The rush by developers to enter Australia’s data centre boom risks contractual frameworks being left behind, the Australasian Professional Indemnity Group (APIG) annual conference was warned.

Australia is already the world’s second biggest data centre investment destination behind the US, with $6.7bn spent in 2025, and in a panel session, Iain Drennan, head of Australasian construction at WTW, tipped this to “accelerate in multitudes” over the next three to five years.

But while the country’s data centre journey is exciting, he says the rapid expansion draws uncomfortable parallels with the renewable energy boom 10 years ago, “where everyone was racing to build solar and the like”. 

“In that instance the contractual framework throughout the chain took a while to catch up and I’m seeing that in the data centre space.

“Whether you’re a developer, a hyperscaler, a head contractor, a sub-contractor – everyone’s rushing to get a piece of this pie. From a contractual allocation framework perspective, I see that we’re probably not quite there yet. Probably several years away from it.”

Alicia Albury, property lawyer at White & Case agreed that “we’re so early in our data centre journey in Australia that we haven’t even really worked out yet what asset class data centres fall into”.

“It feels all of a sudden data centres are their own asset class and people are scrambling to work out what the market means and how we treat them from an investment and development perspective.

“And added to that we have two types of developer. The traditional property developers who are moving into data centre development and energy players who are looking at it as an energy infrastructure project and those two groups speak a different language.”

Swiss Re’s Andre Martin said from an insurer’s perspective the main issue is the eco-system surrounding data centres, including heavy assets such as power plants and cooling plants.

“The concern for us is how do we get our heads round the interdependencies of all these systems?

It’s a combination of scale, speed and technology and everything happens at the same time,” he said.

Mr Martin added that while the US clusters are far bigger, the scale of value concentration in the Australian centres is an issue. He also warned of “design accumulation” where one fault in design could impact multiple data centres.

Ms Albury said from a real estate point of view, there has been a big power shift from traditional real estate leases, where a landlord’s obligations are fairly passive, to the service agreements being pushed for in Australia by hyperscalers, where landlords’ risks are a lot higher. She said their obligations are detailed, tested, monitored and measured continuously.

“Those obligations are owed 24 hours a day, seven days a week to the tenant and there’s a pre-agreed amount of penalty that’s applied and it’s reduced from the recurrent fee which is a form of rent. So there’s no certainty of rent coming in and the hyperscaler tenant has termination rights they just wouldn’t have under a traditional lease scenario.”

WTW’s Mr Drennan warned of significant potential exposure for contractors, both due to the value of server racks in data centres and the large liability caps they face.

“Contractually they’re almost never responsible for the installation of the server racks but there is often overlap between the sort of routine practical completion and the installation of the server racks so you’ve obviously got damage possibility. If damage occurs because of professional error in the design and contract phase, it can be huge.

“Most importantly, we almost always see that insurance proceeds in no way shape or form reduce that liability cap. So it’s a liability cap on top of insurance processes, but very large exposure for our clients.”

Swiss Re’s Mr Martin said there is currently little experience in terms of PI claims in the sector, but determining what actually constituted professional negligence would be a challenge because the standards and technology are so quickly evolving.

“What was best standard yesterday is already outdated tomorrow. So the [first] question is what would the competent professional have done or known at the time he provided the advice? The second is more about attribution in this complex ecosystem you have – who is responsible for the failure? In a cooling plant, that could have originated in the installation, the design, engineering, manufacturing, maintenance, operations. Where does it actually originate?”

Mr Drennan said contractors are not taking out project-specific PI policies and are just relying on their annual insurance programs being sufficient for billion-dollar projects.

“Is 10, 20, 50 million dollars enough? I don’t think we’ve given due thought about the adequacy of those. Is it just a drop in the ocean?”

He also questioned whether current insurance products adequately addressed the intersection of property damage and cyber incidents.

By Michael McNamara, head of aviation, QBE

Australia’s aviation sector is on the cusp of its biggest transformation in decades.

The layer of airspace above our homes, businesses, farms, infrastructure and communities – low enough to feel local, yet increasingly important to economic activity – is fast becoming part of the national infrastructure debate. And the opportunity is significant.

More than 40,000 remote pilot licences are already active across the country, supporting everything from crop and livestock monitoring to construction site mapping and emergency services. Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) are also moving closer to commercial deployment.

Together, these technologies are driving the emergence of a low-altitude economy.

The question is no longer whether these technologies will arrive, but how we integrate them safely into an increasingly complex aviation ecosystem.

Through 65 years of underwriting aviation insurance in Australia, QBE has had a front-row seat to that evolution, and the vital role aviation plays in connecting communities, supporting businesses and enabling economic activity across the country.

What makes today's transition different is the combination of technology and scale.

Historically, aviation risk has been relatively well understood, supported by decades of operational experience, data and established safety frameworks. This next phase introduces a very different challenge – a larger and more diverse group of operators, rapidly evolving technologies, and far greater interaction with communities and critical infrastructure.

Drones, and soon eVTOLs, will increasingly operate alongside traditional aircraft in shared airspace, creating new risks involving airspace conflicts, infrastructure interaction, cyber vulnerabilities, battery failures and more complex liability exposures.

As these technologies become more common across cities, regions and essential industries, the consequences of not managing these risks extend well beyond the aircraft itself. A single incident could disrupt transport networks, emergency services, critical infrastructure or commercial activity.

We’re already seeing examples of what this looks like in practice. Recent incidents have involved drones – from collisions with firefighting aircraft to ignition events during agricultural operations. These are not theoretical scenarios; they are early indicators of the risks emerging within this new ecosystem.

CASA's Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) and Advanced Air Mobility Strategic Regulatory Roadmap recognises this challenge and the need to integrate these technologies safely into Australia's aviation system.

For insurers, this means moving beyond legacy assumptions about risk. It requires a forward-looking approach that considers emerging risks, technological change and how aircraft are operated.

So how do we ensure the low-altitude economy delivers on its promise while maintaining the safety standards that underpin Australian aviation?

First, we need sustained collaboration.

Australia is well placed in this regard, with highly engaged industry associations, regulators, operators and insurers already working together to support the safe growth of the UAV and advanced air mobility sectors.

As these technologies move towards wider adoption, maintaining and strengthening that engagement will be critical to ensuring innovation keeps pace with safety, operational and community expectations.

Insurers also have an important role to play. We see how risks emerge across different operators, technologies and operating environments, giving us a unique perspective on where vulnerabilities and trends are developing. Sharing those insights can help inform practical approaches to certification, operating standards and risk controls across the industry.

Secondly, we need to prepare for scale.

When drones first entered the market, they were largely accommodated within existing aviation frameworks. As the sector matured, dedicated regulations, accreditation and licensing requirements, and specialised insurance solutions emerged alongside it.

CASA's roadmap anticipates advanced air mobility operations emerging in Australia between 2027 and 2029 and identifies scale as a defining challenge, with RPAS already operating in greater numbers than existing airspace users combined.

This means successful deployment won't depend on the aircraft alone, but on whether the systems around them keep pace and how they integrate with existing aviation infrastructure.

For insurers, preparing for scale also means ensuring underwriting frameworks, data capabilities and risk models evolve alongside the sector. As operations become more widespread, insurers will need a deeper understanding of factors such as cyber resilience, battery performance, automation and infrastructure interaction to accurately assess risk, price coverage and support innovation.

Building that evidence base early will help ensure insurance remains an effective enabler of growth as the sector matures.

Finally, we need to educate.

One of the ongoing challenges in the sector has been the number of new entrants without a traditional aviation background – many now coming from industries such as agriculture, construction or logistics. Ensuring operators understand their responsibilities particularly around certification and safe use of shared airspace will remain a key part of managing risk as the sector grows.

More broadly, insurance has long helped businesses adopt new technologies by making risk better understood, more manageable and transferable. That role will become increasingly important as low-altitude aviation continues to evolve.

Ultimately, the low-altitude economy is not just about new aircraft. It is about building an ecosystem that allows innovation to scale safely and sustainably.

In a country as large and geographically diverse as Australia, these technologies have the potential to strengthen regional connectivity, support emergency services and improve access to essential services.

Businesses and communities will only embrace these technologies at scale if they have confidence the risks can be understood and managed. Insurance has helped build that confidence through generations of technological change and will continue to play an important role as the next chapter of aviation takes shape.

By Tim Wills, head of marine – Australia, Markel

Geopolitical instability has brought marine war risk back into sharper focus, but the conversation continues to evolve. Marine war risk is becoming increasingly complex, with exposures extending well beyond physical damage and requiring a broader understanding of how conflict, regulation and global trade intersect. 

For brokers, insurers and insureds, the challenge is no longer simply assessing the likelihood of a vessel or cargo being affected by conflict, it's understanding the potential wider operational, financial and regulatory consequences that can emerge when global events disrupt the movement of goods. 

Recent years have demonstrated just how quickly disruption can ripple through global supply chains, whether triggered by conflict, geopolitical tension or a pandemic. Conflict can increase fuel costs, disrupt shipping routes and place additional strain on freight networks, creating significant challenges for businesses engaged in international trade.

Looking beyond physical damage 

For many clients, physical damage tends to dominate the conversation around marine war risk. In practice, it is often the less visible exposures that create the greatest disruption. 

Consider a vessel held at a port outside a conflict zone while the shipowners weigh up whether to transit a high-risk chokepoint. The vessel may be undamaged, but the consequences are mounting: delayed cargo delivery, additional crew costs, supply chain disruption and growing pressure on business continuity. What begins as a logistical challenge can quickly become a significant operational and financial issue. Uncertainty around the safe and timely movement of goods can not only undermine confidence across an entire supply chain but may also significantly increase the cost of carriage and/or severely limit the capacity and availability of services. 

War-related losses increasingly arise not from physical cargo damage, but from shipping companies using contractual rights to change routes, discharge cargo elsewhere, delay journeys or pass on additional forwarding costs. 

