Ahead of BIBA this is timely news from Aviva;
Aviva has announced growth and investment in its Regional Specialty segment, including 15 new hires across the UK and an enhanced digital platform. Together, these developments strengthen Aviva’s Regional Specialty proposition and reinforce its commitment to giving brokers faster access to local knowledge and specialist expertise.
The Regional Specialty team sits within Aviva’s Global, Corporate & Specialty (GCS) business. Alongside GCS’s regional offerings in property, casualty and financial lines, the Regional Specialty team supports mid-market risks that require both specialist underwriting capability and local decision-making.
Aviva now has more than 50 Regional Specialty Lines underwriters across Accident & Health, Construction, Engineering, Renewable Energy, and Marine Cargo & Freight. This growth shows Aviva’s continued investment in regional specialist expertise. As part of this, the construction underwriting team has increased to five, strengthening local underwriting capacity so Aviva can now support a broader range of complex regional construction risks with greater speed and confidence.
The expansion also includes nine newly appointed Business Development Underwriters. Alongside core underwriting responsibilities, these roles focus on deepening broker relationships helping to assemble bespoke teams, that can bring together Risk Engineering, Client Relationship Managers (CRMs) and Claims Relationship Leads (CRLs). This gives brokers simpler and faster access to Aviva’s specialist expertise more easily across the regions.
Digital investment improves speed and self-service for brokers
Alongside team expansion, Aviva has delivered a series of major digital enhancements designed to make it easier for brokers to trade. These include the launch of its Marine Cargo & Freight solutions on platforms such as Acturis etrade and FastTrade, as well as developing a more sophisticated rating model to support more accurate pricing.
Together, these improvements have significantly reduced referral rates across key product lines, with Accident & Health referrals alone falling by over 50%. This enables brokers to self-serve the majority of cases, while allowing Aviva’s underwriters to focus on more complex and specialist risks.
Strategic priorities for 2026 and beyond
With strong operational foundations in place, Aviva’s Regional Specialty team is focused on three priorities for 2026: using data-led insights to support sustainable growth, tackling underinsurance by identifying coverage gaps so clients are properly protected when it matters most, and increasing market visibility through deeper, face-to-face engagement with brokers across the regions.
Chris Vine, Head of Regional Specialty at Aviva, said:
“In our latest Broker Barometer survey, brokers said a strong regional presence makes a real difference to service quality. * With that in mind, our focus for 2026 and beyond is on bringing specialist expertise even closer to our broker partners and clients.
“We’ve invested heavily in people, capability and technology to improve visibility, availability and decision-making across the regions, further supporting brokers to secure the right cover for customers faster and more confidently.
“We know that strong relationships and face-to-face engagement matter, for brokers and for the customers we serve. This investment strengthens our ambition to build long-term regional partnerships and gives brokers and clients access to the same specialist expertise, wherever they are in the UK.”
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