I’ve got it covered: Amanda Blanc on fixing Aviva’s troubles

Amanda Blanc, boss of the £12.3 billion insurance giant Aviva, is one of the most formidable executives in the city.

She is a prominent member of a tiny club: women at the top of FTSE 100 companies.

Her modest upbringing, in a former mining community in South Wales’ Rhondda Valley, is also unusual in the predominantly male and middle-class realm of Britain’s blue-chip corporate boardrooms.

However, her roots have given her some great advantages. She possesses a lovely Welsh lilt, a strong dose of pragmatism and a genuine affinity for her clients and the problems they face.

Like the rest of us, she has had problems with insurance and recently had to wait about eight weeks to have her car windshield replaced, due to post-Covid delays in getting spare parts.

“Three years ago, we could handle a windshield in 24 or a maximum of 48 hours,” she says. “Due to supply chain issues, it can take much longer these days. Explaining that to customers can be difficult. We certainly don’t always get it right when it comes to service.

“But I am well aware that if something bad happens and you have to make a claim on your insurance, you immediately become a vulnerable customer.

If you’re sick, you’ve had an accident, your house has been broken into, your child is ill, you’ve been robbed, our response can make a big difference.”

It’s easy for Blanc to say warm words, but unlike some rival financial services bosses who seem utterly distant from their clients, her heart seems to be in the right place.

Since she took over at Aviva in July 2020, there are signs that she is changing the group’s fortunes, something that eluded a whole line of male predecessors.

She has three main goals, the first of which is to streamline operations and focus on the UK, Ireland and Canada.

So far it has sold eight companies in ‘non-core markets’ for a total consideration of £7.5bn, returning £4.75bn of capital to shareholders, with the hope of adding more. “A big tap on that one,” she says.

Second on its agenda is improving financial strength and restoring confidence in dividend payments.

The third goal is to improve performance and growth. She rolls up a list of possibilities, including home equity releases for the elderly who want to release capital from their homes, and “bulk purchase of annuities” or taking over company pension plans.

She also wants to reduce wasteful spending. “We are on track to reduce costs by £750 million by 2024,” she says.

Aviva shares, which had languished for years, are up about 60 percent since Blanc took charge. That will bring comfort to the company’s long-suffering small shareholders, of whom there are at least half a million.

Running Aviva is a mammoth task, and Blanc knows she’s being brought to the attention of Swedish activist investor Cevian, who owns a 6 percent stake and doesn’t shy away from wanting to see superpowered performance.

Pre-Blanc, Aviva was a clumsy, unwieldy giant of a company born out of a series of mergers.

The old Commercial Union was squeezed with General Accident and then swallowed up Norwich Union in 2000.

Aviva struggled to build a strong identity of its own from the mishmash of brands, cultures and IT systems.

But why does Blanc think the guys who came before her couldn’t solve the case?

“Execution, execution, execution,” she says. “You have to get things done and it can’t be too complicated or people won’t understand and believe in it.”

Whether she will actually become the top man turning the Aviva tanker is too early to say, but her career so far has been impressive.

Amanda Blanc, 55

Family Favorite: Pop star Harry Styles

lives: Hampshire & London Family: husband, Ken, daughters Caitlin & Rhiannon

Drives: Tesla Model Y

Hobbies: Training on Peloton Bike & Zwift Indoor Racing. Love all things Welsh Rugby (except when we lose!) and play the piano to recover

Course: Treorchy Comprehensive, University of Liverpool (History), University of Leeds (MBA) and Chartered Insurer (ACII)

Career: 33 years in the financial services industry. Graduate trainee at Commercial Union, Ernst & Young, Groupama, Towergate. Group chief executive AXA UK & PPP and chief executive Zurich EMEA before rejoining Aviva as Group chief executive.

Dear dinner guest? Harry Styles (inset) – just for the look on my daughters faces…

Worst disaster leading to an insurance claim: Driving to college at 17, with the ink on my driver’s license not completely dry, I thought it would be a good idea to stop suddenly on a dual carriageway.

A car drove into the back of me and my pride and joy was a write-off – the worst part was that the other driver was an off-duty police officer. You can imagine the lecture!

At age 29, she was the youngest ever branch manager at Commercial Union. She moved on to senior positions at French giants AXA and Groupama, followed by a brief stint in Zurich.

Despite her achievements and status, she has been the target of sexist attacks at the annual meeting, including an investor who said she was not “the right man for the job.”

Blanc, in response to misogynists on social media, said the higher up the ladder she had climbed, “the more overt the unacceptable behavior.”

It’s a depressing thought. She doesn’t want to elaborate on that, but she does want to draw attention to the inequalities that ordinary women face, especially in the area of ​​pensions.

The auto-enrollment system, which requires employers to place eligible workers into a pension scheme, is a decade old and has helped millions of Britons save for old age.

But, says Blanc, the system leaves women at a disadvantage and should be revised, lowering the lower age limit from 22 to 18 and removing the lower income threshold.

“We want to open it up to people with lower salaries and to younger people,” she says.

Women are more likely than men to earn less than the auto-enrollment qualification level, she adds. It would also help if they could contribute at a younger age so they could set aside some retirement before taking time off to have kids.

One in four Britons retires with an Aviva pension. The crisis that erupted in pension funds after the disastrous mini-budget had no direct impact on the company, which is not exposed to the Liability Driven Investment strategies that were at the heart of the meltdown. But, as Blanc says, ‘It has damaged confidence in UK plc among outside investors.’

She’s big on ESG – which stands for environment, social and governance – but she started as an independent director at oil giant BP this summer and sees no contradiction. “Energy security is absolutely crucial and BP has a big role to play,” she says.

“What you don’t want is for such companies to be privately owned where there is no visibility and no control.”

We meet in her office in a tower block opposite the famous Lloyd’s of London building, in the heart of London’s insurance district. Aviva will continue next year, but only to nearby Fenchurch Street.

“We like being in the city and we need to be in the city,” she says. “If you think of all the businesses we run, the sandwich shops, the coffee shops, the chop bars…” The latter is perhaps a nod to her love of stilettos – her Twitter account is @Amandas_Shoes.

“We can’t keep beating Britain and London,” she says. ‘This is a beautiful country. Yes, we are going through a difficult time, but we have to have a little faith.’

Born in Treherbert, a former coal mining village, both of her grandfathers were miners. She was in her late teens during the bitter strike of 1984, which left deep scars on local communities.

She believes insurance companies could play a major role in bringing prosperity to disadvantaged areas. A key to this, she argues, are changes to the so-called ‘Solvency II’ regime.

It sounds nerdy, but it will free up billions of pounds of money in the coffers of companies like Aviva to invest in UK infrastructure.

Blanc says the changes could allow her to spend a further £25bn on projects such as social housing, science parks and hospitals.

“It will make a huge difference, for the country and for our customers,” she says.

She was recently the opening speaker at the Labor Party’s business conference at London’s Canary Wharf.

“It is very important that we understand what Labor’s plans and policies are,” says Blanc. “We’re not partisan — we need relationships with politicians across the board.”

She advocates cross-party cooperation on themes such as net zero, ageing, social care and economic growth.

“We have to get the best minds working together,” she says. “I know we have a hostile culture, but does it really have to be?

“If we worked together more, maybe we could work it out.”