Marsh Australia has rejected rumours that it is to centralise broking activities, potentially leading to redundancies in some states.
Some members of the insurance industry expressed concern that the global brokerage has formulated a plan to centralise broking operations in Melbourne or Sydney.
Marsh Australia told
Insurance Business there was no truth to claims that it is centralising broking operations and making redundancies.
A spokeswoman explained that Marsh began a process of transforming the company’s operations two years ago, a project encompassing changes to processes, technologies and support roles.
The company launched Marsh Client Operations in Sydney in October last year. The process saw the centralisation of 23 existing roles, non-client facing support roles and team leadership roles, into a new operations business unit.
“There have been no redundancies”, the spokeswoman stressed.
The transition of operational activities and tasks in other Marsh offices, including Brisbane, will commence later this year.
Marsh Client Operations will also be established in Melbourne to ensure Australia-wide service for its brokers. During this process, the company will identify appropriate levels of resourcing and task allocation on a state-by-state basis. In offices where Marsh Client Operations does not operate, all opportunities to redeploy or relocate those colleagues to other roles and offices will be explored. Again, Marsh stressed that the roles affected will be non-client facing support roles and team leadership roles.
The spokeswoman added: “The extended roll-out period of Marsh Client Operations has allowed the company to minimise the risk of redundancy of roles through natural attrition and alternative staffing arrangements.
“Ultimately, these changes have been designed to improve our client service delivery along with our internal operational efficiency,” she said.
As well as creating Marsh Client Operations, the brokerage has invested heavily in upgrading the company’s technology platforms, including the introduction of a new document management system and a new workflow system.
