News in brief

Snowball to Suncorp

Patrick Snowball has been appointed as chief executive of Suncorp, the Australian banking and insurance firm – a move insurancetimes.co.uk unveiled exclusively last week. Snowball, the former head of Aviva and a director of Towergate, will start his new job on 1 September.

New chairman for BIBA

Swinton chairman Patrick Smith will become chairman of the British Insurance Brokers’ Association in September, succeeding Derek Thornton. “It’s important to make a contribution to the industry and I’m pleased to have this opportunity to give something back to broking,” he said.

Towergate cuts

Towergate has made four staff redundant in Halifax. The redundancies, which happened earlier this summer, leave 20 staff in the office.

RSA launches new website

RSA has launched a new website for clients of its global division. The site, www.rsaglobalinsurance.com, details the main contacts within each region and follows the company’s decision to split its business into three divisions – SME, mid-market and global.

FSA increases penalties

The FSA has warned that it is increasing its penalties, with some fines set to treble. The regulator said its plans to link fines more closely to income reflect its determination to address concerns that firms are repeatedly failing to improve standards. Margaret Cole, director of enforcement at the FSA, said the proposals pushed forward the authority’s “ethos of credible deterrence”.