Lyndon Wood - The Entrepreneur Behind The Moorhouse Group
What started as a Caerphilly teenager's bedroom business has now lit up the insurance world by securing its second national industry award in as many months.
In November, Moorhouse Groups Bradley Watson was voted the UK Young Broker of the Year by Insurance Age magazine. Now Moorhouse Group has scooped the accolade of overall Broker of the Year in the 2004 Insurance Times Awards.
Moorhouse Group started as a teenager's dream. In 1990, 19-year old Lyndon Wood started the business in his Caerphilly bedroom. With little experience, no support and very limited resources, he generated £30,000 in his first year.
Fourteen years on and Lyndon's dynamism and determination has turned the business into the multi-million pound Moorhouse Group.
Moorhouse services a client base of 16,000, is recognised as one of the fastest growing insurance brokers in the UK, and one of the top 50 fastest growing companies in Wales.
"We currently employ 76 people in the UK and 50 people in India and have a premium turnover of £18 million," says Lyndon Wood, chairman of Moorhouse Group.
"However, we are confidently projecting this to grow to 160 people, and a turnover of £36 million, by September 2005."
Moorhouse Group initially traded as Liability Direct Underwriting Limited for about five years, until further divisions of the company were started up to service the commercial sector.
Vaninsure came into existence in May 2002 as a division of the Moorhouse Group with the intention of providing a cost effective and quality insurance solution to the commercial vehicle industry.
This division expanded in reflection to market need into the Vaninsure Fleet Division in August 2003, which provides insurance cover for commercial vehicle groups from three vehicles upwards.
Xbroker was started in June 2003. It is a strategic alliance between Moorhouse Group and HSBC Insurance Brokers, which allows Xbroker to sell Internet products to brokers registered with HSBC.
Rattio, the retail insurance division of Moorhouse Group, began in June 2004 and continues to grow its customer base rapidly each month.
Having won the prestigious European Call Centre Award (Excellence for Best Practice) in 2001, Moorhouse Group is currently involved in an outsourcing initiative in India with a view to generating more business opportunities.
This outsourcing has resulted in a positive expansion in Caerphilly. Moorhouse is in the process of building an additional 8,500 square feet of office space behind Barclay House, the group's Caerphilly headquarters, to accommodate about 130 more people.
The first batch of 51 new employees will join its workforce before the end of September 2005.
Moorhouse has also invested considerably in state-of-the-art technologies that facilitate the obtaining of online quotes.
Lyndon Wood says that the success of his company is largely due to the motivation and commitment of his team.
"We believe heavily in the investment of time and resources into our team," he says.
"We promote access to training and career progression through our online training facility, enabling employees to train at their convenience and even from their homes through the Internet.
"We also provide regular training workshops to help employees learn a range of commercial and insurance issues."
Lyndon also believes strongly in a healthy work-family balance through organised employee-family events alongside good working hours and conditions.
In addition, Lyndon is always looking for further business opportunities and has demonstrated this by entering the property development market. As such he owns 19 domestic and 3 commercial properties and is looking to expand this further in the future.
He also has plans to start a charity to support Children with Learning Difficulties and Children with Terminal Illnesses in the near future.
Lyndon has great optimism for the future.
"We have a superb team behind us and I look forward to the company doubling its size in 2005," he says.
"The new marketing department has also given us a fresh perspective and we are focussing on a corporate re-brand and the introduction of new schemes."
"Our long term plans are very ambitious, but achievable. We will focus more on global opportunities, become a top 50 broker and also the market leader in the SME market."
03/01/05
