natural customer service skills and determination, she has been welcomed into the sales team with open arms. Amy is now studying towards her Cert CII qualification. On the odd occasion taken away from her studying, she is renowned for her (questionable!) singing around the office. It’s awfully quiet when she’s not around.

Dawn is very approachable and enjoys developing relationships with our affinity partners. She is a strong advocate for change and likes to keep business moving forward.

She came to UK General in 2014, bringing 8 years’ experience in insurance and 27 years in financial services. Dawn joined us from Barclays Bank but had previously spent 25 years with Lloyds Banking Group (formerly HBOS), where she was most recently insurer account manager and business relationship manager.

She says her biggest career challenge was bringing all the life, pension and investment business in-house from a third-party supplier, saving £20m per annum.

Deirdre joins UK General as all around product enthusiast and personal lines specialist.

Her talent has been nurtured in her 28-year strong career in insurance. She joins us from Covea Insurance where she spent four years as a senior product development manager and prior to that, Provident Insurance where she spent a further seven years in a similar role.

Deirdre is proud of having experience managing many product teams in her career and her approach is to work collaboratively both internally and externally to deliver profitable, innovative products that deliver value to customers.

Be it product development, implementation or strategy, Deirdre is excited to get under the skin of UK General’s product portfolio and deliver new and exciting propositions to the personal lines sector. Deirdre also commented that she was impressed by the agility of our business and the interactive nature of the structure working closely with underwriting, actuarial and finance.

Deirdre is a Master of Economics and an Associate of the ACII. 

Neil’s mission is to ensure that access to justice through legal expenses insurance policies is fair to both the customer and the insurer. He has a thorough understanding of legal expenses insurance in the UK, having worked in the sector for over 25 years. He brings particular strengths in writing and modifying policy wordings and monitoring new legal exposures.

Neil joined us in 2015 from Financial & Legal Insurance, where he was underwriting manager. He had previously worked as London area underwriter at DAS Legal Expenses Insurance and, before that, as agency manager at Amicus Legal.

One of Neil’s career highlights was negotiating the renewal of 2 significant long-term business agreements, worth a combined NWP of £5million. He also put together a suite of telephone helpline services for Direct Line’s pet insurance policy, including bereavement counselling and local veterinary assistance where the pet owner is away from home in the UK. Neil also holds the Cert CII.

Rob has deep specialist and technical knowledge across products as varied as motor warranty and gadgets. He’s also very commercially savvy, which helps him to find ways of underwriting unusual products and thereby broadening our product portfolio.

He balances leading his team to GWP growth while maintaining that all-important profitability for insurers.

An important moment in his career was securing the Volkswagen Financial Services account, working closely with the client to develop and underwrite the Ensurance product and helping to ensure a successful scheme launch.

Rob joined us in 2010 after beginning his insurance career at Towergate, where he was most recently deputy underwriting and operations manager. He was UK General’s ‘Employee of the Year’ in 2012 and participated in the CII New Generation Programme in 2014. He achieved his Dip CII in 2007.

Karen has a superb talent for those signature personal-lines schemes which have made UK General Britain’s leading specialist MGA. She also has an approachable, common-sense leadership style which is appreciated by brokers, insurers and team members alike.

When asked where she’d like to take UK General next, Karen says there are so many exciting opportunities that the real challenge is in deciding what to do first.

Although she says she’s been in insurance ‘forever’, Karen joined us as technical underwriting manager in 2002. Prior to that she spent 13 years as a director at Caravan Guard and Wilby Insurance, initially as a commercial broker before setting up the scheme business at Caravan Guard. Karen started her insurance career as a commercial underwriter at General Accident.

One of Karen’s proudest moments was winning ‘MGA of the Year’ for UK General in 2014 and 2015. She also holds the Advanced Dip CII (ACII) and has used her spare time to earn a BA (Hons).

Having joined us as a management accountant in 2006, Ryan was appointed to the board in 2014. He manages to combine a strategic outlook and financial acumen with a very down-to-earth approach.

Since coming to UK General, Ryan has brought in £25m of external funding, restructured our legal entities and helped to build a more robust and streamlined platform for rapid growth. He’s keen to use financial data and actuarial techniques as an enabler for the business, whereas finance departments are often seen as the place where ideas are blocked. He wants to see the finance and actuarial teams out with the business, working on new opportunities, systems, and sales strategies.

