TIP takes on the northern division of broker

The acquisition, worth around £2.5m, takes The Insurance Partnership’s gross written premium – the amount of premiums the firm places for its clients each year – up to £55m.

This follows the acquisition of Rhodes Wood in Wolverhampton by The Insurance Partnership at the end of 2011. The latest takeover brings the TIP workforce to 175 with offices across the UK in York, Leeds and the Midlands, as well as its headquarters in Hull. Its offices in Wolverhampton and Sutton Coldfield are merging.

Independent insurance brokers the Riverbourne Group appointed Wilkins Kennedy as administrators last month.

The Insurance Partnership took on the Leeds office, with its five members of staff, and another broker Aston Scott took on the Riverbourne Group’s Surrey office.

Richard Tuplin, a director at The Insurance Partnership, which was founded in 1993 with four staff, said: “We did a collaboration on it so we took the north and they took the south.” He said: “This was again a strategic move to expand in our areas of strength, the commercial portfolio purchased in the deal will complement our corporate risks division who are also based in the centre of Leeds.

“We don’t have a commercial operation in Leeds so strategically we thought that those two would fit very well together. Therefore we approached the administrators, put a bid in and bought the business.”

He added: “We have found a great team of people and they have already settled in well in a matter of days and I am very excited about the potential and our future in the Leeds market.”

The business aims to achieve a gross written premium of £60m for the year to the end of June 2013, and £75m for the 2015 financial year. And, The Insurance Partnership continues to be on the acquisition trail, said Mr Tuplin.

“We have strengths in haulage, logistics, financial institutions, so we have our key areas, but we don’t really limit ourselves, we have specialists in each area and they are all charged with organic growth.

“We are quite a dynamic and aggressive company, so our acquisition of new businesses is key and then when there is a bolt-on or an acquisition we can make with an office or a business then that’s what we’ll do. If it’s culturally aligned with us, if it makes sense, if it’s profitable then we will always consider it.”

He explained that the company has so far grown “mainly by organic growth or by strategic acquisition, not by mass acquisition”. It has achieved growth through “fundamental client care and service”, he said.

“The Insurance Partnership name wasn’t just lucky, it was specifically said that the partnership would be between the clients, ourselves and insurers. And our service proposition has always been the backbone of our business and our client care.

“Retention has been a massive part of our business. We then grow with new business. We’ve got the right people working for us. And the good thing is we’ve never done massive acquisitions so we’ve never inherently had bad people. So we’ve continued to grow through good people, retention and good growth.”

The economic climate is a challenge for the business, said Mr Tuplin, who added: “The costs are being driven down. But I do think the service delivery, people want value in that, and I think we provide value.

“That’s [the economic climate] probably our chief challenge over next 12 months, as well as finding talented, qualified people.”

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