Latest articles about Martinez & Partners and insurance industry news.
Rope Sure Are Ready – Are you?
13/04/2011
At the end of 2009, Martinez & Partners launched Rope Sure Insurance – a trading company specialising in the Rope Access Industry. Through straightforward online quotation systems and various marketing strategies, Rope Sure has grown from strength to strength.
As well as being able to offer liability insurance for Technicians and Trainers, Rope Sure is now able to offer a comprehensive Personal Accident Cover. This can be purchased alongside any of the other Rope Sure products or in isolation and due to the policy being rate on a per capita basis, it is extremely affordable.
Considering that a good proportion of the workers are self employed and the nature of the industry as a result of the hazardous locations, this is exceptionally beneficial cover for Rope Access technicians.
For more information regarding these products – please the website www.rope-sure.co.uk
Strategies, Sales and Support
11/04/2011
Last week we enjoyed our first quarterly meeting for 2011. Since the last meeting, Martinez & Partners has continued to expand and we welcomed a new colleague to the New Business team along with two Lead Generation Executives.
The Account Managers in the Existing Business team achieved excellent results in the first quarter and all maintained a high renewal retention rate despite losing some clients as a result of the poor ongoing economic climate.
Martinez Voted in the Top 100!
21/02/2011
Martinez & Partners secured a place in the sixth edition of the Top 100 Brokers which is published annually by the Insurance Age magazine.
Through strategic planning and the implementation of carefully designed processes, Martinez and Partners has created an environment where tailored polices and a bespoke service are delivered to each and every client.
Martinez & Partners would like to thank it’s staff and customers for their support and looks forward to many more years of exciting and innovative business.
Rope Sure Rises
12/10/2010
In October 2009, Martinez & Partners launched Rope Sure. The scheme provides specialist liability insurance cover to IRATA Technicians and IRATA Member Companies.
Rope Sure has been tremendously successful and as a result of huge demand, we are now able to offer Personal Accident insurance cover to our suite of products available to IRATA members. This policy provides 24 hour cover and should a technician be seriously injured, the policy will respond providing a weekly payment whilst they are unable to work and in the event of permanent disability or death, it will also provide a lump sum payment.
Should you require further information about Rope Sure and the products it can offer, please contact us on 08448 047 064 or find us at www.rope-sure.co.uk.
Martinez Multiples
23/04/2010
Last week we welcomed Stephen Crilley to the Martinez Team. Stephen has 10 years Commercial Insurance experience and has worked in a number of roles including Commercial Underwriting and Broking at Lloyds of London.
Stephen has joined us as an Account Manager where he will service a diverse book of commercial business.
We welcome Stephen and look forward to working with him.
New Senior Insurance Administrator
14/01/2010
Martinez & Partners would like to announce the appointment of a new senior insurance administrator.
He has been appointed as the Senior Insurance Administrator where he will be providing administerial support to the Account Managers in our Head Office in Basingstoke, Hampshire.
He has over 10 years experience in the insurance industry where he served as an underwriter of both personal lines and commercial risks.
We are certain that he will be an excellent addition to our team and help provide an increased level of efficiency and service to all of our clients.
Alchemy World Charity Shoot
04/01/2010
Martinez & Partners in conjunction with Alchemy World Projects (www.alchemyworld.org) and the Royal Berkshire Shooting School have together arranged a charity Clay Shoot.
Whether you have shot before or not, you are guaranteed to have an exceptional day at the prestigious Shooting School in Pangbourne near Reading.
The event is to be held on Tuesday 25th May 2010 and will commence will breakfast on arrival at 9:30am. This will be followed by clay shooting with a qualified instructor on various clay stands , a three course lunch and end with a group competition.
