The week that was 23rd November

Crikey! Never before has one party caused so much trouble! (Gaffer – we could be talking about the Conservative Party and in a sense we are!) And as the rest of the UK forfeited all manner of social existence and festive get-together’s last December, No. 10 apparently went ahead and held it’s Xmas do (just cheese and wine according to Allegra Stratton!!!) but it probably also included lots of fumbling in the stationary cupboard if Mr Hancock was in attendance! Then just in case you missed them all too much Santa has brought us back a sack load of “potential Plan B’s” “travel Red lists” and “quarantining” just in time for Xmas!!! Let’s hope it doesn’t all end in “tiers”!!!!! (Sorry – couldn’t resist!)

Then it’s been the case of another week, another storm as Barra has been causing chaos in the West, and ‘Strictly’ and ‘I’m a Celeb’ prepare to enter the final stages of crowning this year’s winners in time for Christmas!

Over to Week 48 and you were certainly kicking up a storm this week with 111 cases completed for £30,229, 768 of lending.

Top of the tree this week was Spencer Havers with £2,281,816 of lending across 6 cases, followed by fellow honourable members from the Home Counties Phil Lyle with £1,935,100 of lending across 3 cases and Ian Broadrick with £1,840,535 across 3 cases.

This week’s “Big Time Barra!” award goes to Paul Oglesby for his £1,456,314 deal with Barclays and partying (just cheese and wine though) behind their own closed doors to celebrate this week’s high value and volumes were Sean McGeough, Ron Walton, Sarah Norman, Dominic Willett, Chris Taylor, Ajay Sharma, Warren Middleton, Stephen Hankins, Zak Abdul Karim and Ricki Wenn.

On the lender side you completed the greatest number of deals this week with NatWest totalling 28 for £5,027,430 of lending.

Protection – Week 48

Things were looking slightly calmer over on the protection side of the business this week with 22 cases completed of which dynamic duo Nick Price secured 11 and Sophie Evans, 5.

Sophie also secured the highest policy amount this week of £700,000 with AIG and on the provider side you completed the greatest number of cases overall with AIG totalling 6.

Birthday’s and other Parish Notices

Many Happy Returns to Raff Federico who will be celebrating his birthday on the 12th and to Laura Sayers for the 13th.

Management Notices

Only 2 weeks to go guys and gals and whilst ordinarily we would be starting to see the market quieten, most of the brokers that I have seen this week and last are still blowing a hoolie.

Personally, I managed to get in and out of Scotland before the worst of storm Barra took hold and before Nicola “Krankie” Sturgeon noticed that my face mask was not made of Scottish tartan and actually had the flag of St. George on the inside of it!!!

My thanks to Rhona, William T and Rhys for their time and hospitality and suffice to say we pigged out at TGI Fridays and put most of the world to rights.

I also did not waste the opportunity at Heathrow Airport to buy Mark Nathan’s Christmas present from us all and as you can see from the picture below there were plenty of options to choose from although I am concerned that he already has most of these items in his attic!

And talking of Heathrow Airport you may have seen that our most recent celebrity icon was Chris Taylor who gave a very measured and Chris Taylor-esque response to Sky News when questioned at the airport .

So some pre-Christmas joviality all ahead of just a couple of more serious notices.

1. Please look out for a note from me regarding the security of your individual customer data as this is going to be a really hot topic next year with the FCA.

2. On which point it is clear to us at Derby that the lenders are now doing what they typically do every December and January …… they are moving some staff into Compliance and Risk Assessment areas in order to catch up on tasks which were not able to be completed earlier in the year and to get ahead of their own visits from the Regulator in the Spring.

This has repercussion’s for us all. With the business still submitting 500 cases a month we cannot obviously check and audit every single one of those cases before it goes to a lender. So do please remain vigilant particularly around the evidence of income being put before you and the plausibility of some applicants’ applications (particularly where there is a family connection and/or it has come from a ,long standing friend or introducer of your own where the tendency may be to place too much trust in the authenticity of each and every piece of documentation).

3. Next week will see the final broker meetings and social events of the year. Obviously we will keep a close eye on announcements regarding the virus and potential increases in the national tiering’s but the hope right now is that these events can go ahead but everybody will be notified on Monday at the latest as we know that several of you have made travel and accommodation arrangements.

Have a great week everybody

The Management team