The Insurance Brokers Network of Australia (IBNA) wanted to combine its operations with Austbrokers and use AIMS as their brand – but Austbrokers’ owner AUB “showed no inclination” to discuss the plan.

IBNA Chairman Gary Gribbin says in the latest issue of Insurance News magazine that AUB’s reaction to this and other partnership issues led to his group’s decision in June to quit the 12-year-old AIMS joint venture and join Steadfast.

He says AUB had earlier “shown no willingness to engage” over several IBNA attempts to set up a combined broker system. “For IBNA and Austbrokers to be separately presenting connectivity systems was just ridiculous.

“What drove me to speak more seriously to [Steadfast MD and CEO] Robert Kelly was what I saw as a failure to collaborate in respect of the really key issues that are going to drive the future prosperity of insurance brokers – technology, brand, strategy.”

Revealing the closer partnership plan advanced by IBNA earlier this year, Mr Gribbin tells Insurance News the two broker groups would have “subrogated their own identities in favour of AIMS as the market-facing, market-negotiating brand – to be very much closer”.

The combined business would have had more than 150 brokerages and gross written premium of about $3.8 billion.

“The manner of the response [to the proposal], given the 12-year relationship, was very poor,” Mr Gribbin says. “That’s the kindest thing I can say about it.”

The current issue of Insurance News also features an interview with AUB MD Mike Emmett, who explains why the group is now planning to turn away from its former risk services strategy to re-focus on broking.

The print issue of Insurance News was mailed out to subscribers last week, and is available online here.