There’s more to life than insurance for Gold

Daryl Currie

Dealer group GoldFinancial has employed industry icon Daryl Currie to drive its network growth to a targeted 50 authorised representatives across Australia by the end of next year.

Currie has joined the two-year-old Melbourne-based group, which currently has 27 advisers in 22 aligned advice businesses throughout Australia, as its national recruitment manager.

He is best known as the founder (in 1977) of life insurance broker IMFA Financial Services, which is widely credited with having paved the way for independent financial advice in Australia.

He was also chief executive of the Melbourne-based IMFA until its sale to Norwich in 1996 (it is now owned by PIS), by which time it was the sixth largest producer of risk insurance in the country.

Most recently, from 2004 to 2008, Currie was a founding shareholder director, distribution and sales, at reverse mortgage provider Australian Seniors Finance (ASF) and also founded Boss Software International in 1996.

His appointment has put Gold Financial, ranked 73^rd in Money Management’s 2008 Top 100 dealer group survey, on course to grow to about 35 by the end of this year, said co-founder and national development manager Bernie Toohey.

“Daryl’s extensive industry experience and contacts will also help us to reach our target of 50 representatives across Australia by the end of 2009 and, depending on what the group decides, to grow beyond that target.”

Toohey believes the group recruitment model, which offers the same rules for all representatives, including 100 per cent equity ownership by management and representatives, will help Currie with his growth brief.

This brief forms part of a broader strategy to move from an emphasis on life insurance, which is still the background of most advisers in the group, to encompass the full personal finance spectrum, he said.