UNIGRO and Indwe join forces to offer improved insurance services to customers
Leading agricultural services, food processing and grain commodities company AFGRI has announced a working relationship between its UNIGRO Insurance Brokers (“UNIGRO”) business and Indwe Risk Services (“Indwe”), a leading personal, business and specialist risk and insurance advisory business, in order to improve its current insurance offering.
UNIGRO Insurance Brokers, one of the businesses making up AFGRI’s financial portfolio, offers a range of short-term and life insurance products to agricultural and other customers. By joining forces, the offering allows Indwe to access the agricultural expertise that UNIGRO has built up over decades of specialising in agricultural insurance and financial products. UNIGRO will in return gain significant expertise by utilising Indwe’s full range of risk advisory services.
“We believe that there are a number of commercially sensible and mutually-beneficial grounds for a partnership with Indwe,” says Ross Simmonds, Managing Director of UNIGRO Financial Services. “These include optimising costs, enhancing and improving our existing service offering and diversifying our business, particularly in identified niche markets such as this.”
In addition to bolstering its insurance product range, the agreement will see UNIGRO Insurance Brokers and Indwe. optimising its branch network where appropriate, starting with the Nelspruit and Pietermaritzburg branches, followed by Upington and Kimberley.
The collaboration will also potentially allow UNIGRO to expand into Africa through Indwe’s Allied Africa Broker Network (“AAB”), an integrated network of independently African-owned and operated short-term insurance brokers, later in the year.
Peter Olyott, CEO of Indwe, comments that this unique agreement is designed to benefit both companies with the areas of collaboration far exceeding the areas of competition between the two businesses. The potential is great, the cultural fit between the two businesses is good and we both look forward to leveraging off the potential which the two businesses bring about by working together.
“We have had great success in partnering with like-minded businesses previously in order to contribute and join forces in a larger entity. We are doing this again as we believe that together we and our partners are able to ‘make it possible’. This is the spirit in which we are fostering this partnership,” concludes Chris Venter, CEO of AFGRI.