Should you wish to sponsor a team of four, attend as an individual participant or have a stand with your companies’ marketing material on it, the all inclusive prices are as follows:
Individuals - £500
Teams of four - £2000
Non-shooting guests - £75
Company stand - £1000
We will also be having an auction for Alchemy World Projects, with prizes such as a week at a ski apartment in the Gstaad area and a 7 day trip on a 50ft yacht in the Mediterranean complete with a qualified skipper; you or your company could sponsor a similar prize. All proceeds, donations and profit will go to Alchemy World, without deductions of any type.
If you are not able to attend this event but would like to make a contribution to the vital work Alchemy World are doing in Ethiopia, please do so by making out a Cheque payable to Martinez & Partners Ltd.
Should you be interested in participating in any of the above, please contact either Paul Martinez on pmartinez@martinez-partners.com or Rachel Evans on revans@martinez-partners.com
The Self Drive Hire Insurance team expands
28/10/2009
Martinez & Partners is delighted to announce the appointment of a New Business Executive.
He has been involved in arranging Self Drive Hire insurance for nearly 30 years and is one of the most recognized and respected figures in the market place. He has an extremely wide knowledge of the industry and keeps up to date with the important issues that effect operators on a day to day basis always striving to address any insurance related matters with a practical solution.
We are extremely excited to have him join our team. We are confident that the well established claims management systems and high levels of customer service that we already have in place will prove attractive to those clients not yet insured with us, hopefully allowing him to help us continue our exponential growth within the Self Drive Hire sector.
Senior Account Manager Joins the Rat Race
26/10/2009
Christine Cotterell, a Senior Account Manager with Martinez & Partners, has been accepted as participant in the 2010 London Marathon.
Christine has tried unsuccessfully for nearly 15 years to gain a ballot place for the London Marathon and is ecstatic to have obtained a Golden Bond place in the 2010 Marathon – pledging to raise at least £2000 for the British Heart Foundation.
As exciting as this challenge may seem, Christine is somewhat nervous and has already started her preparation by participating in the Hyde Park Women’s 5km event.
We at Martinez & Partners believe she has all the focus and determination required to achieve this and we will be supporting her during the run up to the event.
For more information about Christine’s challenge or to sponsor her follow her at http://original.justgiving.com/christinecotterell
Martinez & Partners - We Set the Pace
29/09/2009
Last week we exhibited at the Leisure Industry Week in Birmingham. This annual event attracts visitors from the entire out-of-home leisure industry.
Our stand consisted of an 8 lane giant Scalextrics system which fulfilled its’ task in drawing many visitors to our stand. We had a running leader board throughout the three days and Lorega Underwriters kindly sponsored a Commercial Loss Recovery Policy as well as a case of fine wine for the top two fastest laps.
We were delighted by the outcome of this exhibition and the number of people interested in our ability to tailor policies to their individual needs. We look forward to expanding our leisure division to incorporate a number of new areas over the coming months.
More Targets Broken!
04/08/2009
Last Thursday saw the second quarterly meeting of 2009. Whilst some Clients had been lost due to the recession and them failing to trade forward, the vast majority had chosen to renew. The amount of new business generated was once again significant beating the target for the second quarter running with the majority of new contracts coming from the vehicle rental sector.
We also welcomed a new Account Manager to M&P. He is originally from South Africa and has many years of experience in the insurance industry. He is also a former president of his local insurance institute in South Africa and we believe he will prove to be an excellent addition to the team.
Young Broker of the Year Finalist 2009
21/07/2009
Jonathan Evans, Managing Director of Martinez & Partners, has been selected as a finalist for the Young Broker of the Year Award 2009. Jonathan, age 28 is an extremely successful entrepreneur who has excelled in many different areas of business throughout his career. Following his acquisition of Martinez & Partners in 2005, the business has grown dramatically and will no doubt continue to do so over the years to come.
We would like to congratulate Jonathan on being short listed and we wish him the best of luck with the final results.
Claims Service of the Year Finalists 2009
17/07/2009
We are pleased to pronounce that Martinez & Partners has been shortlisted for the UK Broker Claims Service of the Year award.
