'Quality over quantity' says FM Global’s new northern and central EU operations vice-president

Providing efficient business resilience strategies creates strong and sustainable partnerships between customers and risk managers according to FM Global’s new vice-president, northern and central European operations Peter Solloway.

Solloway said that withstanding a crisis speaks volumes about a company’s risk management strategy which is critical to business resilience.

He said: “If you look around the world at the companies that have thought about resilience at board level, and considered where they are locating themselves and the specific risks they may face in those countries, you will see a number that have come through nat cats better than their competitors.

“This is often because of the systems they have put in place and the choices they have made about where they have located themselves. For instance, where businesses have taken the strategic decision to locate well away from flood zones rather than within them, this can go so far as to make a significant difference in terms of their market share following those incidents.”

FM Global plan to create and consolidate new partnerships by putting forward three key sales arguments to prospective companies involving quality resilience strategies, a strong focus on risk identification and by exemplifying their ability to withstand a global crisis.

He said: “Firstly, if you are resilient as a company you are in control of your destiny and can enhance investor confidence. We have many engineers around the globe that help companies look at their own exposures, their suppliers’ exposures, their natural catastrophe exposures, because it is absolutely critical for companies to feel they have put in place measures to stay resilient and weather the storms.

“In order to do that, you need a company that has a very strong focus on risk improvement and risk identification. I am proud to say that FM Global is extremely well placed with more than 1,800 engineers around the globe, which is more than our competitors’ combined forces.”

He added: “We are a secure and sustainable partner for the long term. We have an excellent model to propose in terms of our mutual status, our excellent financial ratings, the fact that, for example, we withstood the financial crisis and the severe natural catastrophes of 2011 without any negative impact on our ratings at all.”

Solloway, who joined the company in 1985 as a loss adjuster in France, said as a mutual company FM Global is in no rush to improve growth and is seeking steady long-term partnerships.

“When it comes to growth, FM Global is not a volume business. Instead, we appeal to companies with a strong interest in risk management. As a mutual company, specialising in risk management, we are not in a dash for growth. We are seeking out steady long-term partnerships and feeling pretty bullish and confident about the relevance of our messages in the marketplace.”