David Haynes: ARAG UK chief executive ready to take firm to ‘the next level’

This article first featured in Insurance Times

Completing his first six months of an integration, the chief executive has now reached smoother waters and reveals his new ‘vision’ to kickstart a cross-party initiative and expand distribution to get the UK ‘on board with access to justice’.

Nearly two decades after he became a founding member of ARAG UK back in 2006, David Haynes was welcomed back with open arms to sit at the helm of the business, succeeding former chief executive and co-founder Tony Buss, in April 2025.

Moving up from his position as underwriting and marketing director, which he held for over 19 years – and despite confessing to not having “much exposure” to the hot seat prior – Haynes tells Insurance Times that he is “always one to throw everything at it”.

Fittingly, one of his first responsibilities included overseeing the integration of his former company DAS UK, which ARAG announced it was acquiring in July 2023, before finalising the deal in January 2024.

Haynes served as underwriting manager at DAS Legal Expenses from 1992 until 2005, before leaving to set up ARAG UK’s legal expenses arm alongside Buss and current ARAG UK director Andy Talbot, as well as another three founders.

After 21 months, Haynes says the DAS integration project is, to “a large extent, now complete”. This represents the culmination of a job that he has been tackling since his very first day as chief executive in the firm’s new Bristol office.

He says: “I would challenge anyone to say that we’re not delivering on what we said we would do.

“We told them we would be here for growth, not about cutting jobs. It’s about moving the business forward and being one business. I’m really enjoying that, because I can start to see the fruits of the hard work we’ve put in.”

Better combined

The acquisition united two longstanding competitors, creating a UK business with approximately £220m in gross written premium (GWP) and transitioning the operation from a managing general agent (MGA) structure to an in-house insurance model, under DAS.

When ARAG UK initially launched as an MGA, Brit Insurance acted as its sole capacity provider for 13 years, before HDI Global and reinsurance partner Scor came on board.

While Haynes maintains that ARAG has forged strong relationships with its presence in Lloyd’s, the integration should gradually allow the MGA part of the business to “dwindle away”.

For Haynes, this strategic pivot has been in the firm’s favour.

In times when finding capacity has been a tough feat for many MGAs, he explains that “having our own insurance company is a big plus of the acquisition, because we’re in our own destiny and it’s in our own hands”.

He continues: “Moving forward, we will be ARAG UK, but ARAG Legal Expense Insurance Company is our vehicle and everything we write will be our own capacity.

“We won’t be using the MGA to place business like we have done historically. The integration and the acquisition made so much sense from that perspective. DAS focused on strategic partnerships [and] mainly had a lot of big clients like NFU Mutual and Direct Line Group.

“ARAG PLC, as an MGA, concentrated more on the regional broker side, the MGAs, some insurers and we [have a significant business] in after the event legal expenses insurance (ATE).”

The acquisition also integrated the law firm owned by DAS into the business.

‘Access to justice for all’

Hiring a founding member of the UK team is fitting for the legal aid insurer in its position as a family-owned business, which is led by the grandson of founder and attorney Heinrich Fassbender, who set up the firm back in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1935.

ARAG Group is now the largest German family owned business, writing £2.4bn of GWP in 2024 across all of its operations.

Commemorating 90 years since the start of the ARAG Group business, Haynes says he hopes to deliver Fassbender’s founding mission, which was that “everybody should be able to assert their legal rights, not just say you can afford it, [but have] access to justice for all”.

To do this, Haynes reveals that ARAG are entering an arrangement with a high-profile third party, yet to be publicised, about how to extend its reach.

With these ambitions to kickstart a cross-party initiative, the new boss is seeking to address “how we can break down barriers and give people the opportunity to access justice”.

“In the UK the usage rates of our products is relatively low when you compare them to other countries within the group,” he says.

“So, [the initiative is] about making people more aware of when they buy the insurance is that they can buy legal insurance.”

He notes that one of the main restrictions to UK legal insurance is that all products are sold are add-on to other insurances.

For example, in Germany legal expenses insurance is sold as a standalone product and has high market penetration, with higher premiums being paid as it is viewed as an essential and common insurance, Haynes explains.

In the UK, however, most people only buy it as an add-on to their home or contents policy and often do not realise that they are covered.

Seeking to change this and grow awareness, Haynes stresses that expanding distribution is essential to combating this “challenge” and ARAG UK is currently exploring potential new channels.

This includes looking to distribute products sold through employee assistance programs in the UK – similar to its model in the USA.

Since its products are sold as add-ons rather than standalone policies, Haynes adds that the company have been developing several ideas to expand its product range into markets that previously haven’t had access to legal insurance.

He adds: “Breaking down barriers makes it fairer for people and gives people an opportunity to resolve problems that they might not be able to do if they haven’t got either legal insurance or anywhere to go.

“The main message from the group is that we will resolve your legal problem so you can get on with your life. That’s what we want to do and we’re going to be working with a party coming up to increase that knowledge and the awareness of legal insurance and get people more on board with access to justice.”

Moving to the next phase

As a key part of this moral mission, Haynes says the so-called “transformation phase” is in full force and will be ongoing for the next 12 to 18 months.

This phase involves a move away from legacy systems and onto a common platform that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) to ingest data more efficiently from its business partners.

Operating in 20 countries, currently the group has 50 AI projects undergoing testing in Germany which, if successful, “we can lift and then drop into our business”.

Haynes adds that its branch in the Netherlands is already using an AI documentation service that can summarise legal claims documents.

Meanwhile, the group is also seeking to test voice recognition services to improve claim handling time.

He continues: “We want to find ways of improving customer experience and customer journey.

“We want to make it easier for customers to contact us, make it easier for them to access our services and make it more known to them that they’ve got them in the first place because awareness is not always as high as it could be.”

The new ‘vision’

The future looks bright for Arag UK too, as Haynes proudly notes that the business is on track for around 40% GWP growth this year, driven by the transition of business away from the MGA model .

Haynes then expects GWP to reach around £300m by the end of 2027, which is roughly double the £150m at the end of 2024.

While his direct future looks to polish off the next 18 months of consolidation and transformation, beyond that Haynes believes Arag UK has the ability to keep growing wider distribution and “give that choice of how people can access services”.

This includes eyeing up the advancement of self-service to lodge claims and receive updates on the phone of a claims progress.

He concludes: “The opportunity is to really take Arag onto the next level and that’s to grow our penetration as well as handle more, help more people and have more claims.

“I’ve got a vision for us where we will continue to have wider distribution, more markets, more services available and also be slicker.”