Diary of an Insurance PR: Omnia Partners’ Adrian Beeby

Monday

As the dawn chorus gathers momentum, the dog hurls himself onto our bed announcing the start of another week. “Alexa, play BBC Radio 4.” 

Fifteen minutes of Farming Today followed by Emma Barnett announcing The Today Programme. Always good to listen to, particularly if there’s something insurance-related going on. “Tea,” requests my wife from under the duvet.

I live in a small village in Wiltshire, so Mondays tend to be home-based. Omnia’s office in the Lloyd’s Building is always staffed, but today’s not my turn. No, today I’m editing and producing a podcast for a major accountancy firm.  

I’ve previously recorded the CEO and her guest in conversation and am now shaping that into a 25-minute podcast with music and sound effects. PRs need to be much more technically adept than they used to be. 

Writing remains the core of what we do, but audio, video and graphic design are tools of the trade with which our team members need to be increasingly familiar.

Tuesday

God bless the Elizabeth Line. It’s shaved 10 to 15 minutes each way off my commute from Wiltshire to London, so I’m eternally grateful for it. 

As I walk up St Mary Axe, the Lloyd’s Building gleams in the morning sunshine. I always get a buzz coming here. Flash my security pass to the security guard and head up to Omnia’s office on gallery seven with its view of St Paul’s dome.

London days are about seeing clients, journalist lunches, training colleagues and bumping into old acquaintances. A trip to the ground floor Lloyd’s coffee shop is a great place to meet people. Today I’m catching up with a cyber insurer for a discussion about how to make their technology more comprehensible to journalists. 

I’ve always maintained that the best way to understand technology it to use it; communicating its differentiators and benefits can be a challenge. It requires the full range of PR channels to bring it to life on the page.

Wednesday

Coaching – which is more grown-up than ‘training’ – is a big part of what we offer at Omnia. 

One of my favourite courses to run is making the most of Linkedin for businesses. Today, I’m hosting a two-hour online session for a client’s staff around Europe. 

I’m expecting 40-ish to attend, so am pleasantly surprised when 190 log on. Linkedin has certainly developed since its early days as an online CV; today, it’s a key part of many businesses’ corporate comms, hence the need to help people work out the relationship between their profile and their employers’.

In the evening, I run a club for amateur guitarists in my village’s hall. 

Usually there are 12 to 15 of us, learning new tracks, chatting about music and guitar gear and associated stuff. A few beers are drunk; a few songs are sung. There’s something very real about playing music together. It’s a great antidote to screen-based living.

Thursday

Back in London today – another Delay-Repay claim to make. A chief executive is due to give a speech in two weeks and wants to talk through themes and content ideas. 

This a part of my work I really enjoy – thinking creatively, bouncing ideas back and forth until the bones of a speech form, which I can take away and flesh out. 

Insurance businesses spend too much time focusing on the PowerPoint and not enough about the actual human being – how they talk, how they move, what they emphasise, how they engage their audience. A good presentation is rarely defined by the quality of the accompanying PowerPoint.

After lunch in Spitalfields Market – the boom in street food is one of the unexpected positives of post-pandemic London – I head back to the office to catch up on my finance duties and prepare for upcoming meetings. 

We have a number of clients based in San Francisco so 6pm Teams calls are a regular occurrence. As we talk, a pair of seagulls that have taken up residence on the roof of Lloyd’s outside our window are keen to contribute loudly.

Friday

I’ve reached an age at which the need to maintain muscle mass has become urgent. 

My goal is always to get to the gym by 7.30am; after that, my willpower wains rapidly. A circuit of cross trainer, rowing machine, upright bike, some free weights and finally – much as I dread it – the plank. I’ve just got time to make it home and have a shower before the first call of the day.

Friday is a thinking day. Email traffic is usually lighter, so there’s time to devote myself to projects requiring greater mental bandwidth. Walking the dog’s another practical way of focusing my thoughts. 

Today, it’s a 1,500-word article on geopolitical volatility and its impact on the London insurance market. It’s a broad topic so the challenge is one of brevity and focus.

Later, after the last email is sent and Outlook is shut down, my wife and I prepare for the village pop-up pub. Like many villages, the real pub shut five years ago.

When we return home, the dog is snoring contently while my eldest daughter binge watches Bridgerton. I think I’ll follow the dog’s example.