Over the years, we at Martinez & Partners have constantly strived to make the handling of claims easier for our clients. When we began working within the Self Drive Hire arena some years ago, it was clear that the lack of claims management went a long way to increasing clients’ premiums and creating bad feelings between the client and their Broker or Insurer. The realisation that offering a solution that dealt with these unusual claims issues would put us significantly in front of our competition, meant that we made it our priority to solve.
We believe that we offer a first class claims product, bespoke for a specialist industry. Over time, we are confident that we will save the Insurers who choose to support us, at least 25% on the overall cost of a claim that is handled through our fleet management team. In the meantime our measure of success has to be our customer feedback and this doesn’t come any better than in the form of a 100% renewal rate.
Young Guns Awards Finalist
14/07/2009
We are delighted to announce that our Managing Director, Jonathan Evans, has been selected for the final round of the Young Guns Awards 2009.
Young Guns is an award administered by the Growing Business Magazine and is celebrating its sixth successful year in 2009. It searches the UK for Entrepreneurs under 35 with businesses that have experienced considerable success and are able to demonstrate a unique or outstanding proposition.
As well as being featured in the Growing Business magazine and website, Jonathan has also been invited to attend an awards luncheon at the exclusive Kensington Roof Gardens.
Jonathan was chosen for the 2006 Young Guns shortlist and it is a great honour to have been acknowledged again. We wish him the best of luck with this years award.
Ain't No Mountain High Enough!
02/04/2009
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough!
Tanya Wells, an Account Executive at Martinez & Partners, has set herself a goal to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in September this year to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis sufferers. Tanya says “One of my friends’ children has recently been diagnosed with this terrible disease and I just felt that I had to do something to try and help out”.
Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a genetic condition which causes progressive disability due to multi-system failure. It affects organs in the body, particularly the lungs and digestive system, which become clogged with sticky mucus, making it difficult to breathe and digest food. They also become vulnerable to diabetes, severe chest infections, liver failure and infertility.
People with Cystic Fibrosis have a shorter life expectancy, with the average being around 31 years, but increased research methods have enabled individuals to increase their lifespan to 40 or 50 yrs old. In the UK there are 40 babies born with cystic fibrosis in every 100,000 births. When both parents are carriers, with each pregnancy there is a 1 in 4 chance of having a child with cystic fibrosis.
Tanya hopes to raise £5 000 in order to help the national Cystic Fibrosis Trust. In addition she is funding £1 000 personally to pay for her own travel expenses ensuring that every penny donated goes to charity. Tanya has a fundraising day scheduled for the 25th of May part of which will include giving away numerous prizes including a round of golf for 4, a day trip to the races and a Southampton Football Club Flag signed by all the players.
As spectacular as the views and experience will be, Tanya is definitely going to struggle. She will be sleeping on the hard ground for 5 nights and will not have access to toilets for most of the adventure. Vomiting and acute nausea are inevitable and she will certainly not have a medical crew following her, unlike the celebrities who have recently completed the same route! Tanya is aware of these challenges but says “I am taking each day as it comes and remaining positive, as I know I can’t train against the side effects.”
Mount Kilimanjaro is nicknamed the Roof of Africa and is proud to be the highest mountain on the Continent. The mountain is located in North Eastern Tanzania, near the border of Kenya and was first climbed in 1889.
Mount Kilimanjaro is actually a dormant volcano. The highest peak, Kibo, rises to 5895 m (19,340 ft) above sea level, and the summit of Mawensi is 5149 m (16,892 ft) above sea level.
Although Kilimanjaro is only 3 degrees south of the equator, an ice cap covers the crater of Kibo year-round.
Jon Garside, training officer of the British Mountaineering Council, believes “It is nothing that a reasonably fit person shouldn't be able to do. The path is a pretty gentle gradient, but you get very high, very quickly, which affects the body. You have got to walk so incredibly slowly, so as to minimise altitude sickness. Imagine an arthritic 90-year-old walking backwards - that's probably too fast!”
