the then managing director said:In our view, members of a mutual should ... decide how the business is run, and if they are not satisfied, they should get rid of the Board and the management rather than demutualise ... current governance mechanisms give ample opportunity to do thatBy 2000, Group premium income passed £1billion. The post of Group Chief Executive was created in 2005, with Ian Geden the first to hold this office. In 2002, Andrew Young retired and was succeeded by Ian Geden, who came from a farming family near Stratford-upon-Avon and had joined the Mutual as a professional trainee in 1969. He became Group Chief Executive in 2005 when that post was created. During his term, the general insurance premium income grew from £603m to £944m. In 2007, flooding brought more than 13,000 claims costing close to £100m, making it the most expensive weather event to that date. In 2008, Lindsay Sinclair became Chief Executive (the first such appointment from outside NFUM), There were reports that NFU Group Secretaries were dissatisfied with his leadership and decision to move away from the farming customer base In 2013, Bite Back, a forum for Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activists claimed to hacked the company's records; NFUM denied the attack. In 2015 NFUM asked the Prudential Regulation Authority to make an exception and reduce the scale of reserves required for it under Solvency II Regulations, this requested reduced solvency obligation is still in force for NFUM. This concerns the amount of capital that insurance companies must hold to reduce the risk of insolvency. A swimming pool for the staff at head office was closed and filled in in 2016, making way for rooms to do work rather than leisure in.In March 2021, Nick Turner took over as the current NFUM's Chief Executive. NFU Mutual had shared in losses of £58million connected with the collapse of Made.com, as reported in August 2022 in The Times. NFUM was named Which? 'Insurance Brand of the Year' for 2022'. Later that year, the business stated that the drought of that summer has seen a huge growth in (to in excess of 500) farm and combine harvester fires reported to it for claims and settlement - such fires cost the mutual around £100 million in the previous year, when incidents were lower. The number of fires was subsequently revised upwards to over 800. That year the Annual