Percy pledges loyalty to core market
Richard Percy, the recently appointed Chairman of NFU Mutual, told NFU Cymru Council members that no other insurer could be more loyal than the NFU Mutual to farming and the rural counties of Wales.
"Farming is at the core of NFU Mutual’s business and will remain so," Mr Percy said as guest speaker at the Council’s spring meeting. "We are the fifteenth largest insurer in the UK, but we are not a metropolitan organisation and indeed our business is in the market towns and villages throughout Britain. The farming industry and those with an empathy with the countryside are our core customers.
"The NFU remains our major partner and we have a close working relationship. Our agents are the NFU Group Secretaries - they are one and the same. They are vital, important and central to our business model.
"There are changes taking place and these are for the better. First, we are improving our communications and computer systems, continuously updating our technology to make our business work better and we are reducing our cost ratio."
"Second, we are extending our opening times by means of a call centre so that those customers who want to contact NFU Mutual outside traditional office hours will have more opportunity to make contact after they have finished their working day on the farm," Mr Percy said.
Mr Percy emphasised the countryside’s reliance on farming for its economic well-being and drew attention to NFU Mutual’s support for rural trusts and charities, notably the education and training of young people and RABI.
NFU Cymru President Ed Bailey thanked Mr Percy who had commended NFU Cymru’s adoption of a Welsh Farm Safety Charter to help farmers tighten up on potential risks.
Mr Percy was appointed to the NFU Mutual Board in 2003 and took over as Chairman from Lord Donald Curry in January 2012, having previously served as Vice Chairman. He has farmed in Hertfordshire since 1983 and manages a farm in Buckinghamshire.
He is a Director of Apsley Developments Limited and was, until February 2010, a Council Member of the NFU of England and Wales.
He is a member of the food and farming regulation task force set up by the Defra Minister in June 2010. From 2003 to 2009, Richard was a member of the Board of the Environment Agency and of its Pension Committee.