Tanya has already started her preparation for her climb. She is aiming to walk 12 hours each week and has joined a local gym. She has begun climbing and travelled to Wales on the 23rd of March to climb Mount Snowden, which is 3560 ft (1085m) high, equating to about 1/5th of the height on the climb that she will eventually attempt.
Martinez and Partners wish Tanya all the best on her mission. Summiting will be a fabulous achievement and much appreciated by the Cystic Fibrosis fund. All money will be used for research into treating and curing CF. It will also help provide support, advice and appropriate clinical care to the babies, children and young adults with Cystic Fibrosis in the UK.
If you wish to sponsor Tanya, you can do so at www.justgiving.com/tanyawells33
Shoot'em up!
10/10/2008
The entire team converged on the Royal Berkshire Shooting School in Pangbourne for an afternoon of clay pigeon shooting.
The most experienced shot of the group and one of the main board Directors, Paul Martinez, couldn't hit a barn door!
Luke Davies showed that he really did grow up on the wrong side of the tracks with a near perfect score the first time of picking up a gun. We decided that a sawn-off shotgun doesnt count!
The day came to a close with a team shoot off. Jonathan Evans team were clearly the most stylish guns however some extremely lucky shooting from Paul Martinez team saw them take the glory by one clay.
Thanks go to everyone who participated as well as Dylan and all the team at RBSS for a wonderful afternoon.
Fantastic new offices
05/05/2008
As part of the continued expansion of the business, Mark Olrog and his Account Management team have relocated to new offices in Basingstoke.
Jonathan Evans, Managing Director, said "we are delighted that not only do our customers continue to come back to us every year but they also choose to refer their friends and connections to us as well. This has allowed us to continue to grow and acquire these wonderful new premises."
Insurance House is located within a new build office park on the outskirts of Basingstoke in Hampshire 40 miles from the centre of London.
Perfect renewal retention
25/04/2008
The first quarters team meeting was held last night at Warrenhouse Conference Centre. Mark Olrog showed that he and his Account Management teams had managed to secure a near perfect renewal rate and significantly increase the number of new customers won during the first quarter.
Mark said "Putting the customer at the centre of our business by working to the unique Client Charter means that they receive an unprecedented level of service coupled with extremely competitive pricing."
As a result of this amazing achievement Mark was awarded with the Employee of The Quarter trophy.
Mark Olrog joins as Head of Client Services
06/01/2008
Mark joins the Company as the Head of Client Services with over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry.
Based out of the Hampshire Office, Mark will assume overall responsibility for maintaining the high standard of servicing to the Company's existing customers.
Jonathan Evans, Managing Director of Martinez & Partners said "We are extremely pleased that Mark has joined us. He has recently completed the sale of his own brokerage and it is a great reflection on Martinez & Partners and our vision for the future, that such an experienced individual should wish to go straight back to work!"
Luke Davies joins to bolster the UK development team
15/10/2007
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Luke Davies as New Business Executive. Working out of the Kensington office, Luke will be working to grow the succesful construction and leisure accounts.
Oliver Whittingham, Head of New Business said, "After working with Luke on a wholesale basis, we are delighted to now have him as part of the team".
We wish Luke all the best of luck in his new role.
Aussie takes top job in London
06/08/2007
Oliver Whittingham has been appointed as the Head of New Business for Martinez & Partners.
Working out of the Kensington office, Ollie will be responsible for the growth of the UK operation including strategy for new sectors and the recruitment of new advisors to support the continued success of the business.
Martinez & Partners Managing Director, Jonathan Evans, said "We are delighted to be able to announce Ollie's appointment. He has helped move the Company forward in a number of niche areas over the years and his technical knowledge coupled with his excellent people skills make him the perfect person to fill the role."
