AN INSURANCE firm with offices throughout South Devon has been recognised as one of the nation's best.

The Pavey Group, which has offices in Torquay, Teignmouth and Totnes among others, was voted Independent Regional Broker of the Year in the Gold Awards 2009, sponsored by Insurance Times.

Three of the firm's leading figures received the award, given in recognition of the firm's independent status, at the Metropole Hotel at Birmingham's NEC.

Ray Illingworth attended with group chairman Michael Pavey and managing director Graham Brown.

Mr Illingworth said the award reflected the company's achievements in maintaining an identity in South Devon.

"The industry has gone through a lot of change in the last 10 to 15 years, and big has been beautiful for so long, with businesses seeking to merge to get economies of scale.

"We have been aware of that, but instead of being part of the takeover strategy, we stayed independent and maintained our identity in this area."

He continued: "We had a tbusiness consultant come in and say there were certain aspects that could be centralised from a profit point of view. But we said we didn't want to be part of the herd, and we wanted to be a community broker and stay in local towns in South Devon.

"It enables us to have a certain level of service as well as to maintain a reasonable profit margin."

Around 60 staff are employed across the various regional offices, and Mr Illingworth said staff turnover was low.

"Very few leave us other than for moving or maternity — but even those who have been on maternity end up coming back in most cases.

"The majority of our employees have five years' service — by being able to build up a network of staff we can offer a career in insurance in this area, where normally they would have to go to London."

Mr Illingworth said that different regional offices specialised in different areas of expertise, so staff could build up their expertise by moving between offices. And he added that being rated so highly by peers was rewarding.

He said: "In relative terms, we're still a small company compared to other companies that have merged — so being able to compete is a delight."