SGIO (Western Australia)

On 15 June 1926, the Western Australian Government established the State Government Insurance Office (SGIO) to provide workers’ compensation insurance to miners in the Kalgoorlie goldfields. SGIO had begun as the State Accident Insurance Office and was later named the State Government Insurance Office (SGIO).[2] In August 1992, the Lawrence government announced the SGIO was to be sold.[3] This was completed by the Court government in 1994.[4] It was entirely sold in 1994 for $165 million[5] and this was followed by the acquisition of SGIO by NRMA in 1998.[6] In September 1998, Wesfarmers launched a takeover offer for SGIO having acquired a 15% shareholding.[7] The offer was withdrawn the next month, with Wesfarmers selling its shares to the NRMA.[8][9] In 1998, the business Insurance Australia Group Limited (IAG) purchased SGIO.[10] SGIO held a monopoly in its early days in workers compensation insurance which made this company a strong competitor.[2] SGIO now provides both personal and commercial insurances and is one of Western Australia's largest general insurance companies.[5] Subsequently, other forms of insurance were offered through SGIO.[11] The company was initially registered as a general insurer and first started to shift its main focus towards life insurance in 1932.[12] This was shown in its company magazine Insurance Lines, which was established in 1917,[12] where the pages began to be dominated by information regarding life insurance instead of its previous main focus which was worker's compensation insurance. By the 1970s life insurance began to be SGIO's main achievement and focal point.[12] Because of this expansion into different areas of insurance, SGIO became a main competitor in all areas of insurance.[12] In the 1970s the Queensland office formed the SGIO Building Society, after a series of other Queensland Building Societies were united together, and with this, they began to incorporate a strategy that would help begin their privatisation. This strategy included acquiring the Permanent Finance Corporation and becoming a major shareholder in the Bank of Queensland.[6]

In 2011 SGIO conducted the Reversing Visibility Index by testing 243 cars on their reversing cameras.[13] With this test, they found that 14 percent scored a full five-star rating (the five-star rating indicated better reversing visibility than all other vehicles) with was higher than their previous testing in 2010. This testing was a result of previous research from SGIO that showed 65 percent of Western Australian drivers had a near miss while reversing. SGIO showed their support after this testing for reverse cameras as it showed an improvement in safety ratings. The company then called for manufacturers to continue the trend of including reverse cameras in new cars.[13]

In 2009 the insurance company, AAMI launched a push into the Western Australian market with aims to acquire around 35 percent of the market. Up until then, SGIO controlled roughly 50 percent of the market with another insurance company, the Royal Automobile Club.[14]

The SGIO was initially owned by the Government of Western Australia and was to be privatised by the selling of shares to the public or also known as selling by “share float”.[6] SGIO was listed on the market on 12 April 1994.[5] The Western Australian Government wanted to have most of the shares to be made available to Western Australian investors and have a small portion go to institutions.[5] Shares were initially sold for a fixed price of $1.00.[5] The State Government offered between $150 million and $160 million of shares and intended to sell 100% of the operation.[15] However, after an initial period of issuing shares, takeover bids were shortly commenced and SGIO was bought by other insurance companies.[6] SGIO had a core business which was initially restricted by state boundaries[6] and before their privatisation, SGIO used a strategy of diversification to enable them to have a wider variety of business areas and they also went through managerial and structural changes.[15] With SGIO's initial focus being worker's compensation insurance, the company needed to make these changes of diversification into different business areas as their core service/product was a government monopoly despite there being a push for the company to be privatised.[12]

SGIO was a major sponsor of the West Coast Eagles.[16] The sponsorship started in 1988 and ended in the year of 2018 and has been one of the longest commercial partnerships in Australian sport.[17] SGIO became the West Coast Eagle's sole major sponsor in 2000 after their 12-year anniversary of being with the club.[18] Because of this, the SGIO logo was incorporated onto the West Coast Eagles sports uniforms which was part of the company's advertisement and marketing.[18] SGIO was a co-sponsor with another major brand, Hungry Jack's.[17] Hungry Jack's was an on-off sponsor with West Coast Eagles ever since they started their sports team in 1986.[19]

SGIO and the West Coast Eagles started up a campaign called “SGIO Surprisingly Good Goals” to help raise money for charities that help the community in Western Australia.[20] This campaign raises money by having SGIO donate $200 per West Coast goal. They also were able to engage the fans into this campaign event by having them submit their own videos of their “good goals” and donated $20 to charity per submission. In 2016 SGIO and the West Coast Eagles reached their goal of $100,000 and with this money raised, they were able to donate to three different charities in Western Australia. The three charities included: Reconciliation WA, Lifeline WA and the Motor Neurone Disease Association of WA.[20]

SGIO was one of the first three government agencies in Queensland to incorporate computers into their work force.[2] Prior to using computers, SGIO, along with other companies, previously used a punch card machine dating back to 1937 for calculation and accounting purposes. The beginning of the installation of computers for SGIO was in 1956 when a committee was launched in order to investigate the suitability of computers for this company.[2] The decision towards purchasing a computer was led by the difficulty that SGIO was having in regard to how much their old machinery (specifically the punch card machines) could handle with the volume of business they had. These punch card machines were limited in what they could do for the business and the company ultimately needed a machine with more range in its capabilities. Not only that, but because these older machines could not do as much as the company needed, it cost SGIO more money in hours worked overtime as more manual labour was needed to complete these tasks.[2] However, these computers ended up causing a number of issues and complications in the beginning period of its installation. The costs of installing the computer and having to buy other equipment exceeded the company's expectations. In addition to this, workers typically had a lack of experience working with these machines which meant that not only the quality of work was going down but also quantity as well. Employees had to work additional hours and even had to work on weekends in order to keep up with the work that they were expected to do during normal business hours.[2] SGIO did however manage these issues and could see real benefits that the computer would give them in terms of expanding their abilities for different areas of work and making things easier in the future once training was implemented.[2]

• Official SGIO Website