Dan Blake

Background

About Dan Blake

Let's be honest, no-one ever goes to school or university with the mindset of working in the insurance industry, and this includes myself! Anyone who says they did need to be approached with caution! However, I was lured into the industry back in October 2007 upon a recommendation from my best friend and I have to say it's the best career decision I've ever made. Having had no prior knowledge of insurance (bar trying to buy the cheapest car insurance on an annual basis), I have developed extensive technical knowledge of commercial insurance products whilst managing complex insurance portfolios for clients of all sizes across varying industries during an invaluable experience as an Account Manager for 4 years at J K Lee (which later became part of the Cobra Group). During this time, I studied hard and achieved ACII qualification inside 3 years and then in January 2012 I took up the role of Account Director of the Schemes & Affinities Department, which was a move away from the commercial sector but I felt it would be key to broaden my horizons in the insurance sector. Whereas I enjoyed my time with Schemes, my heart was getting back into corporate / commercial insurance broking and in September 2014 I leapt at the opportunity to work for Watson Laurie Ltd as a Corporate Account Executive managing a variety of clients, from SME's to large PLCs with turnovers ranging from £1m to £500m, of which the larger clients have premium spends in excess of £1m. Through organic growth and introductions from existing clients, towards the end of my time at Watson Laurie, I was managing over 50 clients with a commission/fee income of over In June 2022, I left AJ Gallagher (who had acquired Watson Laurie in 2021) in readiness to join Vista Insurance Brokers in July 2022 as their new Head of Private Equity. This role will bring together all my experience over the past 15 year from my technical upbringing at JK Lee through to the client facing fast-paced role at Watson Laurie. Whilst I will continue to hold client relationships from a broking perspective, this will be on a reduced scale as the main duties of my role at Vista is to expand on existing relationships with Private Equity Houses and Corporate Finance companies and forge new links with other businesses who have needs for technical due diligence advice on insurance portfolios of companies they are looking to invest in or are acting on behalf of the existing management looking to exit the business.