Rokstone’s farm and agriculture specialist, iFarm Underwriting, has announced the recruitment of new talent and the injection of central expertise and technology drawn from across the Aventum Group, to drive underwriting strategy and transform its digital underwriting capabilities.
As part of the strategy, Lee Ellis, highly respected in the market as a senior specialist in farm and agriculture underwriting, has been recruited to the Group from Geo Underwriting where he was Senior Product Manager for three years, managing its agricultural and SME products. Prior to Geo, Lee spent 8 years at Rural Insurance and 12 years at Direct Line.
Also joining the iFarm team as a Senior Underwriter is Jade Henry, bringing with her more than 10 years’ experience in both broking and underwriting with specific specialist experience of agricultural risks at Marsh Commercial, AXA and Rural Insurance. Jade will work within the Farm team as part of a 20 strong unit of specialist farm and farm motor underwriters.
iFarm has also promoted Adam Mawer to Underwriting Manager. Previously Development Underwriter at iFarm and with 15 years’ experience in the market, Adam was Agricultural Propositions Manager at Zurich and prior to that was at NFU Mutual for seven years. He has specialised in commercial, farm and estate, large fleet and high net worth insurance. In his new role Adam will manage the farm portfolio and lead the iFarm team to profitably grow the book whilst delivering outstanding customer service to its partner brokers.
The iFarm team is working closely with Gavin Dollings, Chief Underwriting Officer at Rokstone and his team, supported by some of the best actuarial tools in the market, to develop and improve iFarm’s digital underwriting for optimal performance. iFarm also offers brokers Aventum Group’s in house valuations service, Securus, to provide accurate valuations to avoid the risks of underinsurance. Securus is led by Lee Dunford and Bridget Slade, a Chartered Surveyor and Dairy Farmer herself, who brings specialist and knowledgeable risk management advice to the mix.
Gavin Dollings comments: “Building on the success of iFarm’s already award winning quote and bind product suite for farms and agricultural businesses, we‘ll be addressing how we can further utilise data analytics to support our brokers. Inflation will have a dramatic impact on most farm businesses so we’ll be enhancing the products and pricing capabilities with digital tools that allow us to make more segmented pricing decisions based on granular data. This sophisticated level of segmentation will lead to more accurate pricing and give iFarm’s broker partners maximum flexibility to remain competitive whilst securing the best cover for their clients. Market leading farm underwriting expertise, combined with access to capacity across Rokstone’s 30+ panel of A rated carriers, sophisticated surveying and digital underwriting tools and award-winning products, will firmly position iFarm as a leader in the market for agricultural risks.”
With a stellar career of more than 25 years in the industry, Gavin joined Rokstone earlier this year from Covea where he was Commercial Underwriting Director for six years, leading the Commercial underwriting team, driving underwriting strategy and transforming underwriting disciplines and bottom-line performance. Prior to that he spent 10 years at Allianz firstly as Head of Casualty & Construction and later leading their Southern Branch network. At Rokstone Gavin leads the growing digital underwriting team as part of the Aventum Group’s multi-million-pound investment in its digital transformation.
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