Faith and community care specialist Ansvar is to decentralise its operations and give more authority to relationship managers working with brokers.

CEO Warren Hutcheon says underwriting authority will be pushed back to the branches in coming months. “Brokers will be able to get quicker decisions at the state level from the relationship managers they are dealing with,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

Ansvar has recruited business relationship staff with underwriting backgrounds, so the transition will not be a major challenge for them, he says.

Mr Hutcheon, who became CEO four months ago, is reversing his predecessor Andrew Moon’s centralisation strategy.

He says centralisation made sense during Ansvar’s transformation of recent years, when it quit personal lines to focus on faith, heritage, education, non-profit and care sectors.

The insurer was also rocked by the Christchurch earthquakes’ impact on its New Zealand business, and quit that market.

Mr Hutcheon says he is now responding to broker feedback that Ansvar is sometimes slow and does not give enough access to decision-makers. “We have to be very agile and be truly expert and dial up our market research capability as well.”

Ansvar is also seeking more opportunities in the SME sector among smaller non-profit and faith organisations.

Mr Hutcheon says Ansvar’s parent, Ecclesiastical Insurance of the UK, has confidence in the company and is willing to consider investing back into it.

He has redesigned the roles of his management team, appointing Phil Gare as COO, Richard Wyatt as CUO, Ian Ireland as GM Business Development and Jovaline Lee as GM People and Brand.

David Davies remains Chief Actuary and Deirdre Blythe CFO.