Having announced just over a week ago that it has formed a host of
strategic partnerships with a panel of insurers that includes industry giants such as
AXA,
Ageas,
Allianz,
RSA and NIG, Broker Network has outlined that it now has a stronger proposition than ever as it goes on the search for key broker acquisitions across the country.
Speaking to
Insurance Business, Broker Network’s CEO Andy Fairchild outlined that the business is looking to follow up on it purchase of
Finch Group in October last year.
“We’ve got a real intent to build regional broking centres, similar in their nature to Finch, around the country – but we want to make sure we do that in a measured and selective way,” he said. “The businesses and management teams must be right for us and we must be right for them.”
In an effort to further enhance its offering to members, both existing and potential, the firm has formed a five-strong panel with the major insurers that will focus on the development of bespoke products and propositions, while giving them access to enhance trading capabilities, agencies and improved service levels.
“We’ve had long-term relationships with all of these new strategic partners. There’s lots of ‘new’ about our panel, but there’s also something quite long-term about it too,” Fairchild explained.
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“We talked to them about a new strategic direction for our business. It revolves around a real desire to develop products for our network brokers and secondly to use our capital to make broker purchases, the first one of which we did a few months ago in the form of the Finch Group.
“We talked our insurer partners through that long term strategy and from that we found our panel.”
As part of the partnership, the network will introduce products under its ‘Exclusively Yours’ banner that will only be available to members. It already offers commercial combined, property owners’ and an excess liability product with Fairchild saying “there’s more to come,” – potentially as early as its Broker Live event on March 27.
In addition he pointed to a “real desire to get the right underwriting and trading appetite in place to support the growth of our members,” highlighting that Finch Group has been able to make two acquisitions of its own since the Broker Network takeover and that he hopes to give more brokers access to the capital they need to grow.
“We get independent, community based, entrepreneurial broking. That’s how we’ve built our business,” he said. “We get what it takes to succeed.”
Related stories:
Broker Network creates new insurer panel
“They won’t be alone,” – Broker Network outlines acquisition plans
