Shire is a specialist finance and insurance broker with over 40 years’ experience working with and supporting the veterinary sector. Providing insurance for veterinary practices, including surgery, professional indemnity, and employee health and wellbeing schemes. As trusted advisors to the profession, they also source commercial finance for new starts, refinancing, expansion, and share purchase.
Shire Insurance previously worked with Ecclesiastical until March 2022 before moving to a new schemes partner as they sought to expand into areas Ecclesiastical wasn’t pursuing at the time.
Two years on and Shire Insurance and Ecclesiastical have reforged their partnership, with Ecclesiastical’s schemes team moving quickly to build the scheme and begin writing new businesses within eight weeks.
Ecclesiastical has set an ambitious target to double the size of the business by 2026 and has identified the schemes space as an area for growth. In the last 12 months, the specialist insurer has announced new partnerships with iprism, Brooks Braithwaite, Brokerbility, and Towergate Care.
“We’re rightly in the business of celebrating our successes at Ecclesiastical, and 2023 saw us secure some really important new business for our schemes book.
“At the same time, there are occasions where we need to be honest enough to admit when we’ve not got it right – and two years ago we lost Shire Insurance to another provider due to our appetite at the time not aligning with theirs.
“Things have moved on for both parties since then, and I’m pleased we’re in a position to work with Shire Insurance again to help develop their scheme and grow the business.”
This latest partnership with Shire Insurance is further evidence of Ecclesiastical’s underwriting capability, capacity, and flexibility when working with specialist brokers who manage schemes.
“I’m very happy to come back on board with Ecclesiastical.
“We spoke with several other insurers before we came back, and we needed to do our due diligence to find the right partner for us. It’s about finding someone you can work collaboratively with, with flexibility and compromise on both sides.
“In the past, we’ve been promised things by insurance companies that haven’t happened for whatever reason, but I’m pleased to be coming back to Ecclesiastical. We know how good the service and expertise of their teams are, and I’m looking forward to working closely with them once again.”