PIB Employee Benefits, the most recent winner of the Firm of the Year award at the 2024 Corporate Adviser Awards, has in recent years gone through a period of rapid expansion. For some businesses mergers and acquisitions can derail day-to-day client experience and consultancy services.
But head of consulting Joanne Neary says that this expansion has not been growth at any cost. Instead, it has focused on targeted acquisitions that have added key services to the business, while giving the firm a more significant footprint and enhanced visibility in the sector. But Neary says that while PIB Employee Benefits is now a significantly larger organisation, it is not trying to compete directly with industry heavyweights.
She says: “We’re never going to be one of the big firms, and I don’t think we want to be anyway. I think the market is big enough that we can carve out our own path. I do think we want to be seen as a little bit different. We know what an EBC needs to do, what we need to deliver for clients.”
Career progression
Neary’s career in financial services began about 30 years ago in pensions administration at a local life insurance company. She then transitioned to a hybrid role in London at an accountancy practice, gaining experience in both private client financial advice and employee benefits.
Her career progressed from planning to consultancy and management, and she says this has given her a comprehensive understanding of the various roles across employee benefits — and the importance of them all in helping deliver corporate success.
“Coming from a background where I’ve touched on just about every type of employee benefit makes it easy to see the benefit for a client of having one consultant or team handle everything because many things overlap. For example, a PMI scheme might include an EAP or virtual GP, which could be similar to what’s on an income protection scheme.”
Neary says it is this approach that helped PIB Employee Benefits win its recent award — with the company focused on addressing client issues and challenges by providing holistic solutions, whether through new products or enhancing existing benefits.
Integration challenge
PIB Group was founded in 2015 as a specialist insurance intermediary. It has grown rapidly through acquisitions over the past nine years, where it has focused on acquiring smaller, specialist insurance companies and incorporating their capabilities into its broader operation. This has included Campion Insurance and Oliver Murphy Insurance Brokers, both acquired in 2021, which expanded its reach in Ireland and Europe. More recently it has also made acquisitions to boost its footprint in pension services and to boost its technology capabilities.
However, Neary says there are challenges when acquiring and integrating new businesses. She says successful integrations involve listening to the experiences and strengths of the acquired company, even if all ideas aren’t implemented, it’s important they have a voice.
She points out that there is real value in harnessing the knowledge of new employees into the company’s growth strategy. In contrast, acquisitions where the target company is expected to fully assimilate without input tend to be less successful.
Corporate culture
Neary stresses the necessity of preserving a strong company culture as the organisation grows. She says PIB Employee Benefits has hired people from larger competitors but aims to avoid replicating the negative aspects that are sometimes associated with larger firms.
“We want to make sure we don’t replicate some of the cultural aspects of working for a bigger company. It’s important that the team feel they have a voice and that our doors are always open.” She says having an approachable management style can help, and this is something the company’s managing director has focused on.
Neary herself has been on both sides of this equation — helping integrate businesses, but initially joining PIB Employee Benefits as part of an acquisition. She says that in the past the company’s culture and client approach were not widely recognised — but this is something PIB Employee Benefits has really focused on over the past 18 to 24 months.
Winning the award is an important recognition that we are getting this right and making progress, she says, while this positive recognition from peers, along with feedback from people hired from larger companies, is helping to attract talent to the business.
Solutions
In discussing current industry challenges, Neary highlights the pressures arising from rising healthcare premiums and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. She outlines PIB’s approach to addressing these issues, by adopting innovative strategies designed to support both employers and employees. This involves using voluntary benefits such as discount portals, adopting high-level cash plans to limit PMI cost increases, and collaborating with its newly hired wellbeing specialist to develop long-term solutions for managing healthcare costs.
“For example, we had employers where the PMI cost increase, while company-funded, was also impacting employees, due to the P11D costs. Employees were moving away from the PMI scheme, so we implemented a high-level cash plan with better P11D costs, but still offering support to those needing healthcare.
