Business View Oceania | January 2020

17 18 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA JANUARY 2020 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA JANUARY 2020 country we have a couple of group home, volume home builders, as well. Part of our evolution over the years has been growing our brand to support our builders. So homeowners may go looking for a builder who is a member of our association. For people to have that capability available to them is a good thing. In that regard, our website has a portal for homeowners to find a certified builder. It’s around evolving the association and growing a brand so that we support our members and their businesses. “A lot of associations tend to be just member focused but we expand on that. Particularly around the homeowners’ significant investment. They don’t take that lightly and sometimes they need some sort of reassurance or confidence. So we have that dual strand around what we stand for and what we provide. The Halo is a homeowners guarantee that we brought in to market in 2015/16 after a global search. We wanted to provide peace of mind for homeowners, so we put the Halo product NEW ZEALAND CERT I F I ED BUI LDERS (NZCB) together, which gives coverage during the process of construction and up to 10 years. That’s been a strong tool for us and it comes back to the point of it being a big decision for homeowners; they’re not necessarily always informed. And so we wanted to provide further assurance when they hire builders that there was an independent homeowners’ guarantee underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. It’s another tool to provide that level of surety and it’s gone really well. We’ve written six billion dollars of coverage under that policy arrangement since we put it in place. It’s definitely unique in Australasia.” BVO: Is membership on the grow? Florence: “Yes. We currently have just under 3000 members. The rough estimate is that we represent around one third of the builders in New Zealand. Another association called Registered Masters Builders of New Zealand, has one third, and the other third doesn’t belong to any type of association. The Master Builders have a different profile of members; a lot of commercial-type builders who do multi-story buildings, things like that. So each to its own niche. “NZCB has a staff of 20 based around the country. We run a board of six, comprised of four member Directors (elected by the membership) and two independent directors. They continue to evolve and play a governance role – forming strategy for the association. I’ve been CEO for six years and membership has continued to grow each year. We really put some effort into that in 2019 and by the end of September it had grown by 15 percent in the first nine months, which was quite significant. It’s a reflection of growth in the building sector and our standing in the industry and with others in the trades. We have a lot of loyal members who renew each year, but we’re facing an aging membership like everybody else, as baby boomers are now starting to retire.”