Ipac looks to increase risk play
Sally Manion
Having established a group of specialist insurance advisers as part of its operations, Ipac Securities is looking to establish its presence in the risk arena and further grow its business through the acquisition of risk client registers.
Ipac began its initiative to service the risk needs of its existing clients via internal channels in late 2005, when four specialist risk advisers were recruited by the organisation.
“We’re sufficiently far in now. They’re doing good work and they’re working well with the other advisers, who are referring their clients to the specialists. We’ve built the capability and we’re ready to scale it up,” director and national head of Ipac financial planning Sally Manion said.
The dealer group’s move to extend its business model to include risk comes from a desire to provide a more complete range of financial planning services for its clients in the most efficient manner.
“We realised we had clients who had that need and we were previously referring them out. The challenge with referring out is while it actually served our needs well, as it allowed us to focus, it meant there was another step for the client to make,” Manion said.
“Often, they actually didn’t go and get the advice. Some dutifully did what they were told and trotted off to do it, but others kept saying ‘I must do that’, but they didn’t and they needed it,” she continued.
“Hence the opportunity we could see. If we just did it for them and made it easy we add value and reinforce our value,” Manion said.
Ipac is looking to acquire the risk client registers from other firms that are looking to focus their attentions on activities other than risk.
According to Manion, these might be practices that are segmenting their operations in some way, or not servicing risk needs anymore, or in the process of raising capital.
While the dealer group is primarily looking to acquire risk client registers only, Manion said if the fit was right, Ipac would not be averse to having the existing owner of the book of business join the organisation, as her firm was still wanting to assemble a more robust team of risk specialists.
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