Brokers say the premium funding market is strong enough to handle the departure of Bank of Queensland from next month.

PSC Insurance Brokers Tasmania managing principal Mark West says the bank’s decision is “not surprising – they’re a bank and not a premium funder”, and there are “plenty of premium funders jostling for business.

“Hunter can step in, Attvest and Arteva – they’ll all be there to line up, so it’s not a problem, but it does reduce the competition.”

Bank of Queensland says it “made the difficult decision to cease offering insurance premium funding products as we continue to simplify our business”.

A spokesperson told insuranceNEWS.com.au BOQ will stop the business on June 14.

In 2016, the bank paid $20 million for Centrepoint Alliance Premium Funding, which was rebranded to form a new division within BOQ Finance.

At that time, the business handled about 30,000 new loans annually. It funded $377 million of gross written premium for 420 insurance brokers in the year to June 2016.

BOQ has been reshaping operations under its “strengthen, simplify, digitise and optimise” strategic pillars.

It converted all 114 of its owner-managed branches to corporate branches, and is “recycling capital from lower-returning assets to higher-returning specialist segments”.