Businesses are often required to make decisions before the full picture has emerged. Rapid reporting cycles, evolving intelligence and shifting circumstances can create uncertainty at precisely the moment when clear judgement is needed most. 

There is also a human dimension. Prolonged disruption can make crew rotation and repatriation difficult, leaving seafarers onboard for extended periods with no clear timetable for relief. The welfare implications can be considerable and often sit alongside the commercial consequences of disruption. 

Where the real cost often lies 

• Forwarding and rerouting expenses when carriers exercise their rights to avoid conflict zones and terminate a voyage before the intended destination, leaving cargo to be moved on at additional cost.
• Delay costs from port congestion, route diversions, inspections and security measures.
• Detention and port holding expenses where vessels or cargo are held up by sanctions reviews, security concerns or regulatory intervention.
• Additional freight and logistics costs from reduced capacity and longer routes, for example rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope.
• Sanctions and compliance costs of keeping transactions, payments and cargo movements compliant with changing requirements.
• Supply chain disruption costs affecting the movement of goods, inventory management and business continuity. 

When operational issues become regulatory issues 

Exposures are not always defined by what happens on the water. Permissions, approvals, contractual obligations and sanctions considerations can all come into play. As geopolitical tensions evolve, businesses can find themselves managing legal, operational and reputational considerations simultaneously. 

Recent developments illustrate how quickly the environment can shift. In July, the Lloyd’s Market Association published a new model clause addressing payments made for vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, reflecting the growing intersection of sanctions, regulation and routine voyage decisions. In simple terms, the clause makes clear that insurers will not cover those payments and that cover for the relevant vessel may cease if such a payment is made, because of the potential sanctions and terrorism-law implications.  

It is a clear example of how operational challenges can quickly become regulatory challenges, with a routing decision, port call or payment instruction carrying consequences beyond the voyage itself.  

Marine war risk was traditionally viewed through the lens of state-on-state conflict. Today, the landscape is often more complex, involving a wider range of actors, competing geopolitical interests and tactics that can blur traditional definitions of conflict. From the perspective of businesses and their advisers, this can make risk assessment more complicated and layered. Emerging technologies also add complexity. The objective is not to predict every new threat, but to understand how geopolitical and technological developments may influence exposures over time. 

Why experience matters 

In marine war insurance, experience is more than a differentiator, it is a risk management tool. When events move quickly, it is depth of knowledge that allows a considered response rather than a reactive one.  

That knowledge is rarely built on a single event or market. It accumulates across regions and cycles of disruption, drawing on real-time geopolitical intelligence and longstanding relationships. The value lies in the ability to read an emerging situation quickly and help clients make informed decisions while circumstances are still shifting.  

Experience also supports consistency. Periods of uncertainty can trigger sharp swings in market sentiment, underwriting appetite and pricing. For brokers and insureds, confidence tends to come from working with partners who take a disciplined, long-term view and hold their nerve when conditions change. 

For brokers and risk advisers, the key takeaway is that resilience planning deserves increased attention. 

In fast-moving situations, businesses are often faced with conflicting information about whether a route is open, restricted or effectively closed. Cutting through that noise is difficult in isolation. This is where partnership matters: insurers, brokers and clients sharing intelligence and insight builds a clearer, more comprehensive picture than any party could form alone.  

Marine war insurance is no longer solely about responding when something goes wrong. Increasingly, it is about helping businesses navigate uncertainty, understand interconnected risks and make informed decisions in an environment where geopolitical developments can have far-reaching consequences.

By Ron Arnold, founder 11eight

Almost all the conversation about insurance and AI focuses on how insurers can use it to price, underwrite, manage claims, detect fraud and so on.

And there is no shortage of frameworks for making AI “safe” to use, not just in insurance but everywhere. But there is very little discussion on how to insure AI.

It seems to be assumed that insurers will cover it. But the signals suggest otherwise.

Many questions around making the use of AI “insurable” remain open: whether the frameworks can be implemented and are effective; whether clear lines of liability can be established; where liability sits when things go wrong; and how much information is needed to understand AI risk well enough to underwrite and price it.

Regulators are setting clear expectations. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission recently wrote to boards, putting them on notice that AI governance is theirs to own. APRA warned that “assurance practices are not keeping pace with the scale, speed and complexity of AI adoption”.

That pace APRA referred to is a real challenge for insurers: AI is moving fast. Standards, regulation, boards, controls and underwriting are not moving as quickly, and the gap between what AI systems can do and what we can govern and manage may be widening, not narrowing.

It should be no surprise, then, that insurers are reassessing their AI insurance exposures, and cover is being withdrawn.

Why AI strains the insurance model

AI failures are already here. Last year, Deloitte refunded part of a $439,000 fee for a government report after a generative AI system provided fabricated references and an invented quote attributed to a Federal Court judge. Australian courts have separately sanctioned lawyers for filing submissions built on AI-invented case citations. In each case, professionals relied on AI, and the liability was theirs.

The risk increases as AI moves beyond drafting material and begins acting as an “autonomous agent”. Non-deterministic autonomous agents can deliver varied outputs or actions. This can make consistent execution and assurance difficult. There is also a risk that an agent progressively departs from its intended task while still appearing to operate normally.

Human oversight remains important but is unlikely to safeguard against subtle deviations, as they can be difficult to identify, particularly where the volume of agent actions is large. An agent's erroneous financial, customer, compliance, regulatory or legal decisions can accumulate undetected, for example, underpayments, overpayments, misstated reporting, and the wrong outcomes for customers, claimants and suppliers. These failures can form the basis of a dispute, regulatory action or litigation.

Gallagher Re notes AI liabilities – from inaccurate or fabricated outputs to biased decisions, model drift and flawed training data – “are often not clearly covered under standard policies”. AI losses may not arrive looking like “AI claims”. They may look like professional indemnity, cyber, directors and officers, errors and omissions, contractual or product claims, with AI buried somewhere in the causal chain.

The liability vacuum

AI liability is a legal grey area. An Australian man asked his personal AI agent to book a gym class. The agent exploited a gap in the booking software and, unprompted, bumped another member off the waiting list to move him up the queue, in what the ABC called the first known Australian autonomous cyberattack.

A third party incurred a “loss”, but who is responsible?

“Software is not a legal person. Only a legal person can be liable at law,” technology lawyer Hayden Delaney says.

Responsibility might rest with the user, the developer of the agent software, the developer of the model, or the operator of the system it exploited. Mr Delaney told the ABC it is “the unknown area of liability in Australia that we’re facing right now”.

For insurers, this is critical, because clarity about who is responsible for an autonomous agent’s actions informs what type of policy applies, who needs what cover and what for, the terms and conditions of that policy, how to underwrite and price it, and whose policy should respond.

The scale of the problem

Even where responsibility is clear, the potential scale is severe. These systems lean on a handful of common foundational models: three providers account for more than four-fifths of AI deployments. So a defect in any one, as Gallagher Re points out, need not stay contained to one business, and faults in widely adopted systems “could trigger claims across multiple sectors simultaneously”.

The combination of uncertainty, concentration and potential contagion challenges a core mechanism of insurance: diversification. Insurance works when losses are sufficiently independent across policyholders, allowing premiums from the many to cover claims from the few. But a hidden defect accumulating within a widely used foundational model undermines the risk-spreading mechanism – creating losses across many businesses, sectors and policies at much the same time. A risk that is systemic, highly correlated and capable of producing simultaneous large-scale losses is not simply difficult to price – it can become effectively uninsurable.

The American warning

The US market is already moving to exclude, limit or separately price this risk. State regulators have approved more than 80% of insurers’ requests to strip AI from standard corporate coverage, with Berkshire Hathaway, Chubb and Travelers among those cleared to do so. Verisk’s ISO arm has released standard endorsements that allow carriers to exclude certain generative AI claims from general liability coverage. Carriers are no longer willing to carry AI liability unpriced inside legacy wordings.

Australia has not moved this far – at least not yet – but AI exclusions are starting to appear. Law firm Landers & Rogers recently reported that “we are now seeing AI exclusions starting to appear in certain types of policy wordings”, and it warns that insurers and regulators are signalling AI governance failures may be treated as foreseeable and uninsured, rather than accidental.

The message is clear: governments, businesses and consumers cannot assume insurance will cover the actions and impacts of AI.

Getting on the front foot

Australian insurers may, one by one, remove or constrain AI cover. As with property insurance in high-risk catastrophe areas, the industry may then be blamed for “pricing” or removing cover for a risk it did not create.

To avoid being cast as the villain, the industry needs to get on the front foot and work across multiple fronts, including:

• Start communicating now. Explain openly why AI is hard to insure, and why; signal that cover may narrow or disappear; and set out what has to be true for insurers to stay in the market.
• Shape the rules. Get into the policy debate and help write the rules, standards and regulations while they are still forming.
• Map liability and agree the insurance contract wording. Establish where each risk originates and who is accountable, and settle the key definitions, seeking regulatory approval where required by the market.
• Agree where shared data can help. Identify where common data, such as a pool of incident and loss data, would help pricing and modelling, and seek any regulatory approvals and industry agreement needed to build it.
• Make the safeguards clear, then price to them. An underwriter can only assess controls that are defined and open to review, so the safeguards that make a deployment insurable have to be spelt out first; then price on what a system actually has in place – there is no useful loss history. Here, too, standardising those safeguards and seeking regulatory approval where needed is worth considering.
• Be straight with customers. Tell them what their AI exposures may be, and what governance helps and keeps them covered.

Insurance has historically made “taking risk” possible by helping to understand threats, defining standards and controls, and providing underwriting and pricing signals. The opportunity here is not simply to decide whether AI is insurable – it is for the industry to help make it insurable.

Insurer code of practice submissions from underwriting agencies, brokers and restorers have highlighted issues relating to contractual enforceability, small business repercussions and repair standards.

The Insurance Council of Australia last week released 28 submissions on the draft version of its code rewrite – with two remaining confidential – as it crafts an improved version to submit to the regulator.

The plan to make the code contractually enforceable has generated extensive feedback despite widespread support for it.

