Business can be a cut-throat and lonely place for leaders, but it doesn’t have to be and ICMIF offers a potential solution to both of these challenges.

To me, insurance and mutuality are intertwined, and their purposes and origins are symbiotic. Through an intrinsic customer centricity linked to its purpose (of helping solve the problems its owners set it up to solve) the mutual model helps, but does not completely eliminate, this win-at-all-costs approach to business. I won’t labour this point as there are several recent blogs and resources in the ICMIF Knowledge Hub on the benefits of the mutual model, but I do want to explore how ICMIF also offers a possible solution for loneliness.

But first, let me explain a little bit about FMG and how our origins also touch on these two topics of common purpose and connectedness to drive better outcomes. FMG was set up 119 years ago by a small group of farmers who couldn’t access fair and affordable insurance, as the then English Tariff Companies did not understand the risks of life on the land in New Zealand at the time and priced it out of reach. In true pioneering style, these farmers came together to challenge the status quo. Each committed a ‘promissory note’ to contribute premiums to a pool to support each other when things went wrong. The concept caught on and, in 1905, the first Farmers Mutual Associations were formed in multiple regions of the country.

Over time, these mutuals amalgamated to achieve greater scale and efficiency and became the Farmers Mutual Group (FMG) that exists today. As it happened, none of the visionary founders ever had to call on their promissory notes before the premium pool became self-sufficient to fund the groups losses, and as such, no one has actually ever put a dollar of capital into the mutual. Today, all farming and growing members that have a policy with us hold an equal and undivided interest in FMG and we now protect the assets and interests of over 55% of New Zealand’s farmers and growers, who in turn are the largest export revenue generating industry in the country. So, when we say in our marketing that ‘we’re here for the good of the country’, it’s drawn from clarity of our purpose, and we mean it on multiple levels.

Even if a business does not subscribe to the win-at-all cost model, today’s complex workplace can still be a lonely place for an executive. When faced with a new challenge or uncertain circumstances, leaders often find there aren’t many people they can turn to that have the same context or experience. Indulge me as I take this concept a step further. When you go to a conference to upskill in your professional domain (it could be accounting, strategy, marketing, underwriting, customer service, etc or leadership), you’ll typically have attendees from various industries applying those insights to their context/industry. When you go to an insurance industry event, you’ll typically be surrounded by peers but most will be your competitors – which doesn’t create for the most open and sharing environment! While we can always learn from other industries, in my experience neither of these scenarios creates the same open candor, learning and sharing opportunities that ICMIF and its global member-network can.

With the ICMIF Biennial Conference coming up in Buenos Aires in November this year, I’ve been reflecting on what value FMG gets from ICMIF and this insight is the one that I keep coming back to; ICMIF brings together a network of like-minded organisations with similar business structures (member owned), often similar origins, common purposes, and all within the insurance sector, making it easy to find and share relevant knowledge, experience, successes, and mistakes in a largely non-competitive environment rich with learning, growth and friendship opportunities. This is particularly useful when discussing topics such as approaches to employee engagement, ways of working, increasing regulations, climate change and adaption, and societal changes, because as member-driven, purpose-led, and people-focused organisations, mutuals often look at these issues with a different lens. I know we do.

Through my involvement in the ICMIF Intelligence Committee, even when insurers are operating in a common market, I have seen excellent examples of genuine collaboration, openness and knowledge sharing among mutuals (in Canada in particular). As a truly global network, ICMIF can connect you with plenty of like-minded members, in different jurisdictions, who are often grappling with similar issues.

As I look ahead to November, I also look forward to reconnecting with many people from across the globe that, through our engagements, I would now call friends. The Biennial Conference agenda for Buenos Aires is full of exciting content and speakers, touching on the important and emerging trends and risks you’d expect with a premier event, but for me, I’m most excited by the opportunity to take those insights and amplify them through continued sharing and exchange with fellow ICMIF members and by applying it in real-world scenarios. The Conference then goes from being a three-day gathering to a platform that can launch and embed an ongoing learning and knowledge sharing network.

This is something I can confidently say FMG has benefited from through our active involvement with ICMIF. We’ve encouraged leaders across our business to tap into the ICMIF network and many of you will have seen a sleepy-eyed Kiwi or two on a webinar or roundtable at 2am NZT. We do this because we get value from it, otherwise we’d be tucked up in bed! We’ve also invested in senior leaders attending ICMIF’s Advanced Management Course to support their growth and connection to mutuality. The course covers the challenges of leading in a complex world while overlaying mutuality across this and applying it in an insurance context. Again, attendance is among fellow insurance professionals across many cultures and jurisdictions all willing to share and collaborate. It’s about the most diverse and inclusive course I’ve ever attended, and I personally couldn’t vouch for it enough.

Thanks to the many introductions ICMIF has facilitated for us, I believe that the relationships we’ve built across the ICMIF network is where FMG has benefited the most from our membership. Before developing our own digital strategy, a colleague and I conducted a digital study tour of numerous mutual and cooperative insurers either side of the London Biennial Conference. The openness of the likes of NTUC Income in Singapore, NFU Mutual in the UK, ALKA in Denmark, and Co-operators in Canada was invaluable in helping us set our strategic approach and avoid a few pitfalls.

We’ve also enjoyed a long-standing relationship with NFU Mutual in the UK, which has included a talent exchange programme where young and upcoming leaders were given deep exposure to the respective organisation for several months. That programme was so successful for FMG that we’ve retained all bar one of the participants – and we remain very close with the one that got away.

We are also hugely grateful to NFU Mutual for their support in our hour of need in February 2023 after the Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle caused significant devastation. We reached out to NFU Mutual for support around setting up a major flood-related catastrophe response programme as we knew they had experience in responding to major flooding events. These two weather events, only two weeks apart from each other, were the largest catastrophe event in our mutuals’ history. When we reached out to NFU Mutual, with little hesitation, Nick Turner (CEO) offered the services of two of his senior leaders who had experience in exactly this space, to come out and support us. The knowledge and experience they provided FMG in setting up our programme was invaluable to our overall response.

As we’ve leaned more into the ICMIF network, we’ve found we continue to get more from it. And hopefully, those we’ve engaged with find the exchanges have been reciprocally beneficial. We recently sent a small group from FMG to Wawanesa in Canada, ahead of the annual Guidewire conference in the States. The team gained immense value from that exchange and have applied some of the insights to how they’re approaching our transition to Guidewire Cloud.

We continue to uncover opportunities to share and learn across a wide range of topics, and a number of exchanges with other members; whether that has been benchmarking, client engagement strategies, people retention strategies, or other topics. All these opportunities have come about through building relationships; whether that’s directly with ICMIF or directly with the ICMIF member network.

In my mind, there’s no better way to build relationships than through face-to-face shared experiences, so if you are wondering whether it’s worth attending the Conference in Buenos Aries, I’d encourage you to consider the investment beyond just a three-day conference and consider it as a platform from which to amplify your ongoing learning through the networks you create when you attend. In her recent blog, Kim Palatnick, VP and Chief Strategy & Member Experience Officer at Wawanesa Insurance in Canada, and Vice Chair of the ICMIF Intelligence Committee referred to it as, “having access to industry experts who know mutuals through-and-through, all at a fraction of the cost”. I like that…and who knows, you might even find you make some new friends. I certainly find the world feels a smaller and a less lonely place with a few more friends in it.