Ryan has focused on efficiency and restructuring to help UK General achieve our ambitious strategic goals. He’s worked hard to empower talented individuals and teams, and has led the finance team to approved training partner status with the CIMA and ACCA. Ryan qualified with the CIMA in 2008 and is a proud winner of the Insurance Business Young Guns award for 2017. 

Matthew joined UK General Insurance with a track record in building market winning teams and an excitement for UK General’s growth within the MGA market.

With an insurance career spanning more than 30 years, Matthew’s previous roles include Head of Private Clients and Head of Construction at Zurich Insurance. His excellence lies within his ability to build strong relationships with clients, colleagues and key stakeholders alike. Matthew transformed Zurich’s private client’s division from a mid-net worth insurer into a market leading high net worth insurer, an achievement he considers to be one of his career highlights.

With a dedicated customer focus, Matthew has an astute sense of commercial acumen which sees him gain excellent results time and time again. In addition to his career accomplishments he is also an associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute. 

A highly driven and customer focused individual, Vicky holds an outstanding record of achievement within the financial services industry.

She joined UK General from Assurant where she was Commercial director and Operations director for a combined total of 9 years. Prior to that Vicky worked for AWD Moneyextra as the Contact centre director and for Black Horse Finance as Operations manager respectively. During her time at Moneyextra Vicky encompassed the challenges of a new start business, competing a traditional market using technology to deliver service.

Vicky is well known within the industry and plays a key role in shaping UK General through our people strategy. She finds working within different teams fascinating and relishes the challenge of helping people identify what they want to do and supporting their development.

Jane joined UK General in the summer of 2017 from Bluefin where she was Chief Risk Officer and previously Risk & Compliance Director from 2008. She has extensive experience of operating at Board and Executive level, establishing and leading risk management and compliance functions in a constantly changing regulatory environment. 

Not necessarily a ‘typical’ risk & compliance person, Jane is an accomplished and energetic leader, who relishes operational and change projects, always seeking to combine business objectives with the need for compliance. After graduating with a Pure & Applied Biology degree, her career has been firmly rooted in general insurance, having held numerous senior and management positions previously at Smart & Cook, Allianz, IBM and Commercial Union.  She is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute. 

When asked about her greatest achievement, she commented that it is loosely connected to insurance! In October 2016 Jane complete the National Three Peaks challenge with her Bluefin colleagues. An incredibly grueling but amazing experience completed in very nearly 24 hours!  

Paul joined us in 2014 as sales director where he uses his wealth of insurance experience to support our customers in growing their business.

Paul focuses his time and energy “out in the field” working alongside our broker customers, helping UK General achieve the growth we’ve come to expect as the UK’s leading personal lines specialists.

Paul has had a long career in financial services including 13 years at Europ Assist as Sales and Marketing Director. He has since worked with the senior teams of leading insurance brands in a consultative role both in the UK and overseas.

When we asked what motivates him, Paul said “it’s bringing new customers to the UK General brand and watching their schemes flourish”.

Dean Fairburn is relishing the development and delivery of UK General’s claims strategy. His goals are to continually add value for our clients, to support our ambitious growth plans, and to ensure that UK General is the name people want to work with.

He came to us in 2006 from Royal & Sun Alliance, where he’d been senior technical claims adviser and had previously held positions in household & commercial property claims and household underwriting.

Dean set up our supplier management team from scratch in 2010, which is now responsible for overseeing all of our outsourced claims handling.

He’s particularly proud to have twice been UK General’s Employee of the Year (not just month, but year!) since he joined us in 2006. He holds the Dip CII.

Grant started his insurance career in 1986 working for a London based national insurance broker. Since 2000 he has specialised in the Social Housing insurance sector and has held senior positions at several of the leading providers including Acumus and AJ Gallagher. More recently he worked with one of the sectors leading independent consultants assisting housing providers in procuring their insurance programmes and advising on a range of insurance and risk issues.

Grant is responsible for our Social Housing division and is focussed on delivering high quality insurance protection through streamlined and efficient systems.