Regional smarts

Regional smarts

Adroit has spread its wings after starting as a small country brokerage, and Fabian Pasquini sees plenty of opportunity ahead

By Wendy Pugh

Fabian Pasquini has traded in the corporate frequent flyer commute between Australia’s largest cities for a role where the rubber hits the road in regional communities.

Executive positions at AUB Group over two decades meant countless trips between his Melbourne home, the Sydney head office and member companies around the country.

But time spent as regional operations manager representing Austbrokers on the boards of partner firms, including Geelong-based Adroit, also opened the doorway to his current role.

Mr Pasquini became Adroit Insurance & Risk Managing Director in December 2018 after putting up his hand to lead a business he was familiar with from an arms-length perspective.

“There was a change in shareholding at Adroit and it required a new MD and I got challenged by the guy in the mirror, at the tender age of mid-50s,” he tells Insurance News.

“I’d had many years working as a non-executive director and, I believe, adding value to a number of businesses, but I had never had the coal-face opportunity to be part of the leadership of a business like this.”

Mr Pasquini has worked in insurance since he was 18, after following his brother into the industry. He was a motor claims clerk for Federation Insurance, worked as a broker and held management positions with NZI Insurance, which became part of CGU. Recent roles at Austbrokers and AUB have included chief distribution officer and acquisitions and mergers general manager.

Since joining Adroit he has focused on understanding the business, its clients and their local communities at a deeper level as he moves to set priorities for the future.

“In my previous role, there I was, QF410, seven o’clock, up to the big smoke in Sydney three days a week, and I think at times we lose sight of the real Australia. One of the attractions for me was that Adroit was regionally based.

“This business is steeped in the strong DNA of community involvement, is strongly values-based and is a little bit different to a normal broking business in many ways.”

Adroit’s roots date back to 1978 when it started as Verrell Insurance Brokers in Geelong. AUB took up a shareholding during the 1990s and the brokerage has expanded its regional footprint to include branches in Albury, Ballarat, Bendigo, Maryborough, Drouin, Hawthorn (Melbourne), Traralgon (Gippsland) and Torquay.

Geelong Mayor Bruce Harwood cut the ribbon on a new head office in the city last September and Adroit is this year celebrating the 20th anniversary of its formation.

The owner-driver strategy AUB favours for its broker network is reflected within the Adroit group as it has partnered with principals, while avoiding a “cookie-cutter” template to arrangements.

“AUB is a majority shareholder in the business, and it works in partnership with us to ensure we maintain that ‘skin in the game’ structure, because our experience shows us that structure provides the best results,” Mr Pasquini says.

Adroit has more than 25,000 clients, transacts close to 60,000 policies annually and handles some $120 million in gross written premium.

The group’s scale allows it to have business services teams in human resources, marketing, finance, IT and learning and development, and it has a claims handling joint venture arrangement with Austbrokers Countrywide.

Mr Pasquini says Adroit has expertise in such areas as professional indemnity and trade credit that can be tapped by advisers, giving them an advantage relative to competitors as they work with a diverse client base. The business assists firms with workers’ compensation and has a strong income stream in life insurance.

Looking ahead, the focus is on ensuring Adroit maintains and builds strong relationships with clients as a trusted risk adviser, while the group will also expand and offer additional value through further partnerships and joint ventures.

Mr Pasquini says opportunities could emerge from interstate and from various sectors, industries or specialisations.

Adroit has a track record in joint ventures, including with a national rural products distributor, and he sees advantages in potentially working with accountants, credit unions and other groups that may also be looking to maximise their services.

Adroit’s portfolio ranges from retail customers to listed companies. It has a specialty in bus lines, is an associate member of Bus Association Victoria, and an adviser for other associations including hardware and retailing groups.

“We have to be trusted insurance advisers to the local business in Ballarat, to the farmer at the farm gate and then the home owner who comes to the counter at our businesses,” Mr Pasquini says. “It amazes me that people still love coming into the office and seeing us face-to-face and paying cash.”

Financial firms in general are facing greater scrutiny over their responsibilities to customers following the Hayne royal commission. Regulators, stung by criticism during the inquiry, are escalating their activity and new legislation is coming into effect.

Mr Pasquini says Adroit has the resources to effectively manage changes in regulatory regimes and can access expertise within AUB without needing to reinvent the wheel.

“We are often in contact with the subject matter experts at AUB on compliance changes and regulatory changes,” he says.

And he says that more generally, there is much to welcome for Adroit in the royal commission’s focus on customers, because brokers are well placed to show their worth through relationships with clients.

“I think it will ensure that we need to tangibly demonstrate our value, and that’s good,” he says. “Our change from transactional commoditised broker to actual insurance and risk adviser dovetails into that philosophy extremely well.”

Identifying opportunities: Adroit’s Fabian Pasquini

Nevertheless, the broking sector has been caught up in some less welcome royal commission fallout. Insurers have been focused on tidying up internal operations, and Mr Pasquini says some of the findings have been used as a justification for unwarranted proposals to force change on the insurer-broker relationship.

“Maybe some of the players in the industry need to remember that the findings of the royal commission had nothing to do with brokers,” he says. “I think the broking industry is super-professional.”

The Hayne inquiry recommendations have also seen brokers caught up in a follow-up review of remuneration arrangements, sparked by concerns over intermediary commissions in other areas of financial services. The review is proposed for the second half of next year.

“We do a lot of work for the insurers,” Mr Pasquini says. “If we weren’t doing the work at the coal-face, insurers would have to invest substantial dollars, far more than they are paying in commissions, to provide an infrastructure to service the client to the degree that the broking fraternity does.

“We shouldn’t be embarrassed, and we’re not, to sit in front of a client and say we earn a commission out of this process, and here is the fee that we charge as an administration fee on top.”

Currently, the firming market is also front of mind in relationships between clients, brokers and insurers, with brokers sometimes having to work much harder to ensure the best result, whether through a renewal or with a different underwriter.

“The hardening market and the increased rates don’t faze us. If it’s fair and reasonable we will work no differently to the way we always have in the past, in terms of ensuring our clients’ best interests are front of mind and foremost.

“I think the difficulty comes into play if there’s no commerciality, or illogical thinking around the process.”

Nevertheless, Adroit’s expertise, partnerships with insurers and the gravitas it holds more broadly, gives it an advantage over some competitors, he says.

Disasters such as the summer bushfires highlight the ability of the industry to collectively respond to client needs and help businesses recover, and Mr Pasquini says the contribution from insurance in providing capital to help communities recover is often under-recognised by the broader public and mass media.

Adroit’s aim after any loss is to ensure clients are returned to a position that is either the same as or better than before, and the groundwork for achieving successful outcomes is underpinned by the strength of relationships with clients and insurers.

“We immerse ourselves in our clients’ businesses in partnership with them to really understand where they have come from, where they are at today and where they are going to in the future,” Mr Pasquini says.

“One of our biggest discussions with our clients is, ‘where are you heading in this next three to five years?’ It’s not just a cursory two sentences, it’s ‘let me really understand’.”

Examples of going the extra mile have included development of a piggeries infectious diseases cover, placed in the London market after much hard work.

Mr Pasquini says the depth of expertise, talent and “smarts” in regional businesses is often overlooked in the office towers of Sydney and Melbourne, but there are many examples, and working with such clients is a rewarding part of his role at Adroit.

“We have got one of the biggest tourism operators in Australia as a client, and if you want to talk about processes, systems, risk management business continuity, just go and sit with them. They would show up many Collins Street professionals.

“There is real richness and depth and genuineness in people, clients and businesses in regional centres in Australia.”