Austbrokers Holdings has rebranded as AUB Group to reflect the company’s increasing diversification.

The name change was approved at last Thursday’s AGM, where CEO and MD Mark Searles outlined the thinking behind it.

While most of the group’s income is generated through broking, the underwriting agency and risk services areas have gained significance. The group has also expanded internationally to become the third-largest broking entity in New Zealand.

“In light of these developments, we have undertaken a review of our naming conventions and branding approach, to ensure the names we utilise are relevant to all the segments and geographies we serve,” Mr Searles told the meeting.

Despite the change to group branding, sector names – Austbrokers and NZbrokers – will remain. Sura continues to develop as the generic underwriting agencies brand.

“We thought about all the things we do as a group and wanted to ensure the group name was agnostic,” Mr Searles told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“Austbrokers is synonymous with Australian broking – it does exactly what it says – and that name will not change. But the group is a lot bigger than that now. We needed a name that didn’t suggest one area takes primacy over the others.

“It reflects the diversity of the group, and also shows that [the diversity] is here to stay.”

Mr Searles told the AGM of his pride that AUB is now “the largest equity-based risk solutions group in Australasia”, with more than 450,000 clients.

It delivered solid results last financial year, despite the headwinds of an “extremely soft” insurance market.

This is partly due to the continued diversification of profits, helping to “insulate us from the vagaries of the insurance cycle”. Non-broking profit has increased from 12% of the total to 23% over the past three years.

Mr Searles told insuranceNEWS.com.au the insurance market will remain challenging for a while yet.

“It is still a very soft marketplace,” he said. “But the level of rate reduction is lower than last year. We can see an improvement, although we are still in negative territory.

“I would expect to see small increases somewhere in [2016/17].”

The AGM marked the end of Richard Longes’ 10-year stint as Chairman, with David Clarke taking over. Tributes were also paid to retiring Company Secretary and former CFO Steve Rouvray, who spent more than 30 years with the business.

Mr Rouvray was replaced as Company Secretary by Justin Coss, with the CFO role already assumed by Jodie Blackledge in July.