Q&A: Allianz targets consumer market for growth

Allianz’s recent rebrand of LV= Broker and Flow marks a significant turning point for the insurer. Financial Promoter chats with Carolyn Rich, head of brand at Allianz Holdings, and Serge Raffard, managing director at Allianz Personal about what’s coming next.

Financial Promoter: What is the strategic driver behind uniting the various brands and what message are you pushing to your customers?

Serge Raffard: Allianz is the number one global insurance brand, and our goal is to be the number one insurer in the UK. We are head-to-head with our largest competitor in the UK in terms of size, but we want more people to recognise that.

We enjoy very high awareness amongst our target market of insurance brokers, but we are less well known amongst consumers. We want to do develop much more market and customer recognition about how we’re a one stop shop for all their insurance and asset management needs.

Our strategic driver is to create profitable growth in our target customer segments by shaping the market we operate in, caring for our customers, and delivering quality to them.

FP: Allianz is very established in commercial insurance. How will you do more to reach consumers?

Carolyn Rich: We’re leveraging a broad media mix of traditional, digital, social, work with influencers, and sponsorships. We are also lucky enough to have a range of partnerships with the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, England Rugby, Formula E, St Andrews Links, and our global family of stadium sponsorships. These create all sorts of brand opportunities that really help us raise visibility.

FP: What are the next steps in developing your presence in the UK market? 

CR: We are expanding the number of products available to consumers under the Allianz brand, which has been mainly a commercial insurance brand previously in the UK. With our motor insurance and personal lines broker businesses now under the Allianz brand, our next step later in May is to rebrand our consumer home insurance offering. In sponsorship terms, it’s a particularly exciting year for us with Paris 2024, and this gives us a unique way of reaching new audiences.

FP: Carolyn, tell us a bit about your new role.

CR: We operate with a range of brands in the UK including Allianz, Petplan, and LV= General Insurance, and so we wanted to create a more senior role focusing on how to leverage our brand portfolio fully.

My new role will look after all our brands. The ultimate goal is to keep strengthening our brands so we continue to have a range of market leading names which both businesses and consumers know they can trust and love.