Yesterday abilityNEWS carried a link to a newspaper report suggesting NDIS Plan Manager Thrive was floundering as it dealt with clients. This may have once been the case but the business now says it’s rebuilt and is more than meeting targets.

It began with phone calls that went unanswered. Payments that didn’t arrive. Participants who’d once trusted their plan manager found themselves explaining — again — why invoices still hadn’t been paid. For some, the frustration tipped into desperation.

This was the moment when NIB’s ambitious push into the NDIS market almost came unstuck. After acquiring four plan managers in just eight months, the health insurer’s new arm — Thrive — had grown faster than its systems could handle.

By December, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission was issuing a compliance notice warning the company it was at risk of breaching the NDIS Act.

Now, NIB insists that crisis is over.

Specialised teams were thrown at the backlog, the compliance notice was lifted in April, and Thrive says it’s once again meeting growth targets.

None of this should be read to suggest the original story in the newspaper was incorrect - simply that the company says its actions have now addressed the issue.

It should also be noted that Thrive did lose some 3000 clients during this period, although NIB insists it has stemmed the departures and its business is growing again.

Explosive growth nearly pushed it over the edge Thrive says it’s fixed its NDIS plan management issues. The question now is will future acquisitions keep pace with its ambitions?

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The story really starts in November 2022, when NIB made its first foray into NDIS plan management with the purchase of Maple Plan. The move worked. The insurer applied its health-sector experience to a new market, and the numbers stacked up.

By July last year, it had acquired its fourth similar business, All Disability Plan Management. The model seemed obvious: consolidate back-office functions, share expertise, and extract the efficiencies of scale. On paper, it was a textbook strategy.

In practice, the reality was messier. The speed of expansion swamped internal systems. Processing times blew out, clients couldn’t get answers, and goodwill evaporated. When the Commission intervened in December, it was a public confirmation of what many participants already knew — the business was struggling.

Company insiders say this was the turning point. Manager Martin Adlington pushed through emergency measures, building specialist teams and extending hours. “We threw everything at the problem, including the kitchen sink,” one insider admits. By April, the compliance notice was lifted.

NIB insists it has now “stemmed the departures” and that Thrive is once again growing. Yet the loss of 3,000 clients during the crisis is a reminder of how quickly confidence can be lost in the NDIS marketplace — and how much harder it is to win back.

The company says lessons have been learned. The Commission will be watching to see if they stick.