The Underwriting Agencies Council takes issue with the “wide net” of contractual enforceability when combined with a lack of delineation between minor and significant breaches.

It warns of increased exposure to vexatious or frivolous litigation over technical or minor breaches, potential class actions and inflationary effects on premiums due to a heavier compliance burden, at a time when affordability is a critical issue.

UAC suggests reducing the number of provisions that are contractually enforceable, targeting areas that are clear, certain and objectively measurable, and where breaches would be considered significant.

The group is also concerned about the implications arising from definitions of vulnerability and extra care, and suggests a phased approach.

“Certain vulnerability-related obligations may be better suited to be situated within the ICA’s non-binding vulnerability guidance, at least during an initial implementation period,” it says.

Consumer groups, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority and the code governance committee have in previously released submissions backed contractual enforceability but have suggested it has come with weakened protections.

“In our view, the imperative to make the code contractually enforceable has resulted in perverse outcomes,” AFCA says.

These include hollowing out concrete commitments, or moving them into unenforceable guidance, and undermining the compliance and supervisory framework, it says.

The National Insurance Brokers Association submission says its most significant concern involves a redrafted wholesale insurance definition that has the practical effect of reducing protection.

The new definition excludes business interruption; contractors all risks; fidelity guarantee; legal liability including public and product liability; professional indemnity including management liability, directors and officers, and tax audit insurance; cyber; and industrial special risks.

“They are neither retail insurance nor wholesale insurance as redefined, and no part of the code applies to a product that is neither,” NIBA says.

“This is a move from limited but real code coverage to none.”

NIBA welcomes clearer claims time frames but says they “set a low bar” for the pace at which customers can expect resolution and should be reframed as outer limits for complex matters.

The ICA draft says insurers will decide a claim within four months of receipt, extending to 12 months where certain circumstances apply – including an external expert’s report being delayed. The experts have 60 days to provide a report.

“NIBA is concerned that time frames at this level do little to shift insurer behaviour towards the urgency customers recovering from a loss need, and that the cost of delay – to customers first, and ultimately to the system through higher claims costs and complaints – is understated in the current drafting,” it says.

On complaints, NIBA says there should be a clear customer-driven trigger for updates, such as on request or where an insurer considers an update would assist.

Proposed wording says an insurer will “keep you informed” on progress.

“A complainant who knows they can ask for an update, and will receive one, is better served than one left to wonder whether silence means inaction,” NIBA says.

The group also suggests the code and extra care guidance could be clearer about how insurer obligations and the broker’s role fit together around vulnerability.

“More broadly, NIBA notes the strongest consumer outcomes are achieved where vulnerability protections are enforceable and independently overseen, rather than left to voluntary guidance,” it says.

The Restoration Industry Association says the redraft imposes conduct obligations on claims fulfilment providers but does not anchor the quality of work to recognised technical standards, and has weakened qualification and competency requirements.

Since the current code was produced, Australian Standards have been adopted for water damage restoration and mould remediation, providing nationally recognised benchmarks.

RIA proposes work should have to meet the standards, or recognised international versions where no local document exists.

The Australasian Institute of Chartered Loss Adjusters challenges the removal of a clause on education and training standards required of service suppliers.

It also calls for the definition of loss adjusters to be amended to reflect their advisory role and that the code requires to make clear that claims fulfilment providers do not provide opinions on the application of policy terms or insurance coverage.

ICA says it is considering all the feedback and expects to submit the revised code to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for approval later this year.

Submissions are available here.

Suncorp has said in response to an Australian Securities Exchange price query that it is not in discussions regarding a takeover and that it has not received an offer.

The company says it is not aware of any information concerning it that has not been announced to the market which, if known by some in the market, could explain the recent trading in its securities. 

“Suncorp is aware of a speculative article published in the online [edition] of The Australian newspaper headlined ‘Tokio Marine and Suncorp said to have held preliminary takeover talks’,” it says. 

“This article was published shortly before the increase in Suncorp’s share price and trading volumes. Suncorp confirms that it is not in discussions regarding a takeover and that it has not received a takeover offer.” 

The Australian had reported in July that Tokio Marine was interested in Suncorp and IAG, while an article published online yesterday said that “Suncorp is understood to have entered preliminary discussions” with Tokio Marine, and executives had travelled to Japan for talks, but it was “understood that as of last week there had yet to be any formal inbound proposal”. 

The UK’s Financial Times also in August reported that Suncorp was the preferred target for Tokio Marine. That article said the Japanese insurer had also looked at IAG and Canada's Intact Financial Corporation.

Suncorp shares closed up 4.8% at $19.97 yesterday.
 

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has opposed IAG’s planned $1.35 billion purchase of WA’s RAC Insurance, but the company will continue to pursue deal approval through a new public interest avenue introduced this year.  

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb says the regulator conducted extensive inquiries and analysed material provided by IAG, RAC and third parties such as other insurers and industry associations to examine the likely impacts on competition.

“The acquisition would combine two large insurers, resulting in a substantial increase in IAG’s market share and a significant increase in market concentration,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said. 

“If the acquisition were to proceed, we consider the level of constraint from other insurers would be unlikely to be sufficient to address the loss of competition arising from the acquisition.” 

It found the proposed deal would leave IAG with overall market shares in WA of approximately 55% to 65% in motor vehicle and about 50% to 60% in home and contents. 

Under the new merger regulation regime, if the ACCC decides not to approve an acquisition, the parties can lodge an additional public benefit application and the regulator then has 50 business days to make a decision, subject to any extensions. 

IAG confirmed this morning that it would make a public benefits application, which provides an opportunity for the broader benefits of the alliance to be assessed alongside competition considerations 

“The RAC IAG partnership will create long-term benefits for members, customers and communities across Western Australia through IAG’s advanced technology platforms, claims management expertise, financial stability and global reinsurance protection,” CEO Nick Hawkins said. 

“RAC will remain local and we’ll invest in enhancements to benefit the member experience, and continue to deliver high-quality, competitive insurance products and services."

The ACCC had already raised concerns about the deal in April, before it progressed to a more detailed second phase review.

The phase two determination can be read here.

QBE has promoted Jonathan Groves to the role of CEO Australia Pacific to replace the retiring Sue Houghton. 

Mr Groves has more than 30 years’ industry experience and joined QBE in 2013 as chief risk officer of Equator Re. He was QBE's chief risk officer for Australia and New Zealand before being appointed CEO and MD of the Pacific business in 2024. Prior to QBE, he worked with AIG, Marsh and Aon. 

Group CEO Andrew Horton says Mr Groves brings deep knowledge of QBE, its Australia Pacific business and the customers and partners it serves. 

“He is well placed to build on the strong foundations of the business and continue delivering for customers, brokers, partners and shareholders,” he said. 

“Australia Pacific is a strong business with a clear strategy and significant opportunities ahead. I look forward to working closely with Jonathan as we continue to build on the momentum underway across the division.” 

Mr Groves will start his new role on November 1, reporting to Mr Horton. He will be based in Sydney. 

“It is a privilege to be appointed Chief Executive Officer of QBE Australia Pacific,” he said today. “I am confident in the strength of this business, the expertise of our people and the value of the relationships we have with our customers, brokers and partners.” 

As insuranceNEWS.com.au has reported, Ms Houghton plans to retire at the end of the year after more than five years in the role.

Cyber specialist Emergence Insurance has expanded into the US, targeting a coverage gap among SMEs.

“Cyber risk is now part of everyday operating risk, yet many organisations still do not have dedicated cyber insurance because it is often viewed as complex, specialist or difficult to access,” CEO Troy Filipcevic said today.

“Our focus is to help change that perception by making cyber insurance simpler, more practical and more clearly connected to the way organisations manage risk every day.”

Emergence’s US operations will be led by Keith Savino, a cyber insurance leader with relationships across brokers, agents and the broader market.

“Keith has the market knowledge, relationships and leadership capability we need to build Emergence US the right way,” Mr Filipcevic said.

“Just as importantly, he shares our view of what brokers, agents and clients require.”

Sydney-based Emergence, founded in 2015, has operated in Australia and New Zealand, providing cyber cover, risk support and incident response.

Mr Filipcevic says the expansion will enhance Emergence’s ability to support local organisations moving into the US, and strengthen its overall product capability.

“Our approach to the US is deliberate,” he said. “We will grow with intention, stay true to our core values and continue to build a reputation for reliability, expertise and genuine support in cyber insurance.”

The NSW government has launched a review of the icare workers’ compensation premium model, which applies to more than 340,000 employers.

The three-stage review begins today with a consultation period, followed by a spell of model testing, validation and recommendations.  

The introduction of a new model will be subject to final recommendations and approvals. 

“We have heard the calls from small businesses and not-for-profits that the workers’ compensation premium model needs to be reviewed, and the NSW government has listened,” Work Health and Safety Minister Sophie Cotsis said today. 

“We are committed to ensuring the workers’ compensation scheme that supports millions of workers is sustainable.” 

The review aims to assess whether the current model remains fit for purpose; check the balance between premium responsiveness and stability; improve transparency and predictability; enhance incentives for injury prevention and return to work outcomes; and support long-term scheme sustainability. 

The first two phases are expected to take about 18 months. 

Business NSW says the cost and complexity of the workers’ compensation system is a challenge for many members. 

“We need to avoid high premiums that are forcing more businesses to scale back operations just to stay afloat,” a spokesperson said.

“Reforming the way workers’ compensation premiums are calculated is a crucial step in not only restoring fairness to the system, but also ensuring our economy grows.”

NSW Council of Social Service CEO Cara Varian says the current model assumes employers can absorb or recover premium increases.

“Most community organisations cannot do this, as they deliver services under government contracts at a fixed price – nine in 10 organisations report that their costs rise faster than their funding,” she said.

A consultation survey can be completed here until October 25. 

QBE has appointed Jonathan Groves as CEO Australia Pacific, effective from the start of November, following more than a decade with the company in a number of senior roles. 

