HCB Group 1993-2018 – We are 25 this year!

It is really hard to believe that HCB turns 25 in 2018.

It was back in the early 1990’s that we began our outline discussions with Des Le Grys at Munich Re, who was musing that providers of Income Protection products should probably try and engage more proactively with their customers who were intimating a claim, and we agreed that it made a lot of sense to intervene earlier, and try to support customers back to work, rather than burying heads in the sand until the expiry of long deferred periods, by which time the claim was a given, and often destined for a long ride!  With this, the HCB home visiting service was born, in August, 1993.

What a lot of water has flowed under the collective bridges of our industry since then, culminating, at least for HCB, in our current Early Intervention model, which serves IP insurers and Employers directly, in a very positive, and well received way.

There are no doubts that we have had our fair share of peaks and troughs over the last 25 years, but we are still here, expanding, and adding new services to meet the needs of our rapidly growing client base.

We owe a lot to a lot of people who have supported us through thick and thin, many of who will gather at our 25^th Anniversary celebration in London in July.

One of those that will be sadly missed there, is our founding Chairman, the late Des Le Grys FIA, (pictured) who predicted what the industry really needed way ahead of his time, but sadly passed away before we were able to make our mark. He would have been proud, in this, the year of our silver anniversary, to know that we are still doing what he originally envisaged – helping people get back to work, before it is too late.

I intend publishing a series of articles this year, celebrating the HCB 25 year journey, and recounting some stories of some of the wonderful personalities who have helped carve out HCB’s place in the market. Watch this space!

James Harris

Managing Director

HCB Group