Since it was established in 2006 Chauffeur Plan Insurance has grown to handle over £4 million GWP. Director Tony Gutteridge couldn’t be happier with his decision to leave the relative safety of his position on the board of a leading taxi insurer to join the broking industry.
With over 20 years underwriting experience in this specialist sector Tony Gutteridge brought a detailed business plan to the Directors of The Plan Group Ltd. They were confident that with Tony’s underwriting knowledge, their marketing expertise and a supportive supplier onboard the Plan Insurance brand could be extended successfully in a similar manner to their buoyant Trade Plan Insurance and Commercial Plan Insurance divisions.
The original business plan for Chauffeur Plan Insurance targeted a steady rise in GWP year on year with the intention of reaching £1.8 million by 2011. However growth has exceeded these ambitious expectations by 44%. Somehow in a difficult financial climate Chauffeur Plan has quietly gone about its business and managed to establish itself as a leading player. Chauffeur Plan Insurance is thriving while a number of our competitors have left the niche market over the last few years unable to write profitable business.
Tony attempts to explain Chauffeur Plan’s success, ‘In simple terms, it’s been a case of stick to what you know works best for our customers. Couple that with excellent customer service and you have a winning formula. We’ve been at pains to provide our supplier Tradewise Insurance an underwriting profit. Many times when suppliers have pulled out the taxi market we could have strayed from our underwriting philosophy. We could literally have opened the flood gates by accepting risks outside of our criteria and made short terms gains in GWP. But as the saying goes, ‘Any idiot can run a business at a loss.’ So we stuck to our philosophy. As a result Tradewise maintained our scheme exclusivity and it’s worked to our mutual benefit. Long may it continue.”
With Chauffeur Plan Insurance targeting GWP of over £7 million in the next 12 months and The Plan Group Ltd as a whole £20 million Tony might be able to go about his business so quietly in the future.
 
*NB – Since this post date we have undergone a re-brand. The various sub-brand departments that were within Plan Insurance such as Taxi Plan, Commercial Plan, Trade plan etc. were brought together under the one name of Plan Insurance Brokers in July 2015. Read more about our re-brand here.