Lauren Twist
Motor Product Underwriter

I didn’t plan on working in insurance. It was my first office job, as I worked in retail before that, but I wanted something more permanent with a career path. I think it was the variety of the role that attracted me initially, as I had never heard of underwriting. I had bought car insurance but I had always used Brokers and had never directly dealt with an insurer. The role and job description sounded so much more interesting than the trust roles I was offered at the time.

My career here has grown a lot at ICCI. I initially started as an Underwriting Assistant in the Personal Lines team. Obtaining the Cert [Certificate in Insurance] gave me the springboard to progress to an Underwriter and later Senior Underwriter. At ICCI you can forge your own career and roles have been created to enable internal growth and play to people’s strengths. I now manage the Personal Lines team and due to my interest in motor/vehicle modification I was promoted to Product Lead for Motor a few years ago. I have a massive interest in cars and love dealing with modification motor referrals. I want the ICCI Personal Lines team to be market leading for those types of vehicles for modification requests because we have that knowledge in the team, which is rare in comparison to other insurers.

I head up the Personal Lines team and manage 3 staff (2 in Personal Lines and 1 in our Commercial Team). This involves all aspects of a leadership role, including managing a team, conducting performance appraisals and supporting their personal growth and development. I am the referral point for the underwriting team as a whole for all motor issues of all types and ranges, including looking at the growth of the book. I also have my Senior Underwriting role covering all the Personal Lines policies such as household and motor (private & commercial vans). This involves quoting for new business and dealing with renewals on a day to day basis.

The variety – my day is never the same! I literally can go from one day doing standard underwriting for the team to scheme meetings with our parent RSA; to dealing with the leadership aspect of my role, to being involved in our underwriting forum. Another part I love about my job is that ICCI allows the team to feel empowered. In our underwriting forum we are able to suggest new things we should be doing or changes we want to make to processes etc. Our voices/ideas/suggestions are always listened to and acted on. It’s a great culture.

Switch Off – Laptops are great to enable us to work from home but I think it’s really important that everyone remembers to close them down and put them out of sight.

Get Outside – I love running. I decided to run every day in January, no idea why but it made me feel great. I walk the dog and go out in the fresh air every lunchtime and every evening and I find it really helps. You reset, no phone and just get ‘you’ time. It’s much better when it’s sunny though!

Have social events planned – I think it’s good to have something to look forward to, whether it’s time with family, friends or colleagues. We are a very social team and love getting together outside of work for a few drinks and a few laughs!

The team/family spirit is probably my favourite thing about ICCI. We are a small team and we all know each other. It’s nice to come to work and have a good relationship with everyone you work with. No matter what floor we are on, whether it’s the underwriting, IT, Claims floor or our team in Jersey, we all get on and know each other well. If you don’t know something or you need support, you can ask anyone and everyone is willing to help. We really have that one team spirit feel. It’s quite unique. Some companies can be floors and floors of people and you don’t know everyone. Whereas you see anyone here and you know who everyone is, and you know by the way they walk or talk whether something is up or not.

Read the policy wording – all different insurers have different terms and conditions and exclusions. Something you might think is included as basic cover with one insurer may not be with another. By reading the policy that will give you a good basis on what you are covered/paying for. Look at the exclusions, understand what the limits of the policy are etc. Cheaper policies may not give you the coverage you require, so always read the policy wording or ask your Broker to summarise.

Ask your Broker about the insurers claims service – you don’t want to be waiting months and months for claims to get sorted, especially when you can’t live at your house or drive your car. You will want it sorted and you will want it done quickly. Understand who you are going to be insured with – do they have a local claims service? Is it a call centre you will be dealing with? ICCI’s claims service is one of the best – we are quick, and customers don’t have to wait a long time to get things sorted. So always ask your Broker for their view on the insurers claims service and do your own research online and find out more about their claims promise and process.

Always ask the Broker questions – if you are new to insurance or don’t have an insurance background there can be a lot of terms or jargon that people may not understand, such as average or underinsurance etc. People may not know the terminology, so don’t be afraid to ask your Broker any questions and they will help.

Speak to their Broker or liaise with a Surveyor. A surveyor can give up to date buildings valuation and rebuild value guides. For contents, speak to your Broker or you can look at our What Sum’s Insured Guide on our website. You can download the form, go around your house room by room listing all the items and work out what the value would be to purchase them on a new basis. Always liaise with your Broker if you are in any doubt.

We’re local! Local, local, local! We have local underwriters, local knowledge, local claims teams, local management team to make decisions. You won’t deal with a call centre. There is no waiting around, you speak to the same people. We have a team in both islands and you are not passed around lots of people and we deal with the claim from start to finish.

I go to the gym and walk the dog a lot! When I’m not working or doing any of those things, I love watching films and try and watch all of the Oscar films every year. I am a Disney maniac/fanatic! Apart from Covid last year, the only year I haven’t been to Disney was 2018, since 2013. It’s great weather, theme parks, variety of rides, it’s seriously good fun and you’re never too old to be a big kid!

I would either be a film reviewer (all genres apart from horror – not my idea of fun!) or work for Disney in some capacity (designing rides, layout and merchandise, not good enough to be an animator but that would be the ultimate). I’m too tall to be a Disney character!!

Visit Alaska – Northern Lights is my biggest draw as well as the cabin living, the sledging, reindeers, remote wilderness and scenery, snow, mountains. It looks like heaven. My other wish is to visit every Disney park in the world. They have 6 parks (Paris, Florida, California, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai). I’ve been to 2, so 4 to go! Tokyo is top of the list next.

This was a hard one to answer as most people know I love all things Disney. So, my next best answer is that I can speak Spanish, albeit it’s a bit rusty now! I was born in Guernsey but lived in Spain in Costa Blanca between ages 11-14 before returning back to Guernsey. Not sure many people know this fact!

One of my favourite motivational or inspirational quotes is from the film ‘Inception’, said by Actor, Tom Hardy: “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darling”. I love this – as you can’t just go through life plodding along, there has always got to be something bigger or a bigger expectation of yourself. So, what’s bigger for Lauren – a good and happy life.