The Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) has announced the finalists for its New Zealand Insurance Industry Awards.

The winners will be announced at a dinner in Auckland on October 24.

ANZIIF is the sole organiser of the awards this year after the Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand (IBANZ) withdrew in the face of an ANZIIF decision to run its own awards event. 

IBANZ had previously managed a successful industry awards event, but last year ran the event in collaboration with ANZIIF after the institute announced it was planning its own New Zealand awards ceremony.

The broker association decided to run its own event this year after ANZIIF “either ignored or rejected” its views on a wide range of organisational matters arising from last year’s jointly hosted awards event.

IBANZ announced it would revert to running its own event in November and ANZIIF immediately announced plans to run an identical event a few weeks earlier. IBANZ then cancelled its event “in the best interests of the industry”. 

An 11-person panel has selected the following ANZIIF award finalists:

• Claims service provider: 
Asteron Life and Cunningham Lindsey
• Direct insurer: 
AA Insurance, FMG and MAS
• Intermediated insurer: Lumley, NZI and Vero
• Life insurer: Asteron Life and Sovereign
• Large broker: Crombie Lockwood and Willis
• Small/medium broker: ICIB and 
Lifetime Insurance
• Insurance leader: Carl O’Shea (Crombie Lockwood) and John Lyon (Lumley)
• Young professional: 
Alistair Monk, Chris Bull, Gareth Evans and Sonya Ohlen
• Innovation: AIG and 
Lantern Insurance
• Law firm: DLA Phillips Fox and Duncan Cotterill
• Service provider: Finity and JB Hi-Fi.