Risk team of the year: Vitality
Five years ago few people would have heard of Vitality.
The health and life insurance and investments business has since then differentiated itself from its competitors with technology-enabled propositions that reward policyholders for leading healthier lives.
Vitality has also built up market presence through innovative marketing campaigns synonymous with pink branding and Stanley, the Dachshund dog.
The insurer’s risk team have supported the business throughout this transformation by developing a nimble and proactive risk framework to ensure Vitality can continue to innovate.
Among a series of measures, this has required a refocused and proportional enterprise risk management framework and rationalised policy framework.
The risk team has also produced an updated risk appetite framework and an expanded set of key performance indicators.
In addition, the team developed a new emerging risks process by conducting workshops with each executive and within the risk committee. This led to a clear process for evaluating emerging risks against the business strategy.
An important achievement by the risk team has been a values-based review of Vitality’s risk culture and ethics. This culture review covered issues such as the tone at the top in term of risk leadership, as well as governance and accountability.
The team has communicated the importance of risk management at all levels in Vitality through a risk awareness week.
Some 120 staff attended workshops, hearing the key message that “everyone is a risk manager”. Almost all (94%) of staff reported they found the sessions either great or good.
The judges commended the submission for conveying a pragmatic business-focused team that achieves a lot with “a sense of pace and energy”.