I’ve approached several Executives from different areas of the claims market to share their thoughts and opinions on a number of topical issues impacting the sector and looking at the key challenges and opportunities for the future.
Today’s interview with Hannah Wilcox, CEO, Activate Group
You are one of the founders of Activate Group, tell me about your role in setting up the business.
I founded Activate Group in 2015, alongside my fellow founders Mark Wilcox and Mark Woods, with the vision of building a truly transparent and ethical accident management company.
At that time, I was the Finance Director, so I was heavily involved in setting up the business’ financial processes and structures. I recognised the importance of technology in our success and put forward the idea of building our own claims management system, something that has proved to be a key differentiator for Activate Group.
As the business grew, I developed my passion for operational processes, and got involved in the leadership of all aspects of the business before stepping into the role of CEO in 2018.
How would you describe Activate Group to someone who had never heard of the business before?
In a nutshell, Activate Group is an accident management company. We work on behalf of some of the UK’s biggest fleets and insurers, supporting drivers and repairing damaged vehicles after a road incident.
We recognise that being in a road incident is stressful. Our overarching purpose is to take that stress away by delivering the best possible outcome for every claim.
There are four key brands under the Activate Group banner: Motor Repair Network – our specialist insurance division, sopp+sopp – our fleet experts, Activate Accident Repair – our chain of bodyshops, and Activate Parts – our parts wholesaler.
Together these brands offer a flexible range of services that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of every customer.
What do you see as the biggest opportunities for Activate Group?
Our ability to offer modular services to meet the specific needs of each customer really sets us apart, and we continue to develop our technology with flexible apps and tools to support a digital claims journey
Plus, we bring together a unique combination of owned and outsourced repair capacity that offers control and scale to our customers. We’re expanding our chain of Activate Accident Repair centres to deliver high quality repair capacity in areas where demand is highest. Our own centres work hand in hand with a network of more than 240 independent repair partners that offer specialist expertise and coverage across the UK.
All this, coupled with our recent private equity investment from Elysian Capital, gives us a fantastic opportunity to grow market share in both the fleet and insurance sectors.
How is Activate Group managing claims inflation, and what strategies are in place to mitigate its impact on the business and customers?
Motor claims inflation has been a hot topic over recent years – supply chain disruptions, high competition for repairers, and rising energy costs, have pushed up vehicle repair costs.
We’re working with our customers to combat this with technology that drives even better right-first-time service deployment and maximising the use of alternative repair options like mobile repair.
Activate Parts, our in-house parts division, has played a key role in driving down repair times, and in demonstrating the advantages of green and non-OEM parts for some repairs.
We also have a team of more than 60 fully-qualified motor engineers who review every repair estimate for safety, cost effectiveness, and to ensure it is in line with customer requirements.
With increasing focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, how is your company integrating green parts and sustainable practices into its supply chain and operations?
We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously. We measure all our emissions and offset them – we were one of the first repair groups to gain the PAS2060 carbon standard.
All our repair centres are fitted with the most energy efficient equipment, and work to a set of green repair principles to reduce emissions and waste.
Green parts are a real win-win for insurers and fleets. They are second-hand OEM components reclaimed from vehicles at the end of their useful lives. They meet strict safety and quality standards. With the help of our specialist parts division, we’ve worked with our customers to include green parts in their parts policies to achieve reduced costs, a lower repair carbon footprint, and faster repair turnarounds.
With the rise of electric vehicles (EVs), what challenges do you foresee in terms of repair costs and servicing, and how are you preparing to address these challenges?
As our customers develop their EV strategies, one of the biggest challenges is a lack of relevant data to support decision making – we’ve partnered with Gecko Risk, the EV data specialist so that we can offer deeper insight into EV repair considerations.
We’ve also invested in our infrastructure and processes to support EVs effectively. We identify EVs at the start of a claim and address any battery-related risks through specific safety questions. Our own bodyshops have full EV repair capability, and we partner with suppliers that have put in place the training and equipment to handle EV repairs safely. This ensures we provide safe, efficient, and cost-effective services for our EV customers.
A key part of your strategy is to build your own repair capacity. How are you tackling the shortage of qualified technicians in the motor claims industry?
I’m passionate about encouraging new talent into our industry, and we run an award-winning apprenticeship programme across all our centres. We recognise how important our trainees are, and we offer a great rate of pay, off-site training at Thatcham Research and a lot of support from our team throughout the apprenticeship.
For qualified technicians, there’s a sign on bonus, a generous refer a friend scheme, and we work hard to make sure our bodyshops are great places to work. In areas where it’s extremely difficult to recruit, we’ve also looked at bringing in overseas talent to ensure we have the capacity on our sites to deliver for our customers.
How does Activate invest in its people and talent to ensure a skilled and motivated workforce capable of meeting the demands of the evolving motor claims market?
We want Activate Group to be the best place to work in our industry! We’re proud to be a Real Living Wage employer, and we offer competitive salary and benefits packages across the board.
We place a lot of emphasis on learning and development, from Learn & Lead, our people manager development programme, to our four-week onboarding programme to support the customer service team. We want to make sure everyone can develop new skills and knowledge as part of their career at Activate Group.
Recently, we’ve launched a group induction day for all team members, led by business leaders, and focussing on our shared business goals and values.
Team member engagement and development is a priority for us – and we’ll continue to listen to feedback from our team so we can keep getting better.
Right International are market leading recruiters to the claims management, supply chain and wider Insurance market.
If you are looking to add to your team now or in the near future or are considering your next career move, please contact myself or one of the team.
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All the best,
Gary Pike
Founder & MD Right International