Group CEO Andrew Horton says Australia Pacific is a strong business with a clear strategy and significant opportunities, and he looks forward to working closely with Mr Groves in building on the momentum under way across the division.

“As an internal appointment, Jonathan brings deep knowledge of QBE, our Australia Pacific business and the customers and partners we serve,” he said.

“He is well placed to build on the strong foundations already in place and maintain our focus on disciplined execution, sustainable growth and creating long-term value.” 

Mr Groves has more than 30 years’ experience across business leadership, underwriting, broking, risk and regulation and has worked in the UK and London markets, Bermuda, Australia and more recently New Zealand. 

He is currently CEO and MD of the Pacific business, was previously chief risk officer for Australia and New Zealand and joined the group in 2013 as chief risk officer of Equator Re. Prior to QBE, he worked with AIG, Marsh and Aon.  

Mr Groves, who will be based in Sydney, says it’s a privilege to be appointed QBE Australia Pacific CEO. 

“I am confident in the strength of this business, the expertise of our people and the value of the relationships we have with our customers, brokers and partners,” he says.  

QBE announced in July that it would be searching for a successor to take over from Sue Houghton, who plans to retire at the end of the year after more than five years in the role.

IAG will pursue its next avenue for convincing the regulator that its proposed RAC Insurance acquisition should be cleared, potentially extending the process into next year.  

The insurer confirmed last week it would make a public benefits application to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)  after the regulator on Wednesday opposed the transaction. 

Once an application is lodged, the ACCC has 50 business days to decide whether public benefits outweigh competition detriments. 

JP Morgan says in a research note that the public benefits test provides a stronger avenue for IAG to pitch its case compared to the process so far, but the likelihood of approval is still less than 50%. 

If the deal is still rejected, IAG can seek a review from the Australian Competition Tribunal, which can affirm, set aside or vary the decision after mainly considering information that was before the ACCC. Other dissatisfied third parties can also pursue that avenue. 

IAG CEO Nick Hawkins says RAC will remain local and continue to deliver high-quality, competitive insurance products and services following the transaction. 

“The RAC-IAG partnership will create long-term benefits for members, customers and communities across Western Australia through IAG’s advanced technology platforms, claims management expertise, financial stability and global reinsurance protection,” Mr Hawkins said. 

RAC says the plan to team with a national insurer reduces the risk it carries alone and it supports IAG lodging a public benefits application. 

“We continue to believe in the benefits of the proposed partnership with IAG, which would strengthen RAC's ability to respond to a changing insurance landscape and maintain a competitive offering for members,” Group CEO Rob Slocombe said. 

The Motor Trades Association of Australia has welcomed the ACCC decision to oppose the transaction. 

“Behavioural commitments are no substitute for the competitive discipline that comes from having strong and independent participants in the market,” executive director Bruce Billson said.

Choosi has paused its insurance comparison service while it assesses the portal after the Federal Court ruled the comparator misled consumers about its life and funeral insurance comparison service. 

The comparator told insuranceNEWS.com.au that the decision to take its website offline is temporary “while we carefully review the Federal Court judgment and consider any further changes required. 

“This is a proactive and precautionary step taken by Choosi to ensure that we are fully meeting the expectations of our customers, regulators and the broader community. 

“We respect the court’s findings, and we accept that our previous communications did not clearly reflect the nature of the service we were providing.” 

Choosi says it will “engage constructively” with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the court on the next steps. 

Earlier this month the court ruled against Choosi after ASIC launched legal action against the comparator, alleging it misled prospective customers through its funeral and life insurance comparison services. 

Choosi offers comparison services for other insurance products that are not the subject of the ASIC action.

WA motoring club RAC Group has reported an increased net profit for the past financial year, including a stronger insurance contribution. 

Profit rose 13% to $288.2 million in the year ended June 30, while the insurance service result increased to $420.2 million from $290.3 million. 

Insurance revenue rose to $1.53 billion from $1.45 billion driven by growth in home and motor policies issued, increases in amounts insured, and average premium price increases. 

The result benefited from lower claims costs resulting from lower attritional frequency – defined as the number of claims as a proportion of the total number of policies issued – and benign weather conditions.  

Amounts recoverable from reinsurers increased due to a storm event at the end of May. 

RAC paid out $900 million across more than 217,000 claims during the year, including 12,000 from a storm late in the year that hit Perth and the south west in the insurer’s largest event since a 2010 hailstorm. 

The annual report was completed ahead of the ACCC decision to block IAG’s acquisition of its insurance underwriting business. RAC has since supported IAG’s move to make a public benefits test application to the regulator. 

Group CEO Rob Slocombe and President John Driscoll say in the annual report that the club, which has 1.3 million members, insures $270 billion worth of WA homes, vehicles and other assets. 

“While that reflects the trust members place in RAC, it also creates a concentration risk that larger, national insurers avoid by spreading their exposure across multiple states and markets,” they say.

“At the same time, the insurance environment is becoming increasingly complex. Rising weather- related risks, increasing costs and regulatory requirements, and the growing need for capital and scale are creating significant challenges.” 

They say that under the proposal, IAG would take on the insurance risk and underwriting, and claims handling, while RAC Insurance would remain and members would continue to deal with local people, branches, claims teams, and call centres. 

Johns Lyng subsidiary Steamatic Australia can proceed with buying an 80% stake in a regional franchisee without notifying the competition watchdog.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission approved the subsidiary’s waiver application for the deal under the mandatory merger notification regime that began at the start of the year. 

A waiver option is permitted for acquisitions that do not raise material competition concerns. 

The commission says the proposed investment in Steamatic Epsom has “limited geographic scope … there are alternative suppliers of damage restoration services … [and] there is a low risk of foreclosure or other concerning vertical or conglomerate effects resulting from exclusionary conduct, bundling or tying post-acquisition. 

“In these circumstances, the ACCC does not consider it necessary to reach a concluded view on the likelihood of the notification thresholds being met.” 

Steamatic Epsom owns and operates seven branches across regional Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

Turning insurance from a reactive sector that pays out after disaster strikes, to a proactive one that anticipates and cuts the risk of a claim is the lodestar. Insurers increasingly talk of becoming a resilience partner for clients.

But one firm has prevention in its DNA – and a unique proposition. 

Mitti Insurance has come a long way in just six years. As it expands globally with a bolstered leadership team in place, Mitti is now firmly looking at its next phase of growth.

The firm’s founding principle was to offer a new approach to insurance by using technology to better monitor and assess risks on a real-time basis and reward better operational behaviour, rather than relying on backward-looking statistics.

Mitti Insurance ties coverage to operational data from the Mitti operations system, formerly known as SafetyCulture, to help businesses manage risk before it turns into a claim. Insights captured directly from the frontline underpin the platform's intelligence, letting Mitti Insurance price risk more accurately and prevent losses more effectively than insurers still working off historical averages.

Policyholders get the tools and insight to spot risks early and guard against preventable claims. Time-stamped, geolocated operational data leads to better documentation, more defensible claims and faster settlements.

Running safer businesses

Mitti Insurance CEO John Blake says the original idea was to prove the hypothesis that customers using the platform would be “running safer businesses and that should translate to fewer claims and a better loss ratio, and the last six years have proven that to be true”.

The results are impressive – policyholders on the platform run 19% lower claims costs and a 9% lower loss ratio than those who are not. One client, Trippas White Group has enjoyed a 35% cost reduction in some areas.     

Mr Blake says the platform “captures incidents, issues, near misses. It gives us unique insights into what businesses are doing, the daily behaviour of those teams. Most of the world’s insurance looks backwards and prices your risk based on what’s happened. We see the day-to-day activity of those teams and should be able to price their risk based on what they are actually doing. Risk prevention is the game.” 

Newly introduced Risk Action Plans give policyholders a structured, quarterly process for identifying and managing their top risks, designed by risk engineers and built directly into the Mitti platform.

Co-founder and MD Australia Dan Cummins says these are based on “where we think 65% of claims will happen – attritional claims.

“As a minimum for our policyholders, a 15-minute check on a quarterly basis will go a long way to reducing a potential claim on their business. They’re not just getting coverage, they’re getting a tool to help their business. We’ve had some really good collaboration with brokers around how we help them and their clients.” 

Growth focus

From its original commercial package, Mitti Insurance has diversified and is now offering commercial general liability and property industrial special risk protection, and the Mitti platform is now used by 2 million frontline workers in 190 countries.

“We have 80,000 organisations using Mitti globally, and we’ve only just scratched the surface of what is possible,” Mr Blake says.

“So the focus for us is, how do we expand our insurance product to meet the needs of those customers?” 

The two leaders bring complementary skills and experience. Mr Blake, who spent seven years with Goldman Sachs in New York advising growth-stage technology companies, has deep technology and platform-scaling experience from leading Mitti’s own transformation as COO and CFO.

Mr Cummins has 25 years in insurance, including 14 at QBE, before setting up Mitti Insurance.  

After recently rebranding as Mitti Insurance, after three years as SafetyCulture Care, the pair believe that with their model now proven – and unique because of the proprietary nature of the data set – the time is ripe for expansion, and its recent foray into the huge and complex US market is one proof point. 

Mr Blake, who was recently appointed global CEO, says: “My role is to scale this offering globally. We want to expand our insurance offering and the link between the core platform and the insurance outcome.

“We’re excited about what we’re doing and have just launched our P&C offering in the US this year.”

He says the US expansion could come from additional products, acquisitions, capital-raising or existing capacity partners. 

Empowering brokers by adding value

While Mitti Insurance’s leaders acknowledge that price will always be important in insurance, they firmly believe the added value they offer in terms of data-driven risk mitigation will continue to be attractive to businesses. 

“If you’re running a business, insurance is one of your key tools,” Mr Blake says.

“The value we’re giving to customers through the platform is risk prevention. Every time we prevent a piece of equipment breaking down, or stop a business interruption, or stop a loss, that’s worth far more to our customer than a slight reduction in their premium.” 

