Two years on: life under a consolidator

This month marks two years since Fish Insurance shed it’s independent broker title to join up with consolidator PIB, and MD John Garrard has been sharing his experiences.

After five years as Fish MD, he is one person well-placed to compare life as an independent broker to life within a consolidator, and his opinion is that things now have never been better.

While perhaps a predictable response, he makes a case for how business has improved by highlighting key differences between both models.

One area not commonly focussed on is the day-to-day running of the business and back office desks, but Garrard says here PIB’s assistance in taking care of this department was invaluable.

He said: “All smaller independents still need to take into account all of the services and departments like HR, compliance and facilities. What’s been great for us is that since we’ve come into the group we can rely on all of the day-to-day running to be done by skilled professionals for us.

“That means that we can focus on doing what we do best – selling our insurance products to people who need them the most. That’s where our entire skillset is, and for us that was one of the challenges.”

The specialist broker for people with disabilities or pre-existing medical conditions was the first to be acquired by PIB in April 2016 after the nascent consolicator won financial backing from the Carlyle Group. PIB boss Brendan McManus told Insurance Times the model had proved highly successful for the group since then, and to expect more acquisitions in the future.

But many independent brokers still worry that if they were to fall into the embrace of a consolidator, they would lose their ability to operate indepedently of meddling from head office. 

Garrard says he prefers to use the word “collaboration” as opposed to interference and says you have to take the “rough with the smooth” on decisions that are taken in the interests of the group as a whole rather than the individual broker.

“If you have a good enough reason to defend your case about why potentially using an existing market for instance is not good enough, then you make your case and certainly, from my experience, my views and opinions are listened to and considered,” he says.

“What I have access to now that I didn’t have access to two years ago far outweighs any of the cons of being part of a consolidator. Today I can make one phone call and speak to our group broking and placement director and find a market where I might be able to place some appropriate risks.

“Yes we could establish that sort of relationship by networking as an individual, but you don’t have that on-hand intelligence, you don’t have that speed, or that efficiency, all of which is very crucial to a business that is very forward thinking.”

And he adds: “For me as a standalone broker I now have access to a wealth of experience and knowledge of the insurance industry. I’ve been able to widen my knowledge and my experiences, but also in the reverse, colleagues around the group have been able to tap into all the specialist skills that I’ve got. It’s been a fantastic couple of years.”