
29REGIS MUTUAL MANAGEMENT |
BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2018
Consumers may not have talked
enthusiastically about mutuality before,
but the values and attributes they are
gravitating toward in fact described the
very essence of a modern mutual.
Four milestones in our journey are:
1. Military family. Regis entered
retail in 2015 with the launch of The
Military Mutual (TMM), which aims to
better serve the needs of the “military
family” – servicemen and women in the
armed forces, reservists, veterans and
theirfamilies.
Broadly speaking, this community
is comprised of roughly 20 million
people. Between them is a strong
sense of community, a common bond
enshrined in the military covenant.
Many had experienced difficulty finding
financial products that took full account
of their particular needs – whether
this was a consequence of serving
or feeling unsupported by general
financial services companies when
making the transition into civilian life.
As TMM’s chairman Major-General
SirSebastian Roberts says, too many in
this community do not receive adequate
provision from financial services.
2. Public sector. For the first time, the
fire authorities have started up a mutual
using the discretionary mutual model,
albeit a hybrid version. This is significant
for us and for mutuality in general – it
uses our area of specialist expertise and
represents a strong endorsement of the
structures we’ve developed. We know
there’s plenty of interest among the
rest of the public sector regarding our
mutual structures and how they can
assist in the way risk is dealt with.
3. The high street. Given the external
challenges faced by high streets across
the UK, a mutual for independent
retailers made perfect sense.
The Retail Mutual (TRM) provides an
alternative to conventional insurance for
the independent retail community in the
UK. It exists to give them peace of mind
and protect independent businesses
on our high streets. A decade after
we started managing the mutual,
TRMnow has more than 4,500 covers,
protecting not only retailers’ businesses
but their homes and rental portfolios
too. With the support of Regis, the
mutual continues to grow, innovate and
introduce new products and services.
4. On the world stage. Three decades
ago, Australian universities were facing
difficulties. Commercial insurers had
abandoned aspects of a university’s
insurance that they couldn’t afford
to provide. As a result of this,
Unimutual, a discretionary mutual,
was established. Unimutual provides
cover for Australian universities and the
specific risks they have. With thousands
of staff and students, universities
essentially function as mini-cities. The
risks range from casualties, public
liability, professional indemnity, medical
malpractice and clinical trials to those
of management and cyber liability.
The member universities are a network of
businesses with specific needs and risks
to manage. An understanding of these
needs binds these universities together,
who ordinarily would be in competition
with one another. In almost three
decades, the Unimutual has become
the largest of our mutuals, currently
covering around $60 billion worth of
university assets across Australia.
The future
In terms of creating more mutuals, I
believe we’re only scratching the surface.
We have received approaches from all
directions, businesses large and small.
Interest is also coming from further
afield than customary. We’re currently
conversing with companies and lawyers
from Germany, Luxembourg and
France, where insurance markets have
become stultified and monopolised.
Whatever unfolds, we’ll continue to
be a pioneer for and advocate of the
mutual ethos in its purest form. We live
in the age of consumer empowerment,
and those businesses that put
consumers in the driving seat will be
tomorrow’s success stories. Within
this, mutuality has a key role to play; in
this respect, Regis aspires to be at the
forefront. The mutual advantage has
never been so tangible or compelling.
The Retail Mutual
provides an alternative to
conventional insurance
The Military Mutual aims
to better serve the need
of the military family
Businesses that
put consumers
in the driving
seat will be
tomorrow’s
success stories
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