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Making comprehensive supplier assurance possible for NFU Mutual

How we helped NFU Mutual use pooled audits to strengthen supplier relationships and move forward with collectively meeting regulatory obligations.


Who is NFU Mutual?


NFU Mutual is a leading UK insurance company, established for over a century. The company focuses on supporting the farming community through a range of insurance products, including motor, home, business, farming and equine specialist policies. 

A key objective for NFU Mutual is to be a great company to do business with, and this includes supplier relationships. Fundamentally, the company fosters an ethos of working together to solve common challenges, and it’s with this mindset that NFU Mutual find a natural fit with Hellios and the wider FSQS community.  

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What was the challenge?

High cost of third-party audits 

Low visibility of areas of concern prior to audit

Lacking internal resource to carry out supplier audits 

NFU Mutual has expanded its supplier assurance by utilising Stage 3 FSQS pooled audits, making it possible to cover more suppliers with the same resources. 

By using Stage 3 pooled audits for many suppliers, NFU Mutual lightens the assurance burden for everyone involved while gaining greater supplier visibility. For its most critical suppliers, the insights from pooled audits help target direct assurance where it matters most, reducing the overall amount of direct testing required.

The result is a more time-efficient, cost-effective process that places less burden on suppliers.

 

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“FSQS allows us to focus on what’s important. We can cover a lot more ground than trying to do it all ourselves.” 

William Apted
Information Risk Management Analyst
at NFU Mutual

How NFU Mutual is able to benefit

Getting deeper and broader visibility of their supply chain 

Focus on areas of concern; less likely to miss crucial information 

Starting point for collaborative discussions for improvement 

Being part of a wider community helps to amplify the voice of smaller financial organisations, and while NFU Mutual is not the smallest, using pooled audits and other community approaches helps their voice to be heard when dealing with larger institutions.  

On top of this, contributing and learning best practice from others, and hearing from suppliers first hand, helps NFU Mutual and other buyers understand the challenges faced by suppliers across the industry.  

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Pooled audits and FSQS Stage 3 fits right alongside NFU Mutual’s supplier relationship code, acting as a vehicle for further supplier discussions while saving time, cutting costs and mitigating supply chain risk.

Good to work and support the community on all the third party challenges we might face. It’s important to us to be able to have a voice for our own needs and to be able to share best practice with the rest of the community.

Scott Beasley
Information Risk Management Consultant
​ at NFU Mutual

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"With more and more regulations and security threats emerging each year, the ability to audit our suppliers via FSQS Stage 3 provides another layer of assurance and saving us time and resource in our audit schedule"

Emily Wright
Information Risk Management Analyst
at NFU Mutual

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Over a twelve-month period, NFU Mutual has participated in 12 pooled supplier audits, they estimate that they’d only have reached 50% of these working independently.

When conducting direct audits, the prior knowledge provided by FSQS Stage 3 has reduced the time and effort required.