Tower NZ plans to integrate its separate business units to grow the company, Group MD Rob Flannagan says.

He told the Tower NZ AGM in Auckland last week that a comprehensive strategic review of operations has shown that leveraging the combined strengths of each of the existing business lines will lead to growth “in our chosen markets”.

“To support the implementation of the strategy, we have made changes to our operating model which was based around three quite separate business units: health and life, general insurance and investments.

“While this structure was appropriate in getting the fundamentals right, we believe a change away from a separate business unit model to an integrated functional model will both enhance our customer service and provide the opportunity to grow the business.”

Mr Flannagan says a new executive team will now review Tower’s business plans to identify growth opportunities and also reflect the regulatory changes to both the insurance and financial services markets in NZ.

“Tower welcomes these [regulatory] changes, and the group executive team’s focus at an operational level includes updating business processes to move towards full implementation of the core regulation that is reshaping the industry,” he said.