Acquisition of Brolink will improve Santam's efficiency

Andrew Coutts, head: outsourced business at Santam

The new consolidated business will provide brokers with a one-stop-shop for quotations and administration services from multiple South African insurers.

Andrew Coutts, head: outsourced business at Santam, says Santam will integrate Orico and the portion of its Riscor business not operated on Santam's inhouse systems with Brolink which it acquired earlier this year. "Brolink, Orico, the administration business previously owned by Indwe Broker Holdings, and Riscor are all established and respected players in the industry. Combining their operations will ensure brokers have access to quality processes and systems and exceptional people. The combined channel will offer brokers a seamless service, with access to quotes from multiple insurers, across multiple systems."

Growth opportunity

Coutts adds that, for Santam, the integration represents an opportunity to grow this portion of the group's outsourced business and to ensure best possible economies of scale are offered to the broker community. "Critically, we will remain uninvolved in the day-to-day operations of Brolink in order to give brokers and insurers confidence that the service is unbiased and independent."

The integrated Brolink business will be headed up by Clipstone Webber as managing director. He says that the newly expanded Brolink will provide greater scale and sustainability to improve operating costs and efficiencies. "Brolink will continue to expand and grow relationships with other insurers to enable us to provide a multi-insurer offering on both personal and commercial insurance. Due to the consolidation of Orico and portions of the Riscor business, Brolink will in future support additional IT platforms. This allows for further expansion opportunities."

The business within Riscor that is operated on Santam's IT systems will remain in Riscor and will not be transferred to Brolink. The Riscor team will be headed by Pierre Lourens and will retain its offices in Cape Town, Empangeni and Pretoria.