Bus stop name says 'acceptance' to major insurer

Until a few years ago it was known as the "Terry's Carpets stop". The change is a significant one for Martin Littleton, managing director of BiB. "It's only taken 20 years, but you know you've been accepted when they name a bus stop after you," he laughs.

BiB is well-known in Darlington, largely thanks to its Northgate shop, but many in the town do not know that it is the public face of one of the biggest independent insurance brokers and underwriters in the North-East, employing more than 80 people.

It has 20,000 customers and, this year, has dealt with £22m- worth of business. Last week, BiB unveiled its five-year plan to double its business.

BiB itself goes back to 1981 when three men - Mr Littleton, David Carter and Peter Atkinson - who were all working in insurance came together at the North of England office of Chandler Hargreaves Whithall and Co, which Mr Carter had been asked to set up.

That company quickly grew out of its first office, on an estate farm near Masham, and moved to Bedale.

"Everything was going well until they decided that everybody should have a contract of employment, which bound us to the company. I refused to sign it, and so did Peter and David," Mr Littleton explained.

The trio decided to form their own company and Bedale Insurance Brokers, or BiB, was born.

"We worked very hard to get the business started. A lot of the clients we had were personal to us and through connections we'd developed, so inevitably most came with us. We had 400 within the first year. It was a very hectic time, exhausting but at the same time exciting and rewarding," says Mr Littleton.

Their clients included the full range of rural businesses: farms, pubs, hotels, builders, garages and shops.

"We were successful because we gave a personalised service. We had a very good knowledge of farming and could relate to people running rural businesses," he said. "We understood the risks and talked their language. If a client finished the harvest at 10pm and wanted to see us, that's when we went. I even got calls on Christmas Day. We were very energetic and enthusiastic."

They also created another business, Agricultural Insurance Underwriting Agencies, to provide specialist agricultural policies to other brokers, a practice known as wholesaling. The same formula was applied in Cumbria, where they had good contacts in the cattle marts, to create Kendal Insurance Brokers, and with a grain drying firm in Norfolk to form East of England Insurance Brokers.

When it came to securing new business on home turf, it helped that Mr Littleton's father was Canon Arthur Littleton, rector of Croft-on-Tees for 19 years.

"When they realised I was the rector's son they'd always invite me in," he laughs. "It was all about knowing your patch and knowing the people, and we did it well."

So well, that in 1988 they left Bedale for a bigger market and a bigger office for their ten staff, creating BiB (Darlington) Ltd.

"We realised there wasn't the amount of business to sustain the way we wanted to grow. We had to move to raise the profile of the business," Mr Littleton explains.

To raise the capital to expand, the trio sold their shareholdings in the three additional companies but also developed the second generation of BiB underwriting agency, known as BiB Underwriters. That has been based in Valley Street, Darlington, since 1997 and places agricultural business for more than 700 brokers across the UK.

There have been acquisitions along the way - Richmond Insurance Brokers in 1996; the general business of Ashley Normington in 1997; Sid Turnbull Insurance in 1999; DMC in 2002 and Easipay taxi insurance last year. All have contributed staff and clients to the services offered at BiB (Darlington).

The Northgate office is a high street insurance shop where customers can walk in and arrange motor, travel and home and contents cover. The commercial department, also housed there, covers shops, pubs and the self-employed, while the corporate team looks after large farms, manufacturers, property owners, construction companies, accountants, solicitors, even caravan parks, in an area from South Yorkshire to Scotland.

The vast majority of clients, however, fall within a 30-mile radius of Darlington and there are still many clients in the Dales.

"We are local and home grown, and I love looking round the area and seeing lots of clients, but we're far from parochial and we give high level insurance advice that will compete with any national company," says Mr Littleton.

He concedes that the industry does not have the best of reputations but, by remaining fiercely independent, he says BiB is in the best position to grow and to take advantage of new business opportunities.

It recently formed a partnership with national convenience stores chain Mills to offer easy-to-arrange insurance for customers, but there will be no automated telephone answering messages when customers call - Mr Littleton has banned them.

He is also a vocal critic of British companies who open overseas call centres. "We believe that, no matter how good these call centres try to be, there is no substitute for speaking to someone with local knowledge, either face to face or on the telephone, who is fully competent and understands your needs," he says.

Although ambitious for growth, the firm retains a family atmosphere. BiB recently won two national awards: the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development award for best practice in HR and the Insurance Times Award for training programme of the year.

The company has developed a system to identify the next generation of managers and directors from within. "Having said that, we are all still learning and constantly training ourselves to be better, including David, Peter and me," says Mr Littleton.