INSURANCEBUSINESSONLINE.COM.AU
SRS’ STRONGEST AREAS
HOME OWNERS
LIABILITY
CONSTRUCTION
MOTOR MARKET
“OUR SUMMIT PRESTIGE HOME OWNERS COVER IS BROAD, WITH VERY GOOD CLAIMS SERVICE, AS WAS TESTED DURING THE BRISBANE FLOODS”
“LIABILITY HAS BEEN A STRONG PERFORMER OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS. WE HAVE VERY GOOD CAPABILITY ON THAT CLASS”
“CONSTRUCTION IS GOING WELL, GIVEN THE REBUILDING HAPPENING AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE SPEND”
“THERE HAS BEEN PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITIES IN THE MOTOR MARKET TOO, WHERE WE COVER EVERYTHING FROM CARS, TRUCKS, RAIL PLUS PLANT, MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT”
IB: What do you want from a broker? PL: We like to deal with brokers who act in a professional manner and give us comprehensive submissions. I would hope the days of details written on the back of a postage stamp are gone!
IB: What do you offer those brokers in return? PL: The success of our business is our response times. We offer a very good service to the brokers, with a response time second to none. We have very good technical underwriters and you are able to talk to an underwriter rather than putting things down a chute and accepting whatever comes out. We are probably at the more technical end of the market. Generally underwriting agencies will attract people that have either grown out of the insurance companies or are sick of working in that culture, so they join the agency model and therefore we have very good technical people.
IB: Are you looking to make any changes to your broker channel? Either in the way you deal with your current brokers or getting new brokers on board? PL: We will deal with brokers who have a good reputation, so we don’t close the door, we are here to assist the market. If I had a look at our book we probably deal with 80% of the market, but we probably get 80% of our business from 20% of the market.
IB: How much extra assurance do you think your brokers get from knowing you are backed by a brand like Lloyd’s?
PL: The proof is in the pudding – we’ve been around for 20 years. We have been very constant over the past five years, and so has our broker panel. People know who we are, what our capabilities are and they continue to support us.
IB: Lloyd’s claims it is still battling some “myths”, especially that it is just a UK company. Do you come across that attitude? PL: You do come across that, but it depends from a broker’s point-of-view. One broker will tell his client Lloyd’s is great, but if he has a different underwriter he might have a different view. The pity is Lloyd’s is in London and if people want, for their own commercial benefits, to paint a story – whether it is correct or not – it’s not that difficult to do.
IB: What are the upcoming challenges for brokers that underwriters can assist with? PL: As the market firms, the electronic platforms may not be able to answer all the questions that we have there for brokers. It may transpire that as the market eventually firms we will get a lot of aspects that won’t be able to be put onto an electrical platform because of the complexity of them. That complexity will be recognised, and it is going to have to be handled on a more technical one-to-one basis.
IB: Do you want further diversification into new products/services? PL: We will grow when the market allows us. We are not about top line growth, we are about profitable growth.
COMING NEXT ISSUE... Insurance Business sits down with Adrian Humphreys, Lloyd’s General Representative for Australia, to discuss dealing with brokers, disastrous financial results and the future of the insurance industry in Australia.
JULY 2012 | 45