Foresters Financial / insurance / PRA SS1/21

From Centralised Plans to Business-Owned Resilience: Refreshing Business Continuity Recovery Planning for a UK Insurer

20 weeks from instruction.

The challenge

Foresters Financial align Business Continuity Recovery Planning with Op Res, Crisis & Incident Management.

Foresters Financial is a UK-regulated insurer subject to dual regulation by the PRA and FCA. The firm had maintained a sustained focus on operational resilience compliance, having progressed through the foundational requirements of its programme - identifying important business services (IBS), setting impact tolerances, mapping IBS-dependent resources, and conducting severe but plausible scenario testing. A mature ICT Service Continuity framework had also been developed to ensure technology resources supporting IBS were managed through robust continuity arrangements.  As part of its continued investment in resilience maturity, Foresters Financial identified the need to refresh its Business Continuity Recovery Planning (BCRP) capability. The firm had developed a centralised recovery plan, but recognised that this approach - whilst providing a documented baseline was not adequately embedded within business departments and lacked sufficient alignment with the broader operational resilience framework, impact tolerances, and crisis and incident management processes.  The resilience function  faced a practical delivery challenge: to transition from a single, organisation-wide continuity document to a structured set of departmental recovery plans that could genuinely support the firm's ability to remain within impact tolerances during disruption, with ownership and accountability embedded at the department level.

 

 

What FourthLine delivered

  • Review of existing business continuity management, operational resilience, and crisis and incident management documentation to assess current maturity.

  • Two role based awareness workshops delivered to CMT and business recovery teams.
  • 23 Business Impact Analysis Assessments completed across all in-scope department teams. 

  • 17 departmental Business Continuity Recovery Plans produced across all IBS-dependent teams. 

  • One Organisational Business Continuity and Crisis Management Plan produced, the firm's central BCM governance document. 

  • IBS Scenario Recovery Playbooks produced. 

  • Comprehensive plan quality assessment cycle completed across all tiered plans. 

  • SPOF Register, Consolidated Gap Register, Systems Register and Key Person Register produced. 

Engagement Outcome

FourthLine supported Foresters Financial to move from a centralised business continuity framework to a business owned, operationally embedded recovery capability aligned with its operational resilience programme and validated through structured departmental and cross-department exercises.

The firm entered its PRA supervisory meeting with a complete, evidenced operational resilience programme. The board evidence pack provided the regulator with the documentary record it requested on day one of the review. 
Foresters Financial

Start with a Diagnostic Assessment

A structured 4–6 week assessment of your [Insurance / Banking / Investment Management] firm's operational resilience position against PRA and FCA requirements. Fixed fee: £15k–£25k. Board-ready gap report delivered within 6 weeks