Hello, I'm John Kitson, and this is my blog.

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Transcript

Janice – “Hi everyone. Just sitting here reflecting on what a difference a year makes, so this time last year we were gearing up to become Aviva. Now it seems we’ve been Aviva forever. I’m just fresh from the BIBA conference, where we had a fantastic time with the buzz around our stand, the feedback from brokers and the way they are feeling about Aviva at the moment is fantastic and again what a difference a year makes.”

‘I wanna be elected’ sang Alice Cooper

You may ‘wanna be elected’ but it can’t be easy when you hear conversations along the lines of ‘they’re all the same’, ‘not much difference between them’, ‘difficult to tell them apart these days’.  Leaves you wondering what it is that makes people choose?…. but they do.  Decisions made on a whole raft of things from the rational to gut feeling. But I wonder if customers … the people who buy insurance products and services… sometimes feel ‘they’re all the same’ when they think about insurers?  How would we perform in the equivalent of a ‘ ‘Prime Minister Debate’?  Would customers feel ‘they’re all the same’ because they feel we treat them ‘all the same’?  Does the owner of body repair business feel we understand what his business really needs or is he seen as ‘another garage’?

Wow, how good is this!  53 years old and I’ve actually been asked to write a piece for Janice’s Blog!

My name is Alan Drury and I work with the Broker Trading Teams across the North West of England, Nottingham and Northern Ireland.  I’ve operated in most markets in the UK but now ‘almost’ feel an honorary Northerner having lived in the North West since 1993.   I actually still like Eastenders though rather than “The Street” as my PA calls it..! It helps me keep in touch with my Essex roots.

I have a confession to make – I find General Elections fascinating. I know this puts me in a small minority of the population but we all have our crosses to bear.

Paul:    Yes, I’ll do a guest blog, but only if I can do a special one.

Brigid: Paul, what do you mean, ‘a special one’, special like the Canadian Hockey Team? (Brigid Murphy)

Paul:    No, although they were impressive.

“Would you guest on Janice’s blog? It’s an opportunity.”

Hmmm. I tend toward Ambrose Bierce’s view; Opportunity defined as ‘an occasion for grasping a disappointment’.

B: So George, we get to do the blog this week! How does that feel?

G: Damn, I thought I could have escaped without having to do any blogging. How does it work?

B: Well, you just say what’s going on in your life and hope that people reading it will find it interesting.

G: What about what’s going on in their own lives – wouldn’t that be more interesting?

B: That’s not how it works! So come on, what’s happening, what have you been up to and what are you going to do next year?

At this time of the year, my job becomes more of a trial of endurance and recovery than the nuts and bolts of everyday trading. Everyone has a party and you can trip from bar to restaurant to bar in the City from noon till midnight, often rubbing shoulders with the same brokers and competitors, all taking their turns to host and be hosted.

Driving down to Birmingham after attending a family funeral on a wet and dark Friday night last week, I wasn’t really feeling or expecting too much from the evening ahead at the Insurance Times Awards.

I’ve been receiving a lot of feedback recently from a number of places. It started last Sunday on a cool rugby pitch in Norfolk where my son Tom had just finished an under 8’s training session and the coaches came across to me to give me some positive feedback on his progress.  To give this some context it’s been a tough start to the season for Tom having moved up two teams, leaving behind his school mates and its fair to say he’s experienced some difficulty staying on the park during matches due to some over-exuberance in the tackle and a desire not just to take the tag (its non-contact until next year) but often the opposing player as well! Roll on next season.

“John, can you pick up a new role….can you take us back to number 1 for personal lines in the broker market……oh, and do it in 2010 please…..oh, and take the brokers with you by becoming the Aviva face on personal lines” ……..mmmm I thought………another massive personal lines challenge I thought.

Unprecedented economic conditions, thousands of claims going through our Supply Chain every week, bedding in our new Claims processes with our Suppliers and our Centres of Excellence, exciting prospects with our Brokers and changing our Brand – that’s my world at work at the moment!

Now a bit about me……………

So here I am (at last), 9 months since the birth of the Janice & John blog and 42 ‘posts’ later (see I’ve got the terminology right already, a natural!) it’s finally my turn to blog. Brian Spinks, head of sales & marketing, officially a guest blogger.

If there has been one theme running through my life over the last six months, its change – with a capital C!

Well, how does the Chief Risk Officer of Aviva get to be writing a column out of John Kitson’s blog?  Surfing the net one day, I stumbled accidentally upon Insurance Times and couldn’t miss reading John’s blog.  What were my reactions?  Shock, horror, followed by praise and admiration and then eventually … disappointment … once I discovered that the blog about “my holiday with my hubby” had been written by our own Janice Deacon.  Misguidedly, I thought it merited an e-mail to John and anyway here I am.

I’m Brian Wallace, Head of Aviva Risk Management Solutions.  I’m spending some time gardening this week to the sound of Jimi Hendrix playing in the background (“Little Wing” what a great song!) and thinking how well Rangers will do in Europe next season…In case you’re wondering I’m actually on holiday this week but I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity like this was I?! Guest blogging for Janice and John, I’m up for that and the chance to put some thoughts down. Anyway, I like relaxing in the garden, getting away from it all……..but it’s funny how your mind works even when relaxed………….

My name is Phil Bayles. I look after Broker business in the south of UK as well as National Brokers and London Property Owners. I live in Southampton and support Southampton FC – I get a lot of sympathy from taxi drivers at the moment on that count.

I am Alan, son of Sander, father to Fraser, native of Kilmarnock, friend to English Andrew, I am many things to many people but at this moment I am the ‘Johnblogstitute’.

I’m not blogging solely because I have the same initials. That’s just a coincidence! The main and most important reason I’m blogging is because of the role I perform for John and Janice. For those that don’t know me, I have worked for Norwich Union (soon to become Aviva) for 20 years, family man, Norwich born and bred and I love my football.