With close to 90% of the Australian commercial insurance market still flowing through brokers, Mitti Insurance wants to better empower them, rather than route around them.

Mr Cummins says: “Brokers are our long-term partners. We're currently building a portal that uses AI to give them the same insights the platform gives us, so they can see what their clients are actually doing day to day, and be a far more differentiated ‘trusted advisor’ because of it.”

The evolution of the authorised representative sector in Australia was the focus for a free Insurance News webinar.

Based on our recently published Top 20 Authorised Rep Networks report, which was sponsored by Arch Insurance, the webinar tackled topics including the rapid rise of the AR model, the range of approaches deployed by different companies, consolidation and technology.

Moderated by Insurance News editor-in-chief John Deex, expert speakers included Arch head of distribution and engagement Michael Faulkner, Insurance Advisernet MD Shaun Standfield, Community Broker Network EGM of distribution Leigh Frost and repX chief commercial officer Angela O’Neil.

“The AR model has evolved significantly over the last decade and is now a core distribution channel in the Australian market,” Mr Faulkner said.

“From an insurer perspective, one of the great strengths of the AR model is its entrepreneurial nature.

“ARs are often deeply connected with their clients, highly responsive and focused on specific industries, regions or customer segments.

“That creates real value for insurers because it helps us access markets and opportunities that might be otherwise difficult to reach.”

More than six in 10 insurance customers are likely to abandon an interaction if submitting information becomes too difficult, according to new research from Smart Communications, highlighting the commercial cost of poor digital customer experiences. 

The 2026 Customer Experience in Insurance Benchmark Report, based on responses from thousands of consumers across global markets, suggests insurers are still falling short of customer expectations despite ongoing investment in digital transformation. The research identifies four areas where insurers have the greatest opportunity to improve customer experience: using artificial intelligence responsibly, modernising digital data collection, improving customer communications and reducing friction across customer interactions. 

AI needs to build trust

Artificial intelligence remains a key focus for insurers, but customers are signalling they want greater transparency around how it is being used.

The report found 85% of consumers consider it important that insurers disclose when AI is involved in customer interactions. While many see value in AI delivering faster service, greater accuracy and more personalised experiences, confidence in the technology handling personal information securely has softened, with many respondents still expecting human oversight for important decisions. 

“Customers value transparency above all when communicating with their insurer. As businesses are adopting AI into their processes, it is easy for consumers to lose trust if they feel like they are communicating with a robot rather than a human. The number of customers who will leave a business due to bad communications has increased to over 70% in the past year, solidifying the need for businesses to prioritise clear, transparent communications or risk losing out to their competitors,” says Aaron Everingham, director of insurance at Smart Communications, Australia. 

Simpler processes drive better outcomes

The report found customers increasingly expect digital interactions to be straightforward, whether they’re lodging a claim, updating policy information or submitting supporting documentation.

Long forms, repeated requests for the same information and manual processes continue to frustrate customers, while secure, intuitive digital experiences are now seen as an expectation rather than a point of difference. The research also found customers who experience simple digital interactions are more likely to remain loyal, recommend their insurer and purchase additional products. 

Communications remain under pressure

Customer communications also emerged as an area requiring attention.

Satisfaction with insurer communications declined compared with the previous year, despite respondents placing increasing importance on receiving timely, relevant and personalised information. The findings suggest communication continues to play a central role in shaping trust, particularly during claims and policy servicing. 

Connected experiences still missing

The report’s final theme centres on reducing friction across customer interactions.

Consumers increasingly expect information to move seamlessly between websites, mobile apps, email and contact centres without having to repeat information or restart processes. However, many respondents said disconnected systems continue to make interactions more difficult than they should be, highlighting the need for insurers to better connect digital channels and back-end systems. 

“The customer experience can make or break consumer confidence. Investing in technology that allows customer information to carry seamlessly across every interaction, from the first quote to policy updates and renewal notices, will transform the way consumers view insurers. Insurers should also ensure their systems make it easier for customers to access information and manage their policies through the channel of their choice. Getting these foundations right will not only create a more seamless customer experience but could also become a key competitive differentiator for insurers,” Mr Everingham says.

While the report identifies several areas for improvement, it concludes insurers have an opportunity to strengthen customer loyalty by making digital interactions easier, improving communications and using technology in ways that build customer confidence rather than adding complexity. 

The 2026 Customer Experience in Insurance Benchmark Report, published by Smart Communications, includes detailed benchmarking across regions and generations, together with practical recommendations for insurers looking to improve customer engagement and digital service delivery.

The full report can be accessed here.

Ralfi is an Outlook assistant that helps insurance brokers manage the renewal and claims process.
It reduces the relentless follow-ups and chasing required during renewals and claims; formats information without brokers manually editing PDFs or spreadsheets; and allows clients to provide information without uploading or downloading files. Ralfi also helps brokers stay on top of important compliance milestones and maintain a clear record for audits.
Ralfi is not a CRM and does not replace a broker’s existing systems. It works alongside them to automate repetitive renewal work.

Founders Faria Anzum and Jack Hazlehurst experienced the importance of insurance first-hand after Faria had a bike accident in San Francisco in 2024. Pictured below is the couple after the accident – and at the start of almost a year of insurance paperwork.

Travel insurance protected them from medical expenses that could have exceeded $US100,000 ($139,333). However, receiving that support was far more difficult than it should have been.

For almost a year, they went back and forth between hospitals, insurers and their insurance broker, managing paperwork, follow-ups and administrative delays while trying to recover.

Without insurance and the support of insurance brokers, the financial consequences could have been devastating. However, the experience revealed how much unnecessary administrative work still exists across the industry.

It inspired Jack and Faria to build technology that removes some of this burden from brokers and their clients.

Built with brokers

Jack and Faria spent several months speaking with insurance brokers and understanding the challenges they face throughout the renewal process across the US and Australia.

Many brokers told them up to 40% of their time is spent on administration rather than advising and supporting clients. Ralfi aims to change that.

The insurance broking industry is also attracting fewer young professionals. As experienced brokers retire over the next decade, the industry may struggle to replace their knowledge and capacity.

Without better technology, insurance risks becoming slower, more expensive and harder to access. Ralfi imagines a different future for the next generation of brokers, where technology manages repetitive administrative work and brokers can focus on advice, relationships and protecting their clients.

Launching at Beyond the Buzzwords

It was a privilege to officially launch Ralfi at the Beyond the Buzzwords conference.

There were so many brilliant speakers sharing practical insights into how AI can create real value in insurance, not just as a buzzword, but as a tool for solving complex problems in highly regulated environments.

It has been great meeting so many curious minds who are asking thoughtful questions, challenging old processes and paving the future for the next generation of brokers.

We hope to be back again next year!

Book a demo at https://ralfi.io/

Most case management tools started life as generic ticketing systems and were bent into shape for investigations later. SentinelOps started the other way around – built from the ground up by a team with a background spanning army special operations, police investigations and corporate investigations for major global organisations. Every workflow reflects how a real inquiry actually runs: narrative, timeline, evidence, tasks and approvals in one place, not a support desk queue wearing an investigations hat.

One system, from first report to final brief

SentinelOps handles the full life cycle of a case. Intake pulls every incident, complaint and referral – email, web form or API – into a single queue, triaged and routed before a human touches it. From there, each case holds its chronological notes, evidence repository, tasks and outcomes on one page, with full audit trail and role-based access controls throughout. When it’s time to report, briefs that once took days to compile by hand come together in minutes, built on your own templates and locking on closure so the record can’t drift after the fact.

AI that works from your rules – not the open internet

The platform’s AI layer is trained on your own policies, procedures and precedent, not scraped from the web. Upload your rule book and it becomes the retrieval and drafting engine behind triage suggestions, classification and brief drafting – with citations that point back to the specific clause invoked. That matters, because the governing principle behind every AI feature in SentinelOps is simple and non-negotiable: AI aggregates and flags; humans decide. There is no auto-classification of breaches, no black-box scoring standing in for judgment. Every finding is evidence-backed, chain of custody is preserved on ingest, and the decision stays with the person qualified to make it.

Built for any organisation that runs investigations

SentinelOps is sector-agnostic by design – the same underlying discipline applies whether the case is a disciplinary matter, a corporate investigation or a suspicious claim: intake, evidence, analysis and an auditable, defensible outcome. For claims teams in particular, that means faster triage of suspicious claims, a single evidence repository instead of scattered emails and shared drives, policy-aware AI that flags patterns against your own fraud indicators rather than a generic checklist, and reports that hold up when a file is reopened or challenged months later.

Also included: OSINT aggregation across 1400-plus databases spanning social media, court records and news publications, linked-entity and person-of-interest search, and analytics dashboards that track breach rates, penalty outcomes and time to resolution – so the platform earns its keep well beyond any single case.

Why this, and not a generic tool?

Off-the-shelf case management platforms can be configured towards investigations, but the gaps show up fast – tribunal-ready output becomes an add-on, policy citation becomes manual cross-referencing and the vendor has never actually run a case. Building the equivalent in house typically takes 12 months or more before the first case goes live. SentinelOps is investigations-first from the schema up, with implementation measured in weeks.

See it live

We were glad to be a supporting sponsor of Beyond the Buzzwords this year – conversations like the ones on that stage are exactly why we built the platform the way we did. If your team is weighing how investigations and case management should work in 2026, we’d welcome the conversation.

Explore the live platform at live.sentinelops.app or reach out directly to lewis@sentinelops.app to arrange a walk through built around your own case types.

SentinelOps — investigations and case management, built on operational experience.

The general insurance industry remains in a strong financial position but softer commercial lines, inflation pressures and fewer reserve releases will test margins looking ahead, the annual Taylor Fry Radar report says.

After tax profit totalled $5.3 billion last financial year, down around $2 billion from record levels in the previous period when benign natural catastrophe experience and strong investment returns boosted results.

Taylor Fry principal Scott Duncan says profit may ease a little further in the current year, depending on natural catastrophes and investment markets.

