Gist (Insurance Brokers) Ltd has a proud history of providing insurance products to our area for very many years, like many businesses we have taken on the challenges of operating in these unprecedented times and seen it as an opportunity to refine the services and improve rather than cutting back, in our case we have continued to offer the same business hours and embraced the benefits of technology, more frequent use of e-mail, trade specific information from insurers on our website and the utilisation of electronic payments as well as video calling using such services as Skype, these will continue even though we are delighted that we can now welcome clients back into our office for the personal, face to face consultations that we value most.

Internally we have rearranged our office structure so that social distancing is easily accommodated and from a personal perspective, living over the office as I have done for many years, my daily commute is now a single bannister instead of two with my office relocated to the first, rather than the ground floor.

Taking the time available during lockdown to, like so many, having a spring clean has brough forth many interesting items, I recently found a supply of my Grandfathers business cards as the representative for London & Manchester Insurance nearly one hundred years ago, the original correspondence when Gist (insurance Brokers) Ltd was formed some sixty eight years ago, the documentation when I joined my Dad in 1973 – my how things have changed but we continue to be committed to providing all our clients with the range of insurances they need, whether it be a commercial contract for a factory, shop, office, let property or liability or a personal insurance to protect a home, car, unoccupied property, mobile home etc, in fact over the years we have even arranged cover on the more unusual risks too, hot air balloons and twins insurance come to mind.

I sincerely believe that these past few months have really illustrated the value of local services, the one that have kept going to keep us all going and I hope that the lesson is whether it’s a veg box or a policy to protect something that you value – shop local.