Reviews & Surveys

Kevin Le Plastrier

Kevin was admitted to practice as a Barrister and Solicitor in 1970, and spent the next 16 years in private legal practice and at the bar, specialising in dispute resolution.

In 1986 he spent nine months working with Commercial Union Insurance in London, and following his return to Australia in 1987, joined the National Mutual Life Association, where shortly after he became head of the insurance departments Legal Division, managing a team about 15 lawyers. In 1995 National Mutual was acquired by AXA France and ultimately became an ASX listed Company, with Kevin taking the role of General Counsel and Company Secretary.

During this period, he was directly responsible at various times for:

Kevin left AXA in 2002 and spent some time as a Consultant in the litigation and insurance division of Mallesons Stephen Jaques (now King and Wood Mallesons).

In 2003, he joined Aon Risk Services to manage the team responsible for placement of Directors & Officers and Professional Indemnity Insurance for large corporate clients, and the management of complex financial line claims, including for National Australia Bank, ANZ Banking Group and Computershare Ltd.

In early 2008, he left Aon to establish an insurance product development and major claims management consultancy, which was conducted successfully for over four years. During this period, he managed the successful resolution of a number of very significant and complex property, business interruption and product liability claims for Wesfarmers, Nufarm, and other private clients. In addition, Aon continued to engage him in the drafting of its broker developed policy wordings, including a number of the Aon Vertex suite of products.

However, in 2012 he returned to Aon to establish and manage a new technical function responsible for the development and oversight of Aon’s entire product suite, which included the management of the Technical Team, ultimately made up of 13 staff nationally. During this period, he retained direct hands-on responsibility for the development and oversight of wordings for Aon’s clients, which included the upgrade of the Aon Vertex ISR wording.

In 2019, Kevin joined with LMI Group as a senior technical consultant to provide technical advice and policy drafting.

Allan Manning

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Doctor of Business Administration
Master of Business Administration
Bachelor of Commerce
Fellow, CPA Australia
Fellow, Australian & New Zealand Institute of Insurance & Finance (Honorary Life Member)
Fellow, Chartered Insurance Institute (UK)
Fellow Chartered Loss Adjuster
Fellow, Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters (UK)
Chartered Insurance Practitioner (UK)
Fellow, The International Institute of Claims Professionals
FUEDI European Loss Adjusting Expert

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

After 11 years claims experience with General Accident Insurance, Allan joined Robins MBS Loss Adjusters in 1981. In 1987, he transferred to Papua New Guinea, as Managing Director. During this time, Allan handled one of Australia’s largest claims, which surrounded the closure of the Bougainville Copper Ltd mine. The claim had a reserve of US$1,000 million. Allan returned to Australia in 1990 and, in 1991, was appointed Regional Leader for the Southern Region and was also appointed to head up GAB Robins’ loss adjusters national large loss claims team.

At the start of 1999, Allan founded the LMI Group, a firm dedicated to providing a high level of customer service and technical expertise in pre- and post-loss insurance services. Pre-loss work is offered by the Risk Management International division, while post-loss matters including forensic accounting, loss adjusting and claims preparation are handled within Loss Management International. Allan is an industry innovator having developed PolicyComparison.com, a web-based training and comparative tool on the feature and benefits of general insurance products; BIcalculator.com a website designed to assist calculate adequate cover for business interruption insurance, PolicyCoach, which is an expert system for ISR insurance; and the Business Continuity Management System, ContinuityCoach.com. His latest brainchild is ClaimsComparison.com

For over 45 years, Allan has managed large and complex losses involving major property, business interruption including advanced consequential loss, fidelity, construction, liability, professional Indemnity, and Directors & Officers throughout Australia, Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Assignments have been completed for many multi-national companies, such as ACI, Amcor, Nestle, Mitsubishi, PaperlinX, Spotless and Toyota, as well as government organisations and small to medium-sized businesses. He particularly enjoys the challenge of assisting companies to return to normal trading after a major crisis. His interest in the survival of a business following an insured loss prompted him to complete a Doctoral thesis, following 6 years of extensive research.

Since 1983, Allan has acted as an expert witness, primarily handling quantum, policy response, and issues surrounding industry practice. Over the past 15 years, Allan has been engaged by insurers, insurance brokers and clients to carry out risk analysis and the review of insurance programs for businesses, including multi-nationals. His lifetime of experience in managing major losses proves invaluable in this area. This has more recently extended to drafting wordings and it is estimated that over 30% of all businesses in Australia are insured under a policy drafted or reviewed by Dr Manning.

Allan has lectured at RMIT, Melbourne, and Victoria Universities and has delivered over 1,200 seminars on various topics including risk management, ISR, and Business Interruption. Dr Manning holds the post of Adjunct Professor at Victoria University in the faculty of Law & Justice and is the author of 13 books on insurance, including Business Interruption Insurance & Claims: A Practical Guide, the 3-volume Understanding the ISR Policy, Manning’s Six Principles of General Insurance, and It may happen to Me! – The essential guide to general insurance.

Allan is an honorary life member of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance & Finance, and was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award at the 2012 Insurance Industry Awards. He has been rated one of the 20 most influential people in insurance for the past 9 years by InsuranceNEWS [the magazine] due to his strong and unswerving ethical stance on doing what is right by the consumer.  

Brian Peele

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor of Business (Insurance)
Diploma of Financial Services (Insurance Services)
Fellow, Australian & New Zealand Institute of Insurance & Finance

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Brian has over 50 years’ experience in insurance underwriting, broking and due diligence consulting. He led the Private Equity Mergers & Acquisitions Practice for Marsh Pty Ltd in Victoria providing reports on the adequacy and appropriateness of insurance and risk management programs for lenders and purchasers involved in major merger and acquisition and construction projects.

Within the past 10 years, Brian has provided insurance due diligence reviews and other services for the following industries in Australia, South East Asia and elsewhere in the world:
Mining and mineral processing (iron ore, coal, gold, copper, other minerals)
Aluminium (bauxite mining, alumina & aluminium processing)
Power generation (hydro, wind and thermal) and distribution
Portable water and waste water treatment and distribution
Forest products and timber milling
Oil and gas exploration (on and offshore) and production
Storage (warehousing and cold stores)
Commercial (wholesale and retail)
Transportation (public sector)
Health, hospitals, nursing services (private sector)

He formerly managed the Mining, Metals and Minerals Practice for Marsh Pty Ltd in Australia. Prior to this, Brian was the CEO of Sedgwick Ltd’s captive insurance companies domiciled in Singapore.

AWARDS

Top General Insurance Graduate – Deakin University
Dean’s List – Deakin University
E Vines Memorial Prize – ANZIIF