“Inflation pressures are pushing up claims costs and we expect the level of reserve releases will slow,” he tells insuranceNEWS.com.au. “The other aspect is the soft commercial insurance market, and we expect that will flow through to the top line a little more in 2027 than it has in 2026.” 

Taylor Fry anticipates the commercial market won’t start turning until towards the end of 2028, with 2029 more likely, barring any major disasters or economic shocks altering the trajectory. 

In the past year, direct insurers contributed $4.7 billion in profit and reinsurers $600 million and the industry generated a 13% return on capital.

Domestic motor was a standout with a record $1.7 billion profit, as the June quarter generated results not seen since the start of covid, when lockdowns reduced driving activity. 

Mr Duncan says fuel sales volumes have decreased while prices have risen. 

“What that suggests is that there's been a bit of a change in driving activity as we've seen those fuel price increases, and there’s broader pressures on household budgets. At the same time, we've seen an acceleration in EV take up,” he said.

Householders posted an underwriting loss of $42 million after storms and hail hit Queensland and northern NSW in November and December, with the class recording a loss in six of the last seven years.

Taylor Fry is forecasting a householders combined operating ratio of 98% this fiscal year and mid-single-digit premium increases on average.

Mr Duncan says construction inflation will support premiums, while increases are likely to vary significantly depending on insurers’ assessments. 

“We've become much better at understanding the risk at an individual property level, and those properties that are more exposed to natural peril risks will receive far larger increases,” he said. 

The Radar report says artificial intelligence is also a key issue shaping the outlook, as the industry examines how to effectively manage the risks while capturing the opportunities.

Click here to read the full report.

Life insurers have stressed the need for “appropriate product design flexibility” to keep mental health cover affordable and accessible as the industry takes its overhaul of its code of practice to the next phase following a review. 

Mental health emerged as the most significant focus area in the review led by former regulator Peter Kell, who released his final report in June after he was appointed last year by the Council of Australian Life Insurers to undertake the task.

The council today released the industry’s response to the reviewer’s 85 recommendations targeting several areas including mental health, support for vulnerable customers, claims handling and code enforceability.

CALI agreed to some mental health recommendations such as developing a plain-English consumer guide on life insurance and mental health but held off on others where it has decided to consider them in an “upcoming priority workstream process” or chosen an alternative industry response. 

The council says it supports the recommendation that the code should prohibit each insurer’s standard form disability insurance contracts from excluding cover for all mental health conditions. 

However, it has decided on an alternative industry response to that recommendation. 

“When it comes to [that recommendation], we agree that no individual insurer’s standard form contract should fully exclude cover for all mental health conditions,” council CEO Christine Cupitt told insuranceNEWS.com.au. 

“What is important, is that this commitment shouldn’t prevent insurers from implementing sustainable design features like caps, waiting periods and instalment payments.

“We should also give customers the choice as to whether they want to remove the mental health cover for affordability reasons. And we need to make sure that that choice is informed and voluntary.

“Of course, as is the case today, insurers will be able to apply non-standard terms and exclusions following individual underwriting.” 

She says life insurers will “always be here for the people who are most deeply affected by mental ill health. But we are moving with the times to make sure that that cover remains accessible and affordable. We will look at the life code to provide life insurers with the appropriate flexibility to design products that are affordable and accessible."

The review is the first since CALI took ownership of the code from the Financial Services Council in 2023. 

CALI supports the majority of the 85 recommendations and says there will be further work and consultation on “more complex” suggestions to wrap up in the first half of next year. 

Consumer groups say the industry’s response to the code recommendations is promising. 

“We are particularly pleased to see CALI agreeing to prohibit each insurer’s standard form disability insurance contracts from excluding cover for all mental health conditions,” Financial Rights Legal Centre policy development principal Drew MacRae said. 

“This has been an important issue for many Australians and we look forward to working with CALI to implement this.”

Click here to read CALI's response to the final report in full.

An insurer has been ordered to cover secondary roof damage to a beachside home after the industry ombudsman found it should have carried out temporary make-safe works – even though it was entitled to reject the original claim for problems caused by nesting birds. 

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority accepted it was unusual that responsibility for preventing further loss and damage should be assigned to the insurer, not the insured, and said; “I emphasise that this finding is confined to the specific circumstances of this complaint”.   

The dispute arose after the homeowners lodged a claim for damage to an eave. Hollard Insurance Partners arranged for builders to inspect the property, but subsequently declined the claim, as the damage had been caused by birds nesting in the roof, an excluded event under the policy.  

AFCA agreed the insurer was entitled to reject the original claim, but found Hollard should have then taken steps to protect the property from further damage. 

The inspection showed a section of the eave had collapsed, leaving a large opening into the roof space. Although the builder’s report described the dwelling as watertight, AFCA said photographs clearly showed that the roof space was exposed and potentially vulnerable to wind-driven rain. 

AFCA said a prudent builder acting for the insurer should have undertaken a temporary repair, particularly given the property’s coastal location. 

It found the repair was unlikely to have been difficult or costly and would have reduced the likelihood of further damage. 

“Insurers generally do not have the same responsibilities to mitigate further loss and damage that insureds have. However, in this particular instance, JL, the insurer’s agent and an experienced builder, was aware of the obvious potential for further damage, was on site, and was likely equipped with the tools to undertake a temporary make safe (because he was equipped for a thorough inspection of the property)”, AFCA said.  

The homeowners said the opening remained exposed for weeks while they waited for the claim decision, resulting in deterioration from wind-driven moisture, salt exposure and heat fluctuations.

After the claim was rejected, they said they made efforts to find contractors but eventually had a family member install a replacement board. 

AFCA accepted that secondary damage was likely to have occurred and found the homeowners had made reasonable attempts to mitigate it. 

It told Hollard to accept liability for any secondary roof damage directly caused by its failure to undertake the make-safe repair.

AFCA also ordered Hollard to pay the homeowners $500 jointly for non-financial loss, finding that the insurer’s failure to make the property safe caused an unusual degree of inconvenience and concern.

Click here for the full ruling.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's decision to block IAG's proposed acquisition of RAC Insurance is one of the main topics discussed on the Insurance News podcast.

As previously reported, the ACCC has opposed IAG's $1.35 billion purchase of the WA business, but the company will continue to pursue deal approval through a new public interest avenue introduced this year.

This week’s edition of INsight, hosted by Insurance News MD Andrew Silcox, features editor-in-chief John Deex, deputy editor Wendy Pugh and journalists Bernice Han and Ian Welch.

The team also discusses the rise of data centres, a raft of reports on AI, and warnings over this summer's potential bushfire risk.

You can find the latest episode, and previous episodes of INsight, published here.

More than one in five Australians is facing significant vulnerability, with financial security the strongest factor affecting overall resilience, according to a new index launched by Zurich. 

Insurance coverage is a key driver of that financial resilience, the study showed.   

The Australian Resilience Index, developed with Mandala Partners, RedBridge Group and Accent Research, analysed almost 2500 local areas using two million proprietary and public data points across financial, health, social and environmental parameters. 

Zurich says financial wellbeing is more closely correlated with overall resilience than the other three measures – health, social and environmental – and insurance coverage is central to that ranking.  

Communities with insurance penetration of at least 50% are five times more likely to have higher financial resilience and four times more likely to have higher health resilience, according to the index. 

The index found wide variations between communities. Cottesloe in WA is ranked as the most financially resilient area overall, while the Torres Strait Islands in Queensland are the least.  

The ACT recorded the highest financial and social resilience among the states and territories, while Queensland had the lowest financial resilience and the NT the lowest social resilience.

The index also identified significant demographic differences. Men aged 35 to 49 were the most resilient demographic group overall, supported by higher incomes, superannuation balances and dividend income, although they recorded weaker health resilience linked to obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption. 

Zurich CEO Justin Delaney says insurance is central to all four dimensions of resilience. 

“Insurance sits at the intersection of these four dimensions of resilience. It protects financial stability when shocks occur, supports health and wellbeing through prevention and recovery services, and relies on – and contributes to – social cohesion and environmental preparedness by pooling risks and supporting communities”, he said.

“We believe this index can provide a unique and valuable perspective on a range of critical policy conversations and ways to target and prioritise public & private investments.

"More broadly, it highlights our increasing ability to understand both the prevailing risk and resilience environment and the benefits and return that accrues to early and proactive intervention at both a community and individual level."

Click here to see the index.

Global marine insurance premium income increased 5.5% last year to $US42.6 billion ($60.3 billion) but more capacity is increasing competition, according to the industry’s latest market analysis. 

Transport/cargo remained the largest business line, accounting for 57% of global premiums, the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) said at its annual conference in Rotterdam. 

That was followed by ocean hull at 24.7%, offshore energy at 11.1% and marine liability, excluding P&I business covered by the International Group of P&I clubs, at 7.3%. 

Chief analyst Veith Huesmann said the increase in premium income was “heavily supported” by exchange rate impacts resulting from US dollar weakness. 

“Once currency effects are taken into account, the market remains soft across all major business lines, with increased capacity adding to competitive pressure in most sectors,” he said. 

The claims environment has remained relatively stable, with no catastrophic loss significantly affecting any sector, but attritional losses continue to build and are eroding profitability, particularly in ocean hull, he says. 

IUMI President Frederic Denefle told the conference marine is entering a period of significant change driven by geopolitics, new trade routes, digitalisation and the lower-carbon transition. 

“US trade tariffs haven’t caused the disruptions we feared, and the world economy was more resilient than anticipated,” he said. 

“But there is considerable uncertainty from increasing war risks, additional capacity bringing greater competition and continued inflationary pressure. This is coupled with ongoing uncertainty around free trade and global commerce.” 

Mr Denefle told a workshop that there’s a misconception that war cover is automatically cancelled when a conflict situation arises. 

“When risk increases significantly, some insurers will serve a notice of cancellation in relation to the cover their assureds have in place,” he said. “This enables the insurer to reassess the risk and then reinstate the cover on adjusted terms.” 

