When Intact Insurance rebranded in the UK following its acquisition of RSA, the organisation did more than change its name. It also began reshaping how it tells its story.
In a recent epresspack webinar, Jon Sellors, Director of External Affairs and editor-in-chief at Intact Insurance, explained how his team has moved from a traditional press office model to a fully integrated content hub, and what that means for PR and comms leaders planning for the next few years.
Below are the key takeaways.
From fax machines to content ecosystems
Jon began his career in the late 1990s with two core tools: a press release and a fax machine.
At that time, the comms function was largely a small, siloed team focused on journalists, particularly specialist insurance correspondents on the national titles, and on managing those relationships through lunches, drinks and carefully timed press releases.
Today, his reality looks very different:
- Communications is tightly aligned to business strategy.
“Everything we do starts with 'what is the business trying to achieve and how can we help?'” - The toolkit is far broader, including the corporate website, social channels, employees as advocates, webinars, video and more.
- The function is cross functional and advisory, helping senior leaders craft and curate messages, not just push them out.
Communications is no longer the team at the back, called on when things go wrong. At Intact Insurance, it is positioned as a driver of brand and business success.
Breaking silos: building a true content hub
One of the most significant steps Intact Insurance took was structural.
Historically, like many organisations, Intact Insurance had separate teams for marketing, PR, internal communications, digital, social and public affairs. Each had its own plans, priorities and channels.
Just over a year ago, that changed. Intact Insurance brought:
External affairs (PR and public affairs)
Internal communications
Marketing and brand
Digital and social
under a single operating company leader.
The thinking was simple.
“We are all content creators. It is more efficient and effective if we operate as one function rather than a collection of silos.”
Jon's role now spans two hats:
Director of External Affairs
Editor in chief for the entire marketing and communications function
That editor in chief role is part air traffic controller, part strategic filter. It ensures the right stories are told, in the right way, at the right time, and sometimes it involves saying no when content does not support the wider strategy.
The content grid: planning once, executing everywhere
To make integration real, Intact Insurance uses two connected tools:
Content strategies that define what content is created and why, aligned to business goals.
A content grid that manages how and when stories are published and distributed.
Every Friday, representatives from external affairs, internal communications, marketing, digital and social sit down together to:
Review the week ahead, what is going out, on which channels, and where there are gaps or overlaps.
Ask questions such as:
If marketing is creating this, what is the employee angle?
Is there a media angle?
Is there a regulator or trade association angle?
Make each piece of content work as hard as possible across audiences.
That weekly view is complemented by:
A monthly review that looks back and forward
A quarterly deep dive to keep the plan aligned to the wider business roadmap
The result is a single, shared view of what is coming, and far fewer surprises.
“Create once, use many”: a mindset shift
At the heart of Intact Insurance's model is a simple mantra:
Create once, use many.
For PR professionals brought up on the idea of “this is a press release” or “this is a pitch”, that is a significant mindset shift.
Instead of thinking in channel silos, teams are encouraged to:
Bring their stories into the grid conversation early.
Look at every piece of content and ask:
How could this work for customers?
What is the internal story?
Is there a broker angle, or a regulator or trade angle?
How does this support our overarching content and business strategy?
The benefits are twofold:
Efficiency, with less reinvention and more reuse and repurposing across channels.
Consistency, which matters in a world where audiences blur, internal content moves external, and LinkedIn posts are picked up by journalists.
Measurement: from anecdote to analytics
Intact Insurance's integrated model is still relatively new, so this year has primarily been about putting the building blocks in place and getting teams into a new rhythm.
Formal measurement is the priority for next year. For now, the signs are promising:
Senior stakeholders talk about the maturity of comms and the step change in how Intact Insurance shows up in the market.
External audiences are telling leadership:
“You are showing up differently. We are hearing more from you, more consistently, in more places.”
Looking ahead, Intact Insurance plans to combine:
Audience research and surveys
Digital metrics such as website visits, click throughs and engagement
Channel performance across media, social and owned platforms
to build a clearer view of what is working and where to invest.
