When I first started working in insurance back in 1988, things were rather different. No emails, no comparison websites, no artificial intelligence and certainly no Teams meetings. We had telephones, filing cabinets, mountains of paperwork and, if you were lucky, a fax machine that actually worked.

Nearly 40 years later, the industry is almost unrecognisable. Technology has transformed the way we work, mostly for the better, although I’m not entirely convinced that receiving 150 emails a day and attending meetings about arranging more meetings constitutes progress.

But oxAt Park Commercial, we’ve always believed that relationships matter. Not just with our clients, but with the insurers we work with and, perhaps most importantly, with each other.

You can have the best technology, the smartest offices and the most sophisticated systems in the world, but without good people you’re not going to get very far.

And I’m fortunate that we have some very good people.

Over the years, Park has grown from a small, traditional brokerage into a much larger and more ambitious business. We’ve welcomed new colleagues, expanded our expertise and developed some fantastic relationships along the way. I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved, but I’m equally conscious that none of it happens without the hard work, commitment and occasional patience of the team around me.

Some of our colleagues have spent many years in the industry, building up knowledge and experience that simply can’t be learned from a textbook or downloaded from the internet. They know their clients, understand their businesses and, importantly, know what to do when things don’t quite go according to plan.

That experience is priceless. But it also presents a challenge.

How do we make sure that knowledge, those relationships and the values that have made Park successful are passed on to the next generation?

That’s one of the reasons we’ve developed the Park Academy.

We’ve already welcomed Oliver, Megan and Matthew into the business, and it’s been genuinely encouraging to see their enthusiasm, curiosity and willingness to learn.

I suspect none of them spent their childhood dreaming of a career in commercial insurance. To be fair, neither did I. It’s not exactly the sort of profession that features prominently in conversations about glamorous career choices.

But the reality is that insurance can be a fascinating business. We work with all sorts of companies, meet some remarkable people and find ourselves dealing with situations that can be challenging, rewarding and occasionally downright bizarre.

The Academy is about giving young people the opportunity to discover that for themselves.

It’s also about more than teaching someone how to arrange an insurance policy. We want them to understand how businesses work, how to build relationships, how to make good decisions and, perhaps most importantly, how to treat people properly.

We’re encouraging our more experienced colleagues to share their knowledge and take an active role in developing the younger members of the team. And I have no doubt that the learning will work both ways. The younger generation certainly has a better grasp of technology than I do, although I’m still not entirely sure why everything needs an app.

The important thing is that we’re investing in people for the long term.

I’ve never been particularly interested in building a business simply to make it bigger. Growth is important, of course, but so is building something worthwhile and sustainable.

I want Park Commercial to be here in 20 or 30 years’ time, still looking after its clients, still providing good jobs and opportunities, and still being recognised as a business that does things properly.

That won’t happen by accident. It requires us to develop our people, give them opportunities to progress and create an environment where they genuinely want to stay and build their careers.

Our values of honesty, excellence, respect, drive and stability have helped shape Park Commercial over the years. The challenge now is to make sure those values remain just as relevant to the people who will eventually be running the business as they are to those of us running it today.

As I approach 40 years in insurance, I’ve started to appreciate that building a successful business is one thing. Building a business that can continue to succeed long after you’ve stepped aside is quite another.

And that’s what makes the Park Academy, and the development of our entire team, so important to me.

Technology will continue to evolve. Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly change the industry in ways we haven’t yet imagined. And I fully expect the volume of emails to get worse before it gets better.

But I’m convinced that when something really matters, people will still want to deal with people.

That’s how Park Commercial was built, and it’s how I hope it will continue to thrive for generations to come.

If you’d like to find out more about this or anything else, call your usual contact at Park, or one of the team here.