Rooftop Service Centre, a third-party processing operation, will enable smaller packagers to deal with Rooftop direct. Currently, many of its smaller packagers have satellite arrangements in place where they go through larger firms to place business with Rooftop.
The lender emphasised that these current satellite arrangements will not be removed and that Rooftop Service Centre will deal solely with new packagers wanting to place business with it. The Centre will have staff working closely with these packagers to make sure the cases they put through are in a state the lender can accept.
ICMG, also owned by Rooftop’s parent company Bear Stearns, will be closing its satellite operation and its staff will be transferred over to Rooftop’s new Service Centre.
Another division, Rooftop Direct, is also being launched to allow appointed representatives (ARs) of networks to access Rooftop products without going through a packager, an option which had prev- iously not been made available by the lender.
Rooftop Direct will package the cases itself when they come through. This initiative will initially launch through Sesame, although Rooftop said it will make the service available to more networks over the coming months.
Jonathan Naylor, managing director of Rooftop, said: “The objective is to protect our existing business and build new business. We are not removing our satellite packagers. The Service Centre is about creating new distribution channels.
“Also, Rooftop Direct is a service for networks. We want to make it clear we are not going direct to intermediaries. So the broker on the high-street will still have to go through a packager to use us. We are not pushing packagers out.”
Rooftop said it expects its business to increase 30 per cent by the end of the year through its new business entities. The lender will also launch a new website on 1 September to coincide with the new businesses – both to be based in Southend.
John Stewart, director of PMI Independent Financial Advisers, an AR of Sesame, said: “Packagers have their uses but we don’t particularly like using them so being able to go direct to Rooftop now is a welcome move.”