“We’re always looking for different ways to counteract these problems and use data and wellbeing specialists to find solutions that can help manage and reduce future healthcare costs.”
Tailored approach
Neary highlights the YouGov and Mind the Gap studies to demonstrate PIB’s approach to consultancy, where granular data is used to find appropriate benefit solutions for clients.
“We’ve had the YouGov study, the Mind the Gap study that we’re trying to put some data behind what we think is going on. It’s great to have that data and to be able to go and talk to clients about the challenges we’re seeing in their industry, and then it’s about trying to work with them. So it’s putting consultancy at the heart of what we do.”
According to Neary, the goal is to provide a good return on investment by listening to clients’ evolving needs and adapting strategies. This is done through regular high-level discussions, focused on understanding a client’s broader challenges and future goals, rather than immediate issues like renewal rates. The aim is to provide solutions that address long-term organisational needs. Neary also mentioned matching consultants to clients based on their specific needs and complexities, ensuring a tailored approach rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.
New technology
The company has shifted from a focus on risk and healthcare to expanding its pension services and technology offerings. In early 2023, PIB acquired Creative Benefits’ pension team, with a view to enhance its pension offerings and launch a new SME pension service. The company plans to integrate their pension team with other consultants to avoid siloing and provide comprehensive support for clients.
Neary says: “We’ve got some consultants that will work across both pensions and risk and healthcare, which I think is quite different to many of our competitors. But the biggest growth area potentially for us is technology.”
PIB acquired the You at Work platform in April, which they view as a key growth area for flexible benefits and portals, allowing them to invest and expand their tech-driven services.
Neary says this platform will allow for the delivery of a wide range of voluntary and additional services, including fertility and menopausal support alongside financial education. She says this will make it easier for employers to manage, and employees to access, these services.
“The You at Work acquisition gave us our own team of developers that sit in our office in Cambridge,” Neary says. “But they can tap into our wider PIB IT department. They are doing some really exciting stuff around AI.”
Although she says she can’t disclose exact plans at present, she says AI is a “promising tool” which should simplify the benefits selection process for employees. “I can see AI being a way to help tailor the benefits selection process by looking at the demographic of an employee workforce and the employees themselves, to have a suggested package of benefits, a bit like the Netflix of benefits, where you get on and you see ‘You watched this, you might like this.’”
But like many in the industry, Neary emphasises that there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction and the nuanced understanding gained from direct communication. She acknowledges the value of AI and its role in the industry but believes that consultancy, with its ability to pick up subtle cues and provide personalised solutions, cannot be fully replicated by AI.
“I think that’s something you’ll never be able to replicate with AI. Having said that, I think we need to be on top of what’s happening in that area and industry to be able to make the most of it because certainly our younger colleagues will do that.”
Expansion ambitions
Neary says the company has encountered challenges with its rapid growth over the past nine years. Initially, gaining industry recognition and building client trust were primary goals. Now its focus is maintaining agility and building a cohesive culture across the business. Both become increasingly complex as the company expands, says Neary.
“Every acquisition brings a challenge because you’re bringing people in who’ve got a different way of working or a different culture and perception of what they do. We need to make sure they bring that bit of themselves with them but also embrace what we’re trying to build here as well.”
PIB Group plans to continue expanding through acquisitions, focusing more on Europe after acquiring companies in Spain, Italy and Poland, as well as entering the Romanian market this year. The strategy includes purchasing companies that bring specific value — with previous acquisitions, such as i2 Healthcare, having improved the risk and healthcare sectors.
According to Neary, PIB Group remains committed to finding acquisitions that strengthen their overall proposition and is willing to engage with potential businesses that share this purpose.
Longer-term plans
While the company is looking ahead to the future, Neary says that near-constant regulatory changes in recent years have made the firm more reactionary than it would like. She says there needs to be a period of stability in pension regulation, which would support both companies and consumers alike and foster confidence in longer-term retirement planning.
