How global giant Markel is providing economic boost for Leeds

This month its expansion plans took a giant leap forward. Markel, which is the insurance operations within the Markel Group Inc, has revealed plans to increase its staff numbers in Leeds by 25 per cent to more than 200 employees over the next two years.

The firm has more than doubled its office size in Leeds by taking 20,000 sq ft of space across the ninth and tenth floors of City Square House, after leaving its previous base in Canal Wharf in Holbeck. In addition to underwriting and claims roles, new positions in the Leeds office will also include shared services such as IT, HR and finance.

Neil Galjaard, Markel’s divisional managing director for the UK, is proud of the role being played by the Yorkshire operations in the company’s growth.

“Leeds was the home of Markel’s first office outside of London more than 30 years ago and since then we’ve grown our business organically and through acquisitions, from three people to more than 160 today.

“As a business Markel is committed to always looking to the future, and it’s that ethos which means we’re planning to grow the Markel UK Leeds team to over 200 people over the next 24 months across a range of roles.

“The success of the Leeds office over the years has provided Markel with a template for creating offices and teams close to our customers across the globe.

“The kernel of the UK business is here in Leeds,’’ he told The Yorkshire Post. “We have 500 people in my bit of the business in the UK and about a third of them are based here in Leeds.

“That’s really where our specialisms are based in terms of sector expertise in insurance.”

Perhaps surprisingly, much of the growth was driven by the pandemic.

“It was growing naturally as a business pre-Covid and then we really accelerated as a business post-Covid.

“We took the decision during Covid to expand the office footprint in Leeds,” he added.

“The office we're in now wasn’t even there during Covid, it was just a car park. We've now doubled the square footage, we're up to 20,000 sq ft now.

“Our business grew in terms of people wanting to insure with Markel through the pandemic. We're big insurers in the care sector. One of the advantages of being a specialist is that you know your market.”

“Some of the people in Leeds have been with the business for more than 30 years. Our clients are in the regions so that's where we want our people based.

“We’ve grown a lot in the care sector and professional indemnity,’’ he added. “We’re trying to grow more in the construction sector.

“We’re growing through the broker market but we're also growing increasingly with brokers buying directly from us.

“We’ve got 75,000 customers who buy directly from us, although our business is still substantially broker led. It’s not just about insurance for us. We’re also a law firm, a tax consultancy business and a care consultancy business.”

He said Markel is trying to give customers services around insurance “and that benefits them and us, because they are less likely to get into situations where they need their insurance”.

“If we can help customers not have a claim that's good.”

“Leeds is a great place to be based in terms of recruitment. The way people use offices now is different to the way they used them pre-Covid; we’ve brought a lot of flexibility into the way people can use the offices. Leeds has also got a brilliant educational base in terms of the universities. It's a long established commercial base. Connectivity with London is excellent by train; I will be in London half the week and in Leeds half the week.

“Leeds has a strong foothold in financial services. The office opportunities are so much greater than they were. A lot of square footage has become available recently.”

Mr Galjaard, who was born in Lincoln, has spent most of his career in insurance and financial services.

“Before I joined Markel, I spent a bit of time in the private equity backed side of the industry,’’ he said. “I found it quite short term in its approach.”

“We describe Markel as a family corporate. Steve Markel, our chairman, is the grandson of Sam Markel, who founded the business. We still have the family ethos but we're now a $20bn business with 22,000 people around the world.

“We’re a people powered business. This is about having our people do what they do best.”

He also sees Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an opportunity to be embraced.

“We want to use AI and technology to remove the tasks that don’t add a great deal of value, so our people can focus on the bits that do add value. We don’t want to have people collecting data; we want to bring all the data to them so they can make the decisions.

“It’s all about making it more efficient and effective for our people.”

“We own a large chunk of a tech consultancy business in the US,” he recalled.

“I was at a meeting there earlier this year, and somebody said: “Will we lose our jobs to AI?

“The answer was, ‘No, but you’ll lose your job to someone else who is using AI. It’s about equipping our people to do their job better."

Further expansion could be on the cards in Yorkshire as Markel looks to grow its market share .

“There’s no cap on growth in Leeds,’’ Mr Galjaard said. “We don’t see anything other than us continuing our growth journey.”