Broker Co-op, after being introduced in April and having secured the required numbers, has now been officially set up and registered as an Australian co-operative, the goal of which is to address the “diminishing voice” of independent brokers in the country. Board director Charles Gow-Gates (pictured), in this interview with Insurance Business, gives the lowdown on the challenger cluster group.
“There really is no-one representing independent brokers now,” asserted Gow-Gates, the Broker Co-op founding member from Barrack Broking. In the co-operative’s view, the big corporate groups currently representing independent brokers have a greater focus on shareholders.
In the case of Broker Co-op – formally known as Independent Broker Co-operative Limited – it does not have external shareholders and will not seek to maximise profits or capital gains. Neither will Broker Co-op own any equity in its broker members.
Gow-Gates told Insurance Business: “We want to inspire independent brokers to be better and to grow. We don’t want them to be acquired and for the relevance of independent brokers to phase out. We do think that we have a good offering for independent brokers, and that there will be many that share our views.
“We’re not going to buy brokers. In fact, all of our members own Broker Co-op. We are here to support their businesses. We don’t want to compete with them. We’re trying to make life easier for them. We want to inspire, not acquire.”
High up on the agenda is sealing those commercial agreements with Broker Co-op suppliers and setting up members with co-operative services. In charge of entering into supplier agreements and liaising with members is Broker Co-op executive Jess Craig, who also sits on the board as director and secretary.
At present, Broker Co-op is only dealing with independent brokers not already aligned to a cluster group, which Gow-Gates said is probably less than 2% of the market. The priority is to get the co-operative’s proposition ironed out before targeting those connected with the big-name networks.
“We want to appeal to all brokers,” stated Gow-Gates, who is also joined on the Broker Co-op board by CRE Insurance Broking managing director David Harrison. “But because we’re only new, we’ve got some work to do on our services first. We need to be established and we need to get all of our services up to speed.
“We’ve got interest from a lot of other brokers to join, but we’ve got a way to go to work on our service level offering to get it up to a comparable level to what they’ll be used to. That’s the focus, is just continuing to engage with all those brokers that are interested in joining Broker Co-op and improving our service offering.”
The Barrack Broking director went on to highlight that independent brokers are brokers that are deeply invested in their communities, and that for them it’s not just business – it’s personal.
He declared: “I think we serve a really important place in the Australian insurance market. I don’t think it’s a good future if we’re heading towards a market where all brokers are internationally owned or ASX-listed brokers. I think that we have different values, and those values should be preserved. So, I think it’s important that we carve out a space for ourselves and have a voice.”
“I’m really excited that this is coming into the market at the right time,” added Gow-Gates. “There’s a lot of competition for independent brokers, so I feel it’s a really important time to be promoting the voice of independent brokers.”