The changing media landscape: earned, trade and LinkedIn
The external media environment has shifted dramatically:
National titles largely no longer have dedicated insurance correspondents, with the FT a notable exception.
Many business and finance reporters now cover insurance alongside other beats, which limits opportunities for specialist stories.
For Intact Insurance, this has meant:
Trade media remains a core pillar and is still vibrant and influential in insurance.
Owned and social channels have grown in importance, particularly LinkedIn, which now sits near the top of Jon's channel toolkit.
As a B2B2B business, selling to brokers who then sell to businesses, Intact Insurance uses LinkedIn to reach:
Insurance brokers
Corporate insurance buyers
And indirectly, journalists who mine the platform for story ideas
Once again, the theme is integration. LinkedIn content supports trade coverage, which supports stakeholder communications, which feeds back to the corporate site.
Becoming a publisher: why Intact Insurance hired a videographer
One of the standout changes this year has been Intact Insurance's decision to hire a full time videographer, a first for the business.
Initially, Jon was sceptical. Would there be enough work to justify a full time hire?
The results so far are clear:
In less than a year, the videographer has produced around 50 to 60 videos.
Intact Insurance estimates a conservative saving of about £150,000 compared to outsourcing that work.
The team can react much faster, as the videographer is on site, knows the CEO and leadership, and can turn content around quickly.
Video now underpins:
LinkedIn campaigns
Internal town halls and conferences
External events and pitches
Brand building activity such as video around Intact Insurance's London focused rebrand campaign
The content that works best is anything with a human story. People stories, leadership updates and brand journeys all lend themselves naturally to video.
Looking ahead, Jon expects to invest further in video and to bring graphic design skills into the communications function, supporting richer imagery across channels.
The corporate website's “renaissance” and GEO
One of Jon's more striking observations is that the corporate website is having a renaissance.
He sees several reasons:
There are fewer specialist media outlets, so brands need strong, controlled spaces to tell their story.
Some organisations are more risk averse with media, so “our website” feels like a safer environment.
Large language models are now crawling almost everything on the site, not just the pages that attract the most visits.
As more business buyers use AI tools in due diligence and vendor research, the content on a corporate site will increasingly influence how those tools describe the brand.
Jon highlighted the growing focus on Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). There is a large volume of content that comms teams already create, particularly for one to one media engagement, that never appears on the website. Making that content discoverable and structured for large language models is a major opportunity.
His view is simple. Comms teams missed the SEO wave. They should not miss the GEO wave.
AI in the workflow: from headlines to tone of voice
Intact Insurance is at the early stages of its AI journey. After an initial period of restricting access, the team now has Microsoft Copilot at enterprise level.
Use cases so far include:
Idea generation and headlines, for example breaking through a creative block on a press release.
Research, as a faster way to gather context.
Tone and consistency, with Intact Insurance uploading brand values, leadership success factors and tone of voice guidance so that content can be checked against them.
The aim is to embed AI into workflow, using it to support consistency and efficiency, rather than treating it as a novelty search tool.
As Jon put it, this year has been about foundations: restructuring, integrating, adopting the content grid and the “create once, use many” approach. AI is the next layer that should unlock real gains in 2025.
Advice for comms leaders: where to start
For comms and PR leaders considering a similar shift from press office to content hub, Jon's recommendations are straightforward:
Start with relationships, not charts
Spend time with heads of marketing, digital, internal communications and web. Understand their objectives and share yours. Find the overlap.Recognise shared goals
Everyone in the wider marketing and communications ecosystem is ultimately trying to sell more, protect the brand and increase visibility. You are all content creators.Plan together, not in parallel
Intact Insurance has moved from separate plans that were retrofitted into a grid to one shared plan that feeds the grid from the start. Planning together makes “create once, use many” much easier.Use budget pressure as a catalyst
With most teams under financial pressure, the ability to do more with less through shared content and joined up planning is a powerful argument.
Integration, consistency and smart use of content are no longer nice to have. For modern comms and PR leaders, they are becoming the core of the job.
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