Taking a wide view
Harry Phillips was searching to find an opening into financial services. He tried several companies and chose Crawford — largely because of their sheer responsiveness and a good first impression of the working environment.
“I applied for a lot of apprenticeships,” Harry says. “I landed on the one from Crawford, because of how much better Claire Johnson was at keeping in contact with me and just the overall feel of the office.”
His background is in customer-facing roles. He trained in college to be a personal trainer, which “taught me how to be respectful of clients and to understand their need”, he says, and in the McDonald’s customer care department, which “gave me great hands-on experience dealing with customers and all sorts of complaints”.
Harry is enjoying life as an apprentice in Crawford’s Major & Complex Loss team, a brand-new world for him. “The most valuable part of the experience has been the training, because I’ve had no previous experience in insurance, so I’m having to build my knowledge from the ground up,” he says.
Studying for the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters exams has proved the most challenging aspect of the apprenticeship for Harry, who has dyslexia and finds revising for long periods very difficult.
Support from the office has not been lacking. Harry credits Claire Johnson and Andy Brown for their hard work in getting apprentices up to speed on Crawford’s claims management processes and Bill Keith, for his help in preparing them for their CILA exams.
Anyone with the opportunity of an apprenticeship at Crawford should “go for it”, Harry advises. “The amount of training you receive is great and the career progression is also second to none,” he says.
As for the future, Harry wants to continue exploring the opportunities within the company. “I’m not sure where I would like to progress to, so I’ve asked to have a sight of as many different areas of Crawford as possible.”
