Members of the British Insurance Brokers' Association(BIBA) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of changes to BIBA's Articles of Association meaning that BIBA can implement the initial outcomes of its strategic review.
At BIBA's Extraordinary General Meeting(EGM) on Monday, 119 members voted in favour, with 4 against. This equated to 345 votes to 9 in favour of the changes that BIBA proposed to members.
The changes, in relation to the segmentation of membership and governance of BIBA, will include:
-A new model which separates members into five broad segments: Small firms with a turnover of less than £1m; Larger firms with a turnover of greater than £1m; Networks, aggregators, MGAs and other distributors; and UK nationals, London Market and international members. Each segment will have representation on the main BIBA Board with the small firm sector filling two positions(chair and deputy chair).
-The appointment of a non-executive director
-A strong regional focus with the regional chairs forming a Regional Chair’s Advisory Board. The chairman of this Advisory Board also sits on the main BIBA Board.
The vote follows an extensive dialogue with members including a consultation document and a number of events in each of BIBA’s 13 regions, ensuring that members were able to play a key role and shape the future of the association.
Steve White, BIBA's chief executive, comments "At the start of this review we promised to become a leading UK trade association for the 21st Century and we will now implement the changes to deliver this. It is not surprising that members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the changes because we have spent a lot of time engaging with them to understand and deliver exactly what they want.
"The strategic review is far from complete; we now have the challenge of taking forward these initial changes to ensure that we are as strong as possible for our members."
Andy Homer, BIBA’s chairman, said “The result of this vote completes the circle in terms of what our members have told us they want. The governance and segmentation proposals in our strategic review were initially suggested to us by members. We then published a consultation on the plans and received positive feedback from brokers large and small. Finally, the membership has now given their seal of approval to re-shaping the Association with an over-whelming ‘yes’ vote in our EGM. The BIBA Executive will now carry forward these plans in the coming months.”
The strategic review was announced in May 2012 with the appointment of Deloitte, who made a number of recommendations which have been taken forward by BIBA's Board and Executive team in six key workstreams.
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