"While I hope we’re crowned the champions, if we don’t, I think there’s going to be lessons learnt and knowledge brought back to the brokerage."
- Richard Kerton, Chief Distribution Officer at Clark UK
Last month, teams of six from across the industry gathered to compete at Inside Track - the ultimate team-based gameshow experience designed to pit the very best in protection against one another; who doesn’t enjoy some friendly rivalry?!
For 2025, Inside Track was supported by Clark UK as Sponsor of its ‘Underwriting’ round. I spoke with Richard Kerton, Chief Distribution Officer at Clark UK, about why he’s supporting this initiative.
He believes Inside Track is “something completely different; we haven’t heard of anything like this in the industry before, so for us, it’s a fantastic opportunity. I think a fair few advisers perhaps see themselves as the best, so to be able to put that to the test is exciting.”
“In terms of the ‘knowledge sharing’ aspect of Inside Track, that’s very important for us.”
“While I hope we’re crowned the champions, if we don’t, I think there’s going to be lessons learnt and knowledge brought back to the brokerage to help support our customers and develop the proposition we offer,” he said, ahead of the day.
The Underwriting round featured questions written by Helen Croft (SCOR), Alan Knowles (Cura Financial Services), James Lovett (Lovethorn), Paul Roberts (CIExpert), and Karan Mehta (Blueberry Life).
Richard noted that Clark UK’s motivation for sponsoring this round was a result of the “major part” that underwriting plays in its “core business operations in terms of supporting every customer that we speak to.”
In 2023, the brokerage launched Tom & Polly, which is centred around offering Life Insurance to parents. Following the decision to pivot these brands to offer standalone products, Clark UK partnered with Swiss Re’s iptiQ to build and launch its own digital-first Life Insurance products.
“We’ve retained our impaired life team, so when people fall out of a journey because of a medical disclosure that’s made them unable to go through the underwriting process, we can assist them. This team will be representing Clark UK at Inside Track 2025,” he said.
Richard added: “We’ve put most of the team through several Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) underwriting qualifications. We believe that expertise in underwriting is crucial to have an understanding for conversations with providers when getting the best outcome for the customer.”
“Sponsoring the Underwriting round was an obvious choice as it aligns with our story.”
Championing education, Inside Track 2025 supported the ongoing work of the charity-led campaign 7Families, fundraising £10,000 for upcoming awareness initiatives. 7Families ran between 2014-16 and followed the lives of seven families who’d suffered an income shock but didn’t have Income Protection (IP).
Equally funded by insurers across the industry, 7Families provided payments to these families – replicating what they would have received if they had IP in place. Throughout this campaign, the families were filmed regularly to document the impact of the payments & added-value services provided – 7Families celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024.
When the initiative launched, Richard was working as Head of Medical Insurance at Howden Life & Health (formerly Assured Futures).
“I think 7Families humanised the point of having protection. Too often, the biggest barrier for brokers is education – we’re all familiar with the protection gap.”
He thinks consumers often assume the worst is never going to happen to them so to be able to tell real-life stories in a more relatable format had, and continues to have, a “positive impact, because it helps to protect that gap […] showing them that claimants can be people just like them.”
“For brokers that don’t offer advice for IP, it highlights the importance of this product and keeps that conversation going,” he concluded.