Ray keeps trophy in the department
03/08/2007
Ray King was awarded the Employee of Quarter trophy at the quarterly awards ceremony which took place in the beautiful surroundings of Loseley Park on 2nd August 2007. Financial Controller, Carolyn Sawyer, said "Ray has made excellent progress since joining Martinez & Partners last December and this is reflected in his winning of this award".
Spring Banquet proves a success
17/05/2007
Martinez & Partners hosted its annual spring banquet at the acclaimed Warren House venue near Kingston in Surrey. The champagne reception and dinner was attended by 60 guests including insurers, clients and staff and a wonderful evening was had by all. The evening climaxed in a hilarious performance by the renowned Australian comedian, Ray Crawford, who entertained the audience with his antipodean wit.
Carolyn Hudson wins Employee of the Quarter
16/04/2007
Carolyn Hudson, Financial Controller, was awarded the Employee of the Quarter award during the firms’ team building day held at the Warren House conference centre recently. After many years of dedicated service, Carolyn continues to develop the internal financial reporting and control systems consistently finding new ways to keep up with the rapid growth of the business.
Corporate Solutions sees rapid expansion
02/04/2007
Martinez & Partners is pleased to announce the appointment of Claire Ferguson to the position of New Business Executive. A graduate from the University of Newcastle, Claire will be working within the Corporate Solutions division based in the London Office. She will be helping to build the already extremely successful facilities that the Company operates in the construction, leisure and vehicle rental fields.
New website
12/03/2007
Commitment to technology continues with the recent launch of a new website. The site allows customers to learn about the different insurance products available, details a number of the schemes that the Company operates and allows users to apply for quotations online. Further development of the website to provide a customer extranet is planned for the near future.
Expansion in London
01/03/2007
The Company is delighted to announce the appointment of Silvia Dos Santos to the position of New Business Executive within its Corporate Solutions division. Originally from Brazil, Silvia has recently completed her MA in International Business. Building on her sales experience in South America, she will concentrate on developing clients within the construction and leisure arena.
Prestigious new offices in Kensington
09/01/2007
Martinez & Partners has recently relocated its London sales office from Belgravia to Kensington. Managing Director Jonathan Evans commented ‘The move will allow us to continue with our plans for steady organic growth for the rest of this year and into 2006. It will ensure that we have sufficient sales capacity to distribute our tailored products out to our niche markets as quickly and efficiently as possible ensuring that even more clients may benefit from our high levels of service and competitive pricing’
A Growing Team
09/01/2007
Martinez & Partners is pleased to announce the recruitment of Mike Hilder and Subha Ganesh to the New Business team based in the London office. Mike is an ex-insurance company underwriter and will be responsible for new business development concentrating on high risk liability business in the UK. Subha is an experienced marketing professional with an MBA in Finance and Marketing and will be responsible for the lead generation strategy as well as aiming to improve M&P’s presence on the internet.
Directors and Officers liability
09/01/2007
In partnership with AIG, the worlds largest Insurer, Martinez & Partners has developed a simple but broad insurance policy that provides the senior Directors and Officers of a business with protection should they be held liable in a personal capacity for their alleged breach of duty within the company. Jonathan Evans, Martinez & Partners Managing Director said “D&O cover has traditionally been something that has only ever been bought by the larger corporates however the potential personal liabilities can people running businesses of all sizes. This new product with hopefully assist us to educate UK businesses to the importance of holding this D&O cover and allow them to purchase it simply and extremely economically.”
Competitive facility for Scaffolding and Roofing Contractors
09/01/2007
In the wake of the amazing success of the Martinez & Partners late night leisure scheme, M&P have continued their development of liability led insurance with the latest initiative for scaffolding and roofing contractors. Policyholders will benefit from:
- No automatic height limit
- No automatic hot work exclusion
- Reduction in excess levels in the event of a claim subject to full cooperation
- Low minimum premiums of £5,000
