Two significant mergers and acquisitions have been announced by two leading insurance industry companies over the past few days.

The deals will see PSC Insurance Group acquire the businesses of Australian Reliance and LMI Group enter the contentious insurance education market.

PSC has entered into conditional agreements to acquire the Australian Reliance corporate broking business and Reliance Partners insurance adviser network.

It has agreed to pay an unadjusted purchase price of $31.57 million. 

Australian Reliance has branches in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, while most of the national Reliance Partners business is held under various franchise arrangements.

PSC, which listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on December 14, says the current Reliance management’s interests in the businesses will be maintained. PSC director John Dwyer will become CEO of the Reliance Group and Dougald Elmer will become CFO.

Meanwhile, major loss management company LMI Group has entered a partnership with Brisbane-based education provider the Financial Services School as part of a drive to lift industry education standards.

LMI Group MD Allan Manning, who has previously noted his concerns about the industry’s education standards, says the partnership will focus on delivering high quality technical education.

“It is a natural transition for LMI to enter the education world,” Professor Manning told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“This joint venture will see the merging of the education resources of LMI and the Financial Services School [to] build on the school’s current education program and provide greater opportunity for the insurance industry to enjoy a wide range of training options.”

“There will be a direct focus on blending continued professional development programs with qualification courses.”

The venture will be co-ordinated by Professor Manning and Carl Greenhalgh from LMI and Financial Services School founder Val Phinn.

“As part of the merger we will be focusing on working with the education sector to improve the current training framework and ensuring competitive education training programs are available to the insurance industry,” Professor Manning said.

More details in the first regular issue of insuranceNEWS.com.au on February 1.