Transforming the PPL learning experience of brokers and underwriters

Placing Platform Limited (PPL) is a not-for-profit company that produces the London Market’s e-placing platform of choice, enabling the placement of business between brokers and underwriters. Whilst all of PPL’s customers are commercial, and it therefore operates solely in the commercial sector, the market firms and associations are its stakeholders. The external organisations pay a subscription to access PPL’s platform and services, and all profits get invested back into development of the platform.

In 2023, the old PPL platform was completely replaced with the new Next Gen platform, to enable a ‘digital first’ environment. This in turn required totally new training resources and a new learning platform from which PPL’s customers could access them.

PPL’s LMS is not aimed at its own team. Its offering serves its customers, with approximately 20,000 external individuals across nearly 400 different organisations relying on PPL’s resources. This meant that providing a high-quality user experience filled with relevant, tailored learning was essential.

Successfully staggered implementation

Working with Cornerstone enabled PPL to design, configure and sandbox the LMS, ahead of launching the live version. PPL was then able to inform external trainers of the new LMS six weeks in advance, collecting feedback and information to improve the platform so it could hit the ground running from day one.

Faster learning material deployment

PPL’s deployment of new content is now faster than ever before – once the company creates a video or a guide, it can be implemented into the sandbox and then made live within minutes. This has resulted in users always receiving the most up-to-date content, and the use of the sandbox ensures that there are no issues around running, opening, and receiving content.

Improved access to learning

To better personalise training opportunities and maximise learning efficiency, PPL created separate learning content packages containing core process videos and specific live sessions to train brokers and underwriters in the most effective and efficient manner. By having the most relevant and up-to-date content available, users could better integrate learning into their flow of work. Additionally, through Cornerstone PPL created a custom administrator role to enable nominated people in customer organisations to easily access and view analytics reports around their users’ learning and completion rates in-house.

An elevated user experience

Since implementing Cornerstone mid-January 2023, PPL’s new LMS has received nearly 32,000 logins from 6,500 users across over 300 organisations. Numerous organisations have reached out to PPL praising the new LMS’ user experience, the drastic improvement in the quality of video content, and how it drives learner engagement.

Guaranteeing compliance

Users must complete 15 hours of mandatory CPD training, required by the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD). By using Cornerstone, PPL can ensure that all training activities have the relevant CPD minutes applied, and organisations can track their users’ learning and completion through the creation of the custom administrator role.