THE PACIFIC WAY
Welcome to Pacific’s online newsletter! We are pleased to regularly bring you the latest Pacific information and updates on products, services, special events and relevant industry news.
Your ongoing support is very much appreciated and allows us to continue making advances with technology and provide you with the best possible systems and service standards.
Company News
Message From Stuart White, Managing Director
As an industry, premium funders have faced substantial headwinds for the past four years - declining premiums, rising interest rates, a shrinking marketing and heightened competition. These are now turning into tailwinds as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) makes its way into the real economy here in Australia and around the world.
We are seeing insurance premiums rise, uncertainty over financing facilities and slowing demand for clients' products & services. As a result we expect the demand for premium funding to increased dramatically, as effective cash flow management has now become critical to businesses. Our product provides a strong alternative to customers who want to streamline their cash flow and spread the up-front cost of their insurance over monthly instalments.
The slowing economy will significantly affect the rate of defaults for all financiers. Data released by ASIC demonstrates an upward trend in the volume of external administration and insolvency appointments since September last year. Insolvency appointments for the December quarter, increased by 43% on the prior year and companies entering external administrations rose 40% for the same period. This is a trend I expect to see continue well into 2009.
Our response is to continue to provide our high standards of service, whilst ensuring we have a disciplined and responsible approach to our lending and collections activities. We are 'ramping up' the level and speed of our related communication and aim to work closely with you in this regard.
I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you over the past year and have set myself the challenge of being more visible in 2009. I look forward to catching up again, or indeed meeting for the first time! Thank you for your continued support.
All The Best,
Product News
Soapbox Update
The Pacific Soapbox continues to receive great suggestions and ideas on how we can provide better service and systems to you, our intermediaries So……Got something to say? Get on the Soapbox in Pacific Edge!
www.pacificpremium.com.au/soapbox
Collections - 1300 591 698
You asked, we listened, and now we are delivering…
We are pleased to announce the release of a Collections toll free number for our customers and intermediaries. For the cost of a local call, you can now directly contact the Collections team in our Melbourne office.
Hours of Operation
Monday to Friday, 8:15am to 5:30pm (Eastern Standard or Daylight Savings Time)
After hours calls are directed to a dedicated voice mailbox, for retrieval at the start of the following business day.
SMS
We have also now released SMS as an additional method for our Collections Team to communicate with customers. Customers have the option to reply via SMS directly to their Collections Officer, or to return the call on our toll free Collections 1300 number. Customers have responded favourably to this initiative and the flexibility it provides, however they can opt out of SMS at any time.
If you have any queries about the SMS tool, please feel free to contact the Collections Team on 1300 591 698.
The Pacific team is delighted to deliver these enhancements, thanks to suggestions received on our feedback portal; the Soapbox.
DID YOU KNOW
Did you know it is not necessary to send a cheque to Pacific for the first instalment? We can deduct this via the DDR signed by your client. In fact sending a cheque can cause processing and settlement delays, because a cheque takes four days to clear as opposed to a DDR which only takes two days.
Industry News
AFMA CONFERENCE HEADS TO NOOSA
In February, a few of the Pacific Team headed to Noosa QLD to participate in the annual AFMA Convention. Pacific and GE have supported the AFMA conference since its inception 14 years ago. The AFMA Conference has come a long way from the first few members attending back in 1996 to 150 members attending this year!
Pacific was proud to host a Trivia Dinner on the Thursday night which was a lot of fun. As is our long standing tradition, during the dinner festivities we awarded three Pacific High Flyer Awards to supporting AFMA members.
However, in a surprise for us AFMA gave out an award to one of our team. Pam Amber, our SA Account Manager, was presented with an honorary membership of the association, the third ever in AFMA’s 14 year history.
In making the presentation AFMA President Alan Douglas said, “There has always been one constant over the 14 year relationship and that is one of the Pacific team who adds sparkle, enthusiasm and excitement to everything she does. She has a positive and effervescent personality that is infectious. If business was full of people like her it would be a pleasure to go to work every day.”
Congratulations to Pam Amber and our worthy High Flyer Award winners: Lords Insurance Services (Best Peformer – Loan Contracts), Insuranet (Best Performer – GWP) and Insure Secure Invest (Most Improved Performer).
Left – Right: Barry Crichton, Alan Douglas, Pam Amber, Ian Clenaghan, & David Varley
GOLDEN TIMES AT THE STEADFAST CONVENTION
The 11th Steadfast Convention was held from 14 – 17 March at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
As well as attending the convention as a Gold Sponsor, Pacific also took the opportunity to take 110 of our supporters for lunch at ‘Oskars on Burleigh’. Guests were treated to a beautiful luncheon with spectacular 180 degree ocean views from Burleigh all the way to Surfers Paradise. Some guests were having such a good time they hit the dance floor and boogied the afternoon away to the sounds of jazz duo, Phoenix.
