As Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII) chairman Mike Izzard steps down, Stephanie Spicer takes a tour around Andrew Tripp, the association's next leader in waiting
Tripp is chief executive of health insurance brokers Perfect Health but started his working life as a stock exchange dealer having joined Akroyd & Smithers, in 1983. He was made a full dealer in 1986, prior to the ‘big bang' in 1987 and joined W Greenwell (HSBC bank) as dealer of textile stocks.
Tripp later joined Hoare Govett, but resigned in 1989. "I missed the atmosphere of the stock exchange floor, and did not want to spend the rest of my life stuck in a dealing room tied to a desk," he says.
The change to a career in private medical insurance (PMI) came after Tripp saw an advert from Norwich Union which had just entered the market. "NU was looking for self employed commission-only salesmen to sell their PMI products," he says, "As my family, has always been involved with nursing homes, and also always had PMI it struck a chord with me and I thought that this was something that I could do."
Persistency Pays Off
Tripp sent off his CV. Only to be turned down, as he had no sales experience. "I decided not to take no for an answer," Tripp laughs. "I continued to phone NU telling them that they must have had so many responses to their advert there had obviously been a mistake and that I had been put inadvertently in the ‘no' pile for the job. After three days of persistent calling I was finally put through to the decision maker and granted an interview, and then the job."
After six weeks he was promoted to regional sales manager for London and the Home counties.
Tripp's involvement in AMII came after he had joined Perfect Health in 2006. "I felt the industry needed to have a forum for discussion about general interests and concerns and felt that I had something to contribute to the debate." Since that time Tripp has spent the last three years on the AMII executive committee, the last two as Treasurer.
"In that time I feel that the Association has matured and developed, in partnership with our insurer providers, considerably under the leadership of Mike Izzard," Tripp says. "In standing for election in the role of Chairman I am very conscious that, if successful, filling Mike Izzard's shoes will be a tough act to follow."
Continuation of a Positive Dialogue
He intends to continue what he describes as "the very positive dialogue AMII has with our insurer partners, BIBA, the ABI, FSA, and other interested parties in the health related insurance sector. I am most conscious of the challenge, and the time and commitment the role of AMII chairman demands, but am very much committed to the furtherance of the AMII going forward."
In addition, Tripp's Chairmanship will see the first candidates to take the recently launched AMII and Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) new health insurance examination.
Despite the economic climate, Tripp says the Association is in a robust state of financial health, ready for challenges that lay ahead. Significant among these, he says, is that medical inflation will not be matched by increased spending by government into the NHS. "For the next parliament the NHS will really feel the pinch, so private treatment could have to play a greater role," he says. "And then there is the treatment of cancer and lack of availability of certain drugs under the NHS."
But Tripp also sees a threat to the industry from possible rising insurance premium tax (IPT). "Whichever party is in Government I think it is an absolute certainty that IPT will be raised. If adopted any policy of this kind will have a seriously detrimental effect on our industry, and is a very genuine concern."
Perhaps not surprisingly Tripp is also keen to see the reintroduction of tax relief for medical insurance premiums. "One of the Gordon Brown's first acts in 1997 was the abolition of tax relief for the over 60s, which resulted in huge numbers of people giving up their insurance, and thereby placing further burdens on an already struggling NHS," he says. "It seems to me to be entirely logical and fair, to assist people taking responsibility for the health of their family and we at the Association should be at the forefront of this lobbying campaign."
Tripp is, however, a little cynical about the political process. This stems from his time as a district councillor in Welwyn Garden City. "I was interested in politics until I realised politics is not about good governance, it is all about being elected and then re-elected."
Whatever happens with the country AMII members can be sure their new Chairman will be fighting its corner.