IUMI Vice-President Sean Dalton is taking over as president from Mr Denefle, who has completed a four-year term.

US insurance comparator Insurify has prohibited Meta’s recently launched artificial intelligence agent from its shopping portals, saying it wants to protect consumers from quotes that lack “critical" contextual details like coverage limits and deductibles. 

Facebook owner Meta unveiled Muse earlier this month, a personal digital assistant that the tech giant says “can help with everyday tasks like booking reservations, monitoring prices, managing reminders, creating documents, generating images, and researching topics”. 

Insurify says automated scraping by agents like Muse risks stripping carrier quotes of vital contextual information that consumers need to make informed insurance-buying decisions. 

“The Muse AI agent can present carrier quotes as a bare price list and omit coverage limits, deductibles, discounts, eligibility conditions, and state-required disclosures,” the comparator said. 

Insurify co-founder and co-CEO Giorgos Zacharia says a quote without its context is not a fair comparison. 

“It is a number. An AI agent that extracts our carriers’ rates and feeds them into a stripped-down list serves neither the consumer nor the carrier,” Mr Zacharia said. 

“We support AI agents that make insurance shopping better, but they need to preserve the information and consumer control required to make an informed insurance decision.”

A Swiss Re report says conditions for a new generation of systemic crises are taking shape as risks becoming more interconnected across industries.

Stronger interdependencies between financial, digital, natural and socio-economic systems are creating new channels for shocks to transmit and amplify, according to the joint report with the London School of Economics. 

The report cites artificial intelligence as an example where risk has broadened beyond the technology sector. 

A large set of non-tech companies, such as retailers and airlines, that did not disclose AI risk in 2019 were disclosing it by 2026 because the technology has become more widely embedded in their operations, customer behaviour and regulatory environment. 

“AI risk has evolved from a concern largely confined to the tech sector into a cross-sector risk amplifier, with implications extending across multiple industries,” the report said. 

Supply chains are another key point of connection between risks. Geopolitical tensions, tariffs, climate events, pandemics and cyberattacks can all interact and reinforce one another through supply networks, creating multiple pathways for disruption to spread across companies and sectors. 

Swiss Re believes the severity of the next systemic crisis may depend less on the size of the initial shock than on where it hits and how widely its effects spread. 

“A company may look diversified until you discover that its suppliers, technology providers and customers depend on the same infrastructure,” Swiss Re Corporate Solutions CEO Ivan Gonzalez said. 

“One disruption can therefore affect more parts of a business than expected. Understanding those dependencies may help companies reduce concentrations, strengthen resilience and decide which risks they can absorb and which they need to transfer.”

S&P Global Ratings says “robust governance” and other risk control measures are vital as insurers expand use of artificial intelligence to drive business performance. 

Findings from the credit assessment agency’s survey of 121 general, life and health insurance entities suggest the industry will significantly increase AI-related expenditure over the next three years. 

About 83% of the survey respondents, including 14 in the Asia-Pacific region, say they are in the early or intermediate stages of their AI journey; they are using the technology to automate internal workflows; 50% are using AI for customer solutions; and 39% are deploying it for risk management purposes. 

“We expect AI’s benefits and risks to be increasingly relevant credit considerations across the insurance sector,” S&P said.

“Insurers that implement AI with robust governance, disciplined execution, and effective risk controls will be better positioned to enhance operational efficiency, strengthen customer engagement, and generate tangible benefits to their long-term profitability.” 

S&P warns the benefits of AI adoption for insurers are not guaranteed. 

“As AI adoption becomes more widespread, we believe the differentiating factor will increasingly be insurers’ ability to scale AI effectively while maintaining robust governance and risk controls,” the credit rating agency said. 

“Consequently, variations in AI readiness, governance maturity, and data capabilities may increasingly influence competitive advantage, risk exposure, and ultimately creditworthiness. 

“We expect AI’s benefits and risks to be increasingly relevant credit considerations across the insurance sector.”

Axa XL and S-RM have called on businesses to treat artificial intelligence risks as an enterprise resilience issue, warning that AI adoption is outpacing governance, security and incident-response capabilities. 

The property and casualty insurer and global intelligence and cybersecurity consultancy have published Building Resilient AI: Managing AI risk through governance, security and resilience, which outlines five priorities for organisations integrating AI into critical business processes.

The report comes as AI adoption expands across business functions, with 88% of organisations reporting AI use in at least one business function, according to McKinsey & Company’s 2026 State of AI survey. 

The Axa XL and S-RM report identifies clear accountability, data protection, lifecycle risk management, third-party oversight and insurance preparedness as five priorities for business leaders. 

“From an insurance perspective, organisations that can show strong data governance, robust access controls and clear oversight of AI systems are far better positioned to reduce exposure”, it says. 

It calls for organisations to establish responsibility for AI across formal deployments, embedded software features and unauthorised or “shadow AI” use. Businesses should also strengthen identity and access controls as AI systems become more autonomous. 

The report highlights risks including data leakage, model manipulation, prompt injection, unreliable outputs and overly autonomous AI agents. It recommends managing risk from data collection and model development through to deployment, monitoring and incident response. 

“AI risk rarely emerges in isolation,” head of cyber risk consulting services at Axa XL Rebiah Bardot-Girard said. She said organisations need to understand where AI is being used, what data it can access and where it can take or influence action. 

According to the World Economic Forum, 64% of organisations now assess the security of AI tools before deployment, up from 37% a year earlier. However, Axa XL and S-RM say pre-deployment assessment alone is insufficient, with ongoing monitoring required as AI systems evolve. 

The report identifies five foundations for secure AI adoption: strong data governance, secure models and applications, ecosystem resilience, robust access controls and continuous monitoring. 

The report is available here.

Life insurers have stressed the need for “appropriate product design flexibility” to keep mental health cover affordable and accessible as the industry takes its overhaul of its code of practice to the next phase following a review. 

Mental health emerged as the most significant focus area in the review led by former regulator Peter Kell, who released his final report in June after he was appointed last year by the Council of Australian Life Insurers to undertake the task.

The council today released the industry’s response to the reviewer’s 85 recommendations targeting several areas including mental health, support for vulnerable customers, claims handling and code enforceability.

CALI agreed to some mental health recommendations such as developing a plain-English consumer guide on life insurance and mental health but held off on others where it has decided to consider them in an “upcoming priority workstream process” or chosen an alternative industry response. 

The council says it supports the recommendation that the code should prohibit each insurer’s standard form disability insurance contracts from excluding cover for all mental health conditions. 

However, it has decided on an alternative industry response to that recommendation. 

“When it comes to [that recommendation], we agree that no individual insurer’s standard form contract should fully exclude cover for all mental health conditions,” council CEO Christine Cupitt told insuranceNEWS.com.au. 

“What is important, is that this commitment shouldn’t prevent insurers from implementing sustainable design features like caps, waiting periods and instalment payments.

“We should also give customers the choice as to whether they want to remove the mental health cover for affordability reasons. And we need to make sure that that choice is informed and voluntary.

“Of course, as is the case today, insurers will be able to apply non-standard terms and exclusions following individual underwriting.” 

She says life insurers will “always be here for the people who are most deeply affected by mental ill health. But we are moving with the times to make sure that that cover remains accessible and affordable. We will look at the life code to provide life insurers with the appropriate flexibility to design products that are affordable and accessible."

The review is the first since CALI took ownership of the code from the Financial Services Council in 2023. 

CALI supports the majority of the 85 recommendations and says there will be further work and consultation on “more complex” suggestions to wrap up in the first half of next year. 

Consumer groups say the industry’s response to the code recommendations is promising. 

“We are particularly pleased to see CALI agreeing to prohibit each insurer’s standard form disability insurance contracts from excluding cover for all mental health conditions,” Financial Rights Legal Centre policy development principal Drew MacRae said. 

“This has been an important issue for many Australians and we look forward to working with CALI to implement this.”

Click here to read CALI's response to the final report in full.

A life insurer has been ordered to pay $4000 to an income protection policyholder after telling him his PTSD was covered, only to reverse its position six weeks later and reject his claim. 

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) found Resolution Life Australasia was entitled to rely on a longstanding exclusion for mental disorders and reject the claim, but said its incorrect advice had caused unnecessary and avoidable distress, delay and confusion. 

The policyholder applied for his income protection policy in 2000, disclosing a history of mental illness including a period of hospitalisation for depression. Resolution Life offered cover subject to an exclusion for disability caused or contributed to by “any mental disorder”. 

The man stopped working in November 2024 and lodged a claim in April 2025 for “PTSD with chronic and complex features”. His treating psychiatrist and other doctors diagnosed him with PTSD. 

In March 2025, before he lodged the claim, the man had several conversations with Resolution Life staff which gave him the impression that PTSD was not caught by the exclusion because it was not specifically listed. 

The insurer then confirmed that position in writing, telling him: “PTSD and C-PTSD are coverable conditions under your policy.” 

On May 1, however, Resolution Life reversed its position, telling the policyholder the information provided to him had been incorrect and that the broad mental disorder exclusion applied to PTSD. It apologised for the error and rejected his claim. 

AFCA found the insurer’s original advice was misleading but did not prevent it relying on the exclusion. 

The policyholder had already stopped work before receiving the incorrect advice, meaning he had not lost an opportunity to continue working or obtain alternative cover as a result of being misled. 

AFCA also found Resolution Life had not breached its duty of utmost good faith, taking into account the relatively short period involved, the employee’s junior position and the insurer’s subsequent correction and apology. 

However, the misleading advice had real consequences. The policyholder believed he could claim, spent time and effort pursuing the claim and obtaining a medical certificate, and was upset when the insurer subsequently told him the opposite. 

AFCA said: “All of this was unnecessary, avoidable, and caused by the insurer’s misleading conduct. The complainant was already very unwell and I accept the insurer’s actions caused him significant distress.” 

AFCA said the loss was significant but relatively short-lived and awarded $4000 for non-financial loss. The insurer had already apologised. 

