Independent Broker Recruits 22 Staff To Cater For Growth

Hughes Insurance, the largest locally owned insurance broker in Northern Ireland, has created 22 jobs to support customer service levels. The jobs have been created at the company’s Newtownards headquarters and underpin the investment the broker is making to cater for its growing share of the insurance market. The local company now employs over 200 staff throughout Northern Ireland.

This year alone Hughes Insurance has created 62 jobs, as the company recruited 40 staff in March across its network of 12 regional branches. Further expansion in 2010 is also inevitable as the leading broker continues to support the ever changing insurance market in Northern Ireland. “Customer behaviour is changing – so we need a flexible business model to serve the market,” states Gareth: “Increasingly our customers access our service online and out of office hours. As a result we have invested in our customer access points to cater for market demands. 16 of the 22 recent employees have been brought in to expand our opening hours whilst the other 6 employees have been recruited to enhance our online service and support commercial sector growth.”

The recruitment reflects the local broker’s increased market share and its ongoing commitment to delivering a local service, as a local operator which employs local people. The growth is a result of the strength of its ongoing relationships with insurance providers and, increasingly, the burgeoning relationships with affinity partners who deliver access to an increased customer base through a mutually beneficial relationship.

Gareth continues: “We deliver the best available cover at the most competitive price. This is still the key to our success. By concentrating on this we can increase volume through our panel of insurance providers and therefore support our customers with competitive pricing. Affinity partners operate on a similar principle – we support their customers’ insurance needs and the volume of business manifests itself in benefits for all parties. Our recruitment programme has been dictated by forecasting customer demands – our customers want to deal with us how and when it suits them, on the high street, online or on the phone. Hughes Insurance has a reputation for pioneering in the local market - we were the first independent broker in Northern Ireland to establish a purpose built call centre – we are now the first fully interactive independent brokerage in this market, employing local staff to cater for local customers.”

Hughes Insurance was founded in 1977 and is Northern Ireland’s largest independent Insurance brokerage. The Hughes Insurance headquarters are based in Newtownards and the company has 11 regional branches in Ballymena, Ballynahinch, Glengormley, Derry, Lisburn, Magherafelt and Portadown, Coleraine, Omagh, West Belfast and Newry.