The Steadfast Convention was also the first event we attended with our new exhibition stand. Our new stand is bigger, brighter and certainly attracted the crowds. We had an Indiana Jones Pinball at our stand and many intermediaries demonstrated some pinball finesse that could be mistaken for a misspent youth.
The intermediary who scored the most points won our stand prize, a four piece Samsonite Luggage set. Our lucky winner was Steve Hind of Your Insurance Brokers.
It was great to be able to catch up with so many of our supporting intermediaries at the stand.
The Gold Sponsor dinners were the highlight of the convention. We were entertained by magician Matt Hollywood and David Campbell gave a fantastic performance at the final dinner. Congratulations to the organisers on another great Steadfast Convention.
PACIFIC IN THE COMMUNITY
THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES – A FIREFIGHTER’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT
Like all other Australians, our hearts went out to those touched by the catastrophic events of the recent Black Saturday bushfires.
It is at times like this, that people show their true colours and come together to help others in need, in any way they can. Many of our employees responded by donating to the Bushfire Appeal through the Red Cross. Further to this, GE offered to match all employee donations dollar for dollar with a total of $52,000 contributed to the appeal.
One of our employees was able to contribute a little more personally and we are all very proud of his efforts. Paul Bradbury, our Account Manager in regional Victoria is a member of the Echuca Village Brigade. Paul, originally from Melbourne, joined the brigade shortly after moving to his current home on the outskirts of Echuca, five years ago. As it’s hard to comprehend the large scale of the bushfires and their impact, Paul has kindly shared his individual experience:
Top: Firefighters at Clonbinane,
VIC
Bottom: Near Yea
Paul Bradbury: I boarded a bus on Sunday that left Echuca at 5am, having received a page on my mobile phone a few hours earlier. We travelled towards our destination, picking up enough firemen along the way to form a strike team (5 tankers with 4-5 people on each and a lead ute with 3 firemen).
I tried not to think too much about what we might encounter on the three hour bus ride and instead just tried to rest while I could.
I was part of the second shift of CFA(Country Fire Authority) strike teams that went to Clonbinane near Broadford. Looking at the amount of the bush burnt I had to keep reminding myself that this fire had only begun a little over twelve hours earlier. The glass in the windows of houses had actually melted, all the bricks exploded, more houses lost than saved, you’ve all seen the pictures on TV. I have never seen anything like the extent of the damage done. This day saw fire behave like we have never seen before. The speed was so quick there was virtually no advance warning.
There is a fire risk index which indicates what sort of conditions can be expected on a particular day. It takes into account temperature, winds, humidity, existing dryness etc. As a point of reference a normal summer day is 40 or 50 and Ash Wednesday was 100. Black Saturday was over 300.
I finished my shift twelve hours later at 8 o’clock that night and arrived home early the next morning. I was exhausted but glad that I had been able to do something that made even a small difference.
SUPPORTING OUR AFFECTED CUSTOMERS
In response to the recent Victorian bushfires and floods in Queensland, our collections team worked quickly to identify the areas and brokers whose customers were most likely to be affected and put in place a program to provide extensions and assistance as required.
Should you require more information on this program, please contact your local Pacific Account Manager.
PACIFIC VOLUNTEERS ASSIST WITH PROSTATE CANCER AWARENESS RIDE
Pacific staff played a significant role in organising the “Stick It Up” Prostate Cancer motorcycle event held by the E.J. Whitten Foundation in Melbourne on the 22 February 2009.
Pacific volunteers led by Connie Peidis and Tim Morosoli organised sponsors, raffle prizes, signage and other logistical requirements for the event. The team assisted with marshalling riders, taking registrations and selling raffle tickets with proceeds going to research into prostate cancer.
The Event
The event started at the Water Front City Docklands with approximately 350 riders meeting there for breakfast. After observing two minutes’ silence for the bushfire victims, the assembled riders headed off to the Werribee Park National Equestrian Centre (WPNEC).
“Last Ride Funerals” brought up the tail - a subtle message for those who believe this was just a ride without a purpose.
The riders on route to Werribee
Ted Whitten (Jnr) spoke about the foundation and his father’s circumstances with prostate cancer and the fact the disease can have no symptoms, which unfortunately saw his father lose his battle at the ripe age of 62.
The raffle was full of fantastic prizes and raised significant funds thanks to great support from the numerous sponsors, including Men’s Gallery, Jim Beam, No Limit Eelectronics, Andy Strapz and Harley Heaven.
With fantastic support from Reg and his team at WPNEC, as well as all the sponsors and volunteers the event was a great success. There is no doubt it will continue to grow each year and the EJ Whitten Foundation passed on their thanks to all those involved in making the day such a success.
For more information on the EJ Whitten Foundation go to www.ejwhittenfoundation.com.au
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