An aging broker workforce is one of several industry trends causing a gradual reduction of corporate members of the Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand (
IBANZ).
As many of these are smaller players looking for exit strategies, the resulting consolidation as these businesses get swallowed up by bigger organisations means fewer corporate members are signing up for membership.
IBANZ CEO
Gary Young says there are other notable industry trends causing the diminishing numbers.
“Regulation and a shift in insurer attitudes have brought challenges which make it harder to set up as a small broker,” he said, adding that it was not all doom and gloom however.
“We are still seeing the occasional broker seeking to do their own thing and break away from the corporate model so it is not a one way street.”
And the balance to the drop in corporate members was that the number of individual members was actually on the rise, he said.
Young said another effect of industry consolidation was that IBANZ was not planning to hold a conference this year.
“The larger broking companies and cluster groups are having their own conferences,” he said.
“This means we end up competing with our own members on conferences. We believe therefore that we are better to produce a different offering which complements what our members are doing.”
Young said this year IBANZ was looking to hold two forums, one in August and one later in the year instead of the big annual conference.
“This will be a follow on from the Business Interruption seminar last year with this year being a full one-day, hands-on workshop to be held in the Northern Club in Auckland,” he said.
“We see this as being more appropriate in the current environment.”
Young said IBANZ was still finalising details of the forums and could not confirm how the association would announce its annual awards, which was a big highlight of last year’s event.
He hoped to provide more details in the coming week.
