Dave Middleton has replaced Stuart Scullion as executive chair of the Association of Medical Insurers and Intermediaries (AMII).
Middleton’s appointment was announced at AMII’s second virtual annual general meeting yesterday. Middleton was CEO of employment benefit consultancy Portus, until its sale to Aon in 2017 after which he integrated both clients and colleagues into the firm.
During his time at Portus, Middleton sat on the committees of both Grid and AMII and is the former as chair of the ‘Raising the Profile’ committee.
He is currently executive director of Benefits Advisory Services (BAS) and as a consultant at CWB – both in the employee benefits space – and is also a trustee of charities Smile for Joel and Sporting Minds UK.
Scullion steps down after more than six years at the helm of the organisation.
Other members who have been elected as officers to the 2021/22 executive committee include Isaac Feiner, director, Lifepoint Healthcare, Claire Ginnelly, MD, Premier Choice Healthcare, Wayne Pontin, non executive chairman at Sante Group and Ian Sawyer, commercial director, Assured Futures, on the intermediary side and Liam Kennedy, director of health key accounts at Vitality, and Jason Morris, head of intermediary sales, small-mid corporate at Bupa, on the corporate side.
Paul Swanson, owner of Healthwise, has been retained as treasurer for a further period of 12 months or until the next AGM.
These appointments join the existing two intermediary members of the committee whose terms of office have not yet come to an end – Alan Mulligan, owner of Personal Healthcare Management and Guy Jones, director at Berwick Devoil Healthcare.
In calling for a more integrated approach to the PMI offering in a post-pandemic environment, Middleton said: “Mental health and wellbeing are top of most of our clients’ objectives. I am currently a trustee of a mental health charity that supports athletes and I have been staggered by the amount of young people seeking help particularly in the last 12 months.
“Yet as an industry in both healthcare and risk we are still very much working in silos and are still product driven. We really need to work more closely as physical, financial, mental, and social wellbeing cannot and should not be treated separately.
“We have all had to find ways to engage with our customers whoever they are and on the whole I think the industry has done this well and shown itself to be flexible and innovative.
“Insurers have responded well, with a willingness to help and support Intermediaries and the end customer, with telemedicine and additional support services. It is also commendable that PMI insurers made a pledge to not profit from the pandemic and some have already made appropriate premium refunds to clients in this respect.
“It is testament to the good work of the everyone concerned that AMII now has a healthy cash position, and this must continue to be an objective by engaging further with you our existing members to retain your membership and attracting new ones from all sides.
“To do this we need to continue to be the voice of the industry, lobby parliament and the regulator as together we are a force that can drive innovation and improvement in all that we do and are involved in.”