LMI Group and The Financial Services School have announced a partnership that will focus on education for the insurance industry.
The joint venture brings together two stalwarts of the Australian insurance industry and will be jointly coordinated by Dr Allan Manning and Carl Greenhalgh of LMI and Val Phinn of The Financial Services School, it was announced yesterday.
Phinn told
Insurance Business that the partnership came from mutual views on education and its importance for the insurance industry.
“We joined forces through our mutually agreed views on education for the insurance industry,” Phinn said.
“When it comes to education we are on the same page, the insurance industry is unique and the education programs offered to the industry should reflect this.”
Greenhalgh said that the move is a natural progression for LMI as they have been involved in developing software for broker assistance throughout their 17 year history.
“Next month marks the 17
th anniversary LMI will have been working with brokers to assist them in getting things right for their clients come claim time,” Greenhalgh told
Insurance Business.
“During this time we have also been developing software to assist brokers to try and get things right before a claim and as the industry would be aware LMI’s Allan Manning has been delivering training at most broker group PD days and conferences for just as long.
“We felt it only natural that we should try and formalise what we are good at and as such we looked into becoming an RTO.”
The new joint venture will run courses both online and in workshops, Phinn confirmed, as the new entity looks to further develop its market offering.
“Formal qualification courses including the latest Certificate III in Insurance Broking, Diploma of Insurance Broking, Tier 1 and Tier 2 short courses are already available and will continue to be delivered through The Financial Services School as the RTO,” Phinn said.
“We will be adding other qualification courses to cater for other sectors of the industry over the next 12 months.
“We will be offering continued professional development programs early next month. This will incorporate a number of learning modules and there will be a transition of learning modules over time. These CPD programs will be made available on a subscription basis."
The work of Dr Manning as an industry leader was praised by Phinn, who noted that his involvement in the formal education process will provide dividends for the industry.
“This partnership will allow us to merge our education resources,” Phinn said.
“Dr Manning has over the years produced invaluable learning materials and informal education to the industry, this combined with our own training resources and our capacity to deliver formal training courses, will provide to the industry an extensive platform of education programs for beginners through to experienced industry members.”
Greenhalgh noted that he hopes the new player will be able to work together with
ANZIIF,
who joined forces with NIBA to offer broker education last year, to further education for the industry.
“We will always be happy to work alongside anyone in the market,” said Greenhalgh.
“The ANZIIF/
NIBA partnership has a combined 163 years of experience in this field, we are just in our infancy, so we are hoping that they might want to work alongside us.”
