That patience is a virtue is a fact that can be attested to by Alexander Margolin (pictured), founder and director of Sioma Insurance Consultants, who was recently selected as BIBA’s 2021 Young Broker of the year. After all, he found out about the accolade a month before the conference, and it was a real challenge to keep the good news under wraps while speaking to insurers and clients.
Read more: BIBA names 2021’s Young Broker of the Year
Margolin’s journey to founding and running his own brokerage has followed a path of finding and exploring any opportunities that present themselves. During his second year at university, he applied and was accepted for an internship scheme with Hiscox, where his initial role was in marketing until he came across the concept of underwriting. It sounded like an interesting job, he said, and so, after university, he only applied for underwriting roles. Of the different offers he received, he ended up going with Allianz.
“I chose Allianz because it was the closest to my house but it turned out to be an amazing decision,” he said. “I started on a grad programme in their Luton office and, because I worked in one of their regional offices, it meant that just from day one I was a trading underwriter. I was put straight into their new business team and given cases and it was just ‘learn as you go; while surrounded by really good people.”
He enjoyed significant success at the firm, supported by the training and support given by the insurer, and, by the time he left in 2018, Margolin had worked his way up to the role of senior new business underwriter in the London City P&C team. However, he said, he had always had the dream to run his own business and felt the call of insurance broking - so he left the company to set up Sioma as an AR, converting his Chartered Insurer status into Chartered Insurance Broker status.
“So, when I joined from Allianz on day one I had no clients - and now I have 250 clients,” he said, “and I really believe that you have to balance being able to take a leap of faith with being risk-averse sometimes as well… So, I’ve had three years of just focusing on building my business and I’m now taking on my first full-time member of staff as well.”
As a nod to the opportunities he has received throughout his career to date, Margolin has opted to take on a graduate for this position and pass on the training, support and confidence that he was given during his early days in insurance. This next step is happening at just the right time for Sioma, he said, as the additional help with administration and client support will enable him to focus on growing the business to the scale he knows it can reach.
“Now, going forwards, there’s a couple of options [for Sioma],” he said. “I’m looking at potentially bringing in some key people that I know in the industry who maybe are still underwriters and that I think would do really well as brokers. I’m trying to give them the shot and back them and give them that comfortable environment to try and build their own book. And then there’s a potential opportunity to maybe buy another broker, but I haven’t decided yet.”
In the background of all this change and growth, Margolin has also been setting up a new insurance tech business, which has come around in the last six months, and he is positive about the space for real innovation across the insurance industry.
“The last six months have been the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life,” he said, “but then COVID has allowed us to have that time – whereas at any other time there would be certain things that you just couldn’t find the time to do. We’ve had the opportunity to work harder, so I wanted to really take advantage of that year spent sitting at home.”
Yet, despite the success that Margolin and his brokerage have enjoyed in recent years, the young broker also finds a great deal of time to explore the real passion that motivates him – philanthropy. What he likes the most about being a broker is the opportunity to care for clients in their hour of need, he said, and it is this impulse that led him to join the charity ‘Made With Hope’, which was established by a friend of his. When he first joined, the charity was supporting and running two schools in rural Tanzania and since then he has become its chairman. The charity now oversees seven schools in the region.
“When I think about my goal in life,” he said, “I would like, by the time I’m in my early 40s, to be spending more time doing charity work than I do insurance work… My dream job would be to be a philanthropist and that’s my ultimate goal. I love insurance but there’s more to life than work and lots of people that need help. You just have to find a balance, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do.”
