Rush Insurance has reported record turnover and profit for 2021-22 as the company recovered from making a loss amid the pandemic.
The insurer made a loss of £80,000 on a turnover of £2.9 million for 2020-21 but recovered to make a profit of more than £818,000 on a turnover of £9 million in its most recent financial year.
It is forecasting another record year for 2022-2023, with turnover rising to more than £9.6 million and profit topping £900,000. The firm’s financial year runs from July 1 to June 30.
Jeff Rush, chief executive, said the first quarter for the current financial year, covering July, August and September is “smashing it out of the park”.
“Turnover is up 54.5% to £2.5 million and profits up by 256% to £225,000 against Q1 last year, underpinned by closely managed costs and significantly enhanced training, sales and support services,” he said.
He said the turnaround since the pandemic was “underpinned” by a complete restructure in early 2022; a focus on “excellent” customer service; and partnerships with the trade, with agencies such as Hays Travel and Love Holidays.
The in-house IT team had been replaced by a “flexible, high quality, larger, out-sourced consultancy facility”.
This enabled the firm to “move revenue-producing, profitable tasks and projects forward much more quickly and accurately than ever before”, he added.
“For similar reasons, our finance team departed around the same time to be completely replaced by a very experienced, high-quality, forward-thinking finance team, bringing about better accounting solutions, to support swifter, more accurate forecasting and decision making,” he said.
Pre-pandemic, the company had the equivalent of 12 full-time roles, but now it has nine, along with consultants supporting IT, HR, regulation and compliance – leading to lower costs and increased turnover.
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Rush has extended its partnership with Hays Travel for a further five years and Love Holidays for a further two years.
Other partners include Broadway Travel, Holiday Property Bond and Brooklyn Travel – the parent of brands such as Stewart Travel and Destinology.
It has affiliate relationships with consortia such as Hays Travel Independence Group, The Travel Network Group and Protected Trust Services.
Rush also hailed the benefits of Hays Travel’s acquisition of Thomas Cook shops and “quality staff”, and Love Holidays’ “excellent” marketing programmes.
New appointments have been made and the company will also be looking at the option of apprenticeships in 2023, as they have worked well in the past.
It has expanded its on-the-road team to support trade partners, with the promotion of Jazz Preece to the role of business development executive.
She has been leading the Rush Insurance (wholesale and retail) customer care centre, for the past three years, while supporting Louise Bates, sales and partnerships manager, and Jeff Rush on sales and development projects.
One of Bates’ roles is to host training sessions with agent partners, which can be either online or face-to-face in stores.
A senior customer care executive has been appointed to oversee the in-house customer care centre, and the company is interviewing for its latest customer care centre team member.
Commenting on market trends, Rush said: “Immediately post pandemic, insurance conversions hit an all-time high, as the impact of Brexit and Covid combined to give customers more things to consider,” said Rush.
However, this has now returned to 2019 with the proportion of travellers not taking out insurance possibly as high as 25%.
Insurance is more expensive now with a single trip costing more than £80 on average – up 16% from 2019 – and an annual policy rising 12% to £146.
Rush also highlighted the role of five-star ratings and high-profile awards in its bounce back from the pandemic.
“It’s important to showcase these ratings, as it provides our customers with additional reassurance as they are based on facts, not opinion – the experts have done all the challenging work when it comes to researching for a quality travel insurance policy,” he said.
“We have an exceptional customer care team, who continue to work hard and provide excellent customer care and service every day.”