The 9000-member Seafarer’s Retirement Fund has decided on its first-ever third party provider of life, TPD and salary continuance insurance.

After having self-insured since its inception in 1973, the SRF undertook a full insurance tender earlier this year with the assistance of IFS Insurance Broking, and from nine contenders has decided in-principle to outsource to AIG. The final terms of the contract with AIG are still being finalised, but SRF fund secretary Glenn Davis said the premiums would be lower than under the self-insured regime. Benefit categories separating sea-going and shore-based maritime workers, who face varying levels of risk and therefore attract different premiums, will be retained under the outsourced scheme. Davis said that no asset allocation changes would result from the end of self-insurance. “;Our self-insurance reserve was sitting with our defined benefit assets, so it was mostly in growth assets anyway – we haven’t freed up a big pool of cash or anything,”; he said.