More than half (54%) of brokers and intermediaries responding to the United Trust Bank (UTB) end of year broker sentiment poll indicated that they had undershot their 2020 business projections. Of those, 25% suggested they had substantially missed their targets for last year. However, 23% of brokers indicated that their results for 2020 had exceeded their expectations.
How would you rate your 2020 from a business perspective?
| % of brokers | |
| We have exceeded our original 2020 targets | 23% |
| We have achieved our original 2020 targets | 23% |
| We have slightly undershot our original 2020 targets | 30% |
| We have substantially underachieved our 2020 targets | 24% |
Looking ahead, when asked to choose what word would best describe their business outlook for 2021, a majority (52%) chose ‘challenging’ whilst 44% chose ‘exciting’. The remaining 4% chose to describe their 2021 outlook as ‘worrying’. The survey was carried out in the second week of December 2020.
Over two-thirds (69%) of brokers also indicated that moving forward they intend to be more mindful of work/life balance once life returns to some normality with nearly half (49%) wishing to increase their Work From Home (WFH) flexibility.
Increased investment in the digitisation of application and back-office processes also featured highly on the list of areas in which brokers intend to invest, as did a greater focus on team-building and developing a strong workplace culture.
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