All Churches – Collective Insurance Bargaining

Collective Insurance Bargaining with the Anglican Insurance Board

AIB is a cornerstone member of the All Churches Bureau which was established in 1999. Members are the Anglican Church, Baptist Union New Zealand, Methodist Church New Zealand, Elim Church, ACTS (was Apostolic), Lutheran, Congregational, Assemblies of God, Christian Churches NZ and Presbyterian Church New Zealand. The Catholic Church is also included in some discussions. The All Churches Bureau members meet formally throughout the year to discuss areas of common interest such as investments, charitable status issues, insurance, risk management, compliance, agree policy and be a common voice to government. Only organisations who are members of the All Churches group are eligible to participate in the All Churches collective insurance programme. A key area of collaboration is in the area of insurance. In order to maintain effective insurance many of the All Churches members joined forces to purchase a collective insurance programme. The purpose was to achieve:

  • Superior cover compared to what members could buy individually
  • Competitive premiums
  • Strategic partnerships with insurers that would endure in times of difficulty

All Churches Insurance Bureau members purchase insurance for assets in excess of $3 billion in value. Supporting insurers have an A+ claims paying rating from Standard and Poor’s. Even in difficult market conditions, this buying power creates considerable leverage with insurers. Via Concordia Underwriting Agency All Churches have created strategic partnerships with insurers. This establishes stability in addition to a favourable negotiation position. These partnerships bring a mutual commitment, and recognise the value the relationship brings to both All Churches and the insurers. This insurer/ underwriting agency alliance means that the All Churches programme has been able to significantly reduce the impact of price fluctuations, and avoid many cover restrictions that may otherwise apply. The current and future benefits of the programme relies on solidarity and commitment by All Churches members to the insurers, and equally insurers to the collective by continuing to provide market leading cover at competitive premiums. All Churches believes that this approach provides greater long term certainty in adverse times should disaster risk be realised. Membership requires a belief that overtime, the buying group of $3 billion in assets will outperform the leverage of any one individual organisation when buying insurance. All Churches approach is firstly to ensure they have market leading cover, and secondly the most competitive prices that can be reasonably obtained.

All Churches has determined that the best mechanism for achieving this strategy is via an Underwriting Agency and Concordia Underwriting Agency has resulted from the joint venture undertaken by All Churches and Aviation and Marine Underwriting Agency. Please find attached a Concordia corporate profile.

Other benefits only provided with the AIB Anglican Church collective policy are:

  • Aggregation of Fire Service Levies
  • Self-management of a $500,000 deductible

While constituent members of the Anglican Church are able to access the programme directly, it is recommended that members who require in depth risk analysis beyond the services provided by a valuer or quantity surveyor continue to use a broker and alert them to the availability of the programme.

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