Absolute Military has appointed Johnny Timpson as chairman of its board.
Timpson, who has been working with the specialist insurer as an adviser, told Health & Protection the firm’s leaders have now asked him to step up to non-executive chairman.
Absolute Military was founded by the previous directors of military broker Abacus a year ago.
Over the past decade, Timpson has worked as an inclusion, diversity and intersectionality champion which includes his role as financial inclusion commissioner and committee member of Group for Autism, Insurance and Neurodiversity (Gain).
He also holds a number of public office, industry, academic and charity sector roles.
He was government’s Cabinet Office disability and access ambassador for both the insurance and banking sectors; prime minister’s champion group member for dementia communities; and was founder and chairman of the Access To Insurance Working Group.
He also currently works as an independent consultant.
Timpson began a three-year term as a member of the independent Financial Services Consumer Panel last April and has worked in the insurance and banking sectors for more than 40 years, including seven years at Scottish Widows as a financial resilience and protection insurance specialist.
But it was at Scottish Widows where Timpson’s work with the military first began.
“At Scottish Widows I used to run the armed forces safeguard scheme which was a group life and critical illness scheme. It was the first group scheme in the UK where people could buy units of cover,” Timpson (pictured) told Health & Protection.
“I’ve got quite a bit of history with the military so I was quite interested to take that role to try and improve the access to products and services and value for armed services.”
Steve Anderson, managing director at Absolute Military, added: “Johnny will ensure that the organisation delivers on its purpose of improving financial awareness, capability, access and resilience of UK Armed Forces personnel plus the service , value and outcomes they experience.
“This year is key in delivering a defining difference to the market. Johnny will help me steer a number of key innovations in 2022 including our Open Banking project designed to make sure that our community has access to financial services and cash facilities.”