A guest blog from our associates at The Ethical Corporation.

The insurance sector hasn’t yet been hit by the fines, public outrage or customer detriment to the extent the banks have. But, is the sector safe from regulatory scrutiny, bad conduct or customer issues? No.

Firms are beefing up their compliance teams, focusing on culture change programmes and refreshing codes of conduct.

Embedding a good culture in the insurance space is critical to sustain a long term position in the market.

But is it just about having that senior leadership buy-in or is there more to it? Ethical Corporation have worked on the perennial question of 'good culture' within financial services for a year now - speaking to Sir Anthony Salz, Douglas Flint, Benny Higgins - the leaders in today's world to change perceptions of the financial services industry - to base models on not only profits, but the customer. Having the CEO on board is key, but there’s more to it than that. Your business, your customers, your employees need to believe good culture is important for the way you want to run your business.

With this notion of the customer is king, who's actually got this right? When your business operates in nearly 60 countries and you service over 100 million customers, consistently delivering the best customer outcomes and monitoring good culture is a tremendous challenge. Take AXA for example. AXA, along with Standard Life, Legal & General and more, are taking on this debate of what good culture means for the insurance industry to be a more responsible business.   

Getting to grips now with where the industry will be in 5 years time on good conduct and where the current challenges on behavioural change lie has never been more important. Ethical Corporation believe the only way insurance firms can move forward to overcome this culture issue is to collaborate as an industry, find nuggets of success from each other so together, as an industry, customers can receive better outcomes.

The question shouldn't be on who's already cultivated the perfect culture as for each firm it’s different, but which firms are actively making the right strides to putting customers at the heart of their business.

It's a long road to changing perceptions, but the right attitude and commitment to the journey is the first step. 

To see what insurance leaders are doing on the road to better culture, take a look at their brochure here: http://bit.ly/1NeJCmg

Krina Amin Ethical Corporation 

To attend an event on culture in insurance, please click here http://bit.ly/1IvrYHG

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