The determination was otherwise mostly in favour of Resolution Life.

Click here for the full ruling.

Draft changes to privacy laws need “further clarification” to avoid “unnecessary” duplicative compliance obligations for financial advisers, the profession’s peak body says. 

Financial Advice Association Australia says it backs the federal government’s objective of strengthening privacy protections and enhancing consumer trust in the handling of personal information.

“However, the FAAA considers that the reforms, as currently drafted, would benefit from further clarification … Without this clarity, there is a real risk of unnecessary regulatory duplication and uncertainty, without a commensurate improvement in privacy outcomes for clients,” the association said in a submission. 

The association wants clarity on how the new principles-based standards are intended to interact with pre-existing regulatory obligations that currently govern the collection, use, disclosure and retention of client information in fields such as financial advice. 

It made a number of recommendations in the submission to the Attorney-General’s department, which launched a consultation last month on the draft Privacy Amendment (Personal Data Protection) Bill 2026. 

One of the recommendations relate to a new test to ensure “fair and reasonable” handling of personal information. 

The association says its members are concerned that the breadth and contextual nature of the proposed test may create uncertainty for advice practices seeking clear and repeatable compliance processes. 

“The legislation should therefore make clear that the collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information that is reasonably necessary to comply with statutory, regulatory, professional and dispute resolution obligations will generally be regarded as fair and reasonable,” the submission said. 

“This is particularly important in the context of ongoing advice relationships, where advisers may need to access historical client information years after it was originally collected, to: provide further advice … manage insurance claims …  or to satisfy regulatory and record keeping requirements. 

“In limited circumstances a financial adviser may also need to refer to that information in responding to complaints.”

TAL is giving away tickets to AFLW games and encouraging Australians to invite a family member or friend along to support social connection. 

TAL research found 45% of Australians – and 50% of women – turn to close friends when they want to lift their mood, ahead of partners (42%) and family (41%).  

Among 18 to 24-year-olds, friends dominate as a mood boost (61%), while in middle age, partners, friends and children become more balanced.  

“We know more frequent social contact is associated with better overall health, and in particular our mental health. For some people, it is a regular walk with a friend. For others, it is a family meal, a community group or a phone call. The best form of connection is the one people can actually keep doing,” TAL head of mental health Glenn Baird said. 

TAL’s Understanding Modern Australia Report shows Australians often cancel plans because they feel tired, stressed or financially stretched.   

 Mr Baird says connecting with friends, family and community should be seen as a wellbeing habit.  

“For many people, friends and regular social contact are deeply linked to how they feel day to day. That is why saying yes to a simple invitation, or offering one to someone else, can matter," he said. 

“It doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming. It can be a quick call, a walk around the block, or accepting an invitation you would usually decline." 

TAL recommends establishing one regular message, call or catch-up each week, and combining social connection with an activity such as walking, cooking, running an errand, or sharing a meal.  

Mental health is one of the "defining health challenges" facing Australians, TAL says, and it is working to strengthen prevention, early support, recovery and care.

Australians find ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools useful for researching financial matters but are wary of relying on them to make important decisions, according to new research from TAL. 

Almost 3.1 million Australians are using AI to help manage their financial activity, the joint research with advisory firm McCrindle found. 

However, two in five (42%) strongly or somewhat disagree they feel comfortable using AI for major financial decisions as they recognise the ‘false confidence’ using digital advice can give, the research report said. 

“Australians face a tension when it comes to using AI … AI is useful for information, but less trusted for life decisions,” the report noted.

The research found Australians remain significantly more likely to act on advice from a paid financial adviser than guidance from AI, family, online resources or social media.

TAL Group CEO and MD Fiona Macgregor says the findings highlight a broader shift in how Australians are navigating financial decisions, with trust becoming more important.

“The organisations that thrive will be those that understand how this is changing behaviour,” she said.

“While technology is making information easier to access, it's also reinforcing the importance of trust, human judgement and genuine connection when people are making important decisions.”

Click here for the full report.

The general insurance industry remains in a strong financial position but softer commercial lines, inflation pressures and fewer reserve releases will test margins looking ahead, the annual Taylor Fry Radar report says.

After tax profit totalled $5.3 billion last financial year, down around $2 billion from record levels in the previous period when benign natural catastrophe experience and strong investment returns boosted results.

Taylor Fry principal Scott Duncan says profit may ease a little further in the current year, depending on natural catastrophes and investment markets.

“Inflation pressures are pushing up claims costs and we expect the level of reserve releases will slow,” he tells insuranceNEWS.com.au. “The other aspect is the soft commercial insurance market, and we expect that will flow through to the top line a little more in 2027 than it has in 2026.” 

Taylor Fry anticipates the commercial market won’t start turning until towards the end of 2028, with 2029 more likely, barring any major disasters or economic shocks altering the trajectory. 

In the past year, direct insurers contributed $4.7 billion in profit and reinsurers $600 million and the industry generated a 13% return on capital.

Domestic motor was a standout with a record $1.7 billion profit, as the June quarter generated results not seen since the start of covid, when lockdowns reduced driving activity. 

Mr Duncan says fuel sales volumes have decreased while prices have risen. 

“What that suggests is that there's been a bit of a change in driving activity as we've seen those fuel price increases, and there’s broader pressures on household budgets. At the same time, we've seen an acceleration in EV take up,” he said.

Householders posted an underwriting loss of $42 million after storms and hail hit Queensland and northern NSW in November and December, with the class recording a loss in six of the last seven years.

Taylor Fry is forecasting a householders combined operating ratio of 98% this fiscal year and mid-single-digit premium increases on average.

Mr Duncan says construction inflation will support premiums, while increases are likely to vary significantly depending on insurers’ assessments. 

“We've become much better at understanding the risk at an individual property level, and those properties that are more exposed to natural peril risks will receive far larger increases,” he said. 

The Radar report says artificial intelligence is also a key issue shaping the outlook, as the industry examines how to effectively manage the risks while capturing the opportunities.

Click here to read the full report.

More than one in five Australians is facing significant vulnerability, with financial security the strongest factor affecting overall resilience, according to a new index launched by Zurich. 

Insurance coverage is a key driver of that financial resilience, the study showed.   

The Australian Resilience Index, developed with Mandala Partners, RedBridge Group and Accent Research, analysed almost 2500 local areas using two million proprietary and public data points across financial, health, social and environmental parameters. 

Zurich says financial wellbeing is more closely correlated with overall resilience than the other three measures – health, social and environmental – and insurance coverage is central to that ranking.  

Communities with insurance penetration of at least 50% are five times more likely to have higher financial resilience and four times more likely to have higher health resilience, according to the index. 

The index found wide variations between communities. Cottesloe in WA is ranked as the most financially resilient area overall, while the Torres Strait Islands in Queensland are the least.  

The ACT recorded the highest financial and social resilience among the states and territories, while Queensland had the lowest financial resilience and the NT the lowest social resilience.

The index also identified significant demographic differences. Men aged 35 to 49 were the most resilient demographic group overall, supported by higher incomes, superannuation balances and dividend income, although they recorded weaker health resilience linked to obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption. 

Zurich CEO Justin Delaney says insurance is central to all four dimensions of resilience. 

“Insurance sits at the intersection of these four dimensions of resilience. It protects financial stability when shocks occur, supports health and wellbeing through prevention and recovery services, and relies on – and contributes to – social cohesion and environmental preparedness by pooling risks and supporting communities”, he said.

“We believe this index can provide a unique and valuable perspective on a range of critical policy conversations and ways to target and prioritise public & private investments.

"More broadly, it highlights our increasing ability to understand both the prevailing risk and resilience environment and the benefits and return that accrues to early and proactive intervention at both a community and individual level."

Click here to see the index.

The Insurance Contracts Act should be amended to require companies to give clear information on reasons for premium increases, ensuring the risk signal supports resilience and helps affordability, a report on home and contents renewals says. 

The Choice and Financial Rights Legal Centre report says insurers often describe home insurance premiums as a signal of the risk attached to a property, but consumers need not only a price, but information they can understand and act upon. 

“Insurers know more about the risks facing our homes than anyone else, yet consumers are routinely given a premium increase without any meaningful explanation of what's driving it,” financial rights principal of external relations and advocacy Julia Davis said. 

“We're getting the signal, but not the information needed to respond to it.” 

An analysis of 75 homeowner renewal notices found premiums commonly rose 10% to 20%, but none explained why an individual’s premium had increased, while generic possible causes leave customers unable to tell if their home has become riskier or an increase reflects matters beyond their control. 

A survey of 831 consumers showed 71% of policyholders did not understand why their premium had increased and 73% felt it was unfair. 

Households that formally escalated requests for more information still failed to gain a tailored explanation, while those calling about increases often received advice centred on reducing coverage or increasing excesses, transferring risk to consumers rather than helping make their homes safer. 

Existing laws, industry codes and Australian Financial Complaints Authority decisions provide some rights around pricing decision information, but protections “stop well short” of requiring genuine transparency, the report says. 

Insurers cite commercial sensitivity, but the report says credit reporting sector experience shows changes can be made without disclosing proprietary methodology. 

The recommended Insurance Contracts Act amendment would require identification of factors contributing to increases or decreases, relative weightings and information about mitigation responses. 

Renewal notices should provide last year’s premium alongside the current price and a descriptive analysis of why there’s a material change, it proposes. 

Other recommendations seek expansion of the Resilient Building Council’s resilience rating system, insurer consideration of property mitigation measures and a new national pricing monitor.

It notes encouraging action by insurers regarding council bushfire ratings, but says verifiable mitigation adoption should be expanded nationally and to all controllable risks that households could reduce. 

The report, Signal Failures What are insurers telling us with their pricing?, is here. 

General insurance intermediaries including brokers placed business worth about $21.87 billion in premium for the half year to June, according to Australian Prudential Regulation Authority data released today. 

The June half invoiced premium is up slightly from $21.59 billion a year earlier but down from the preceding period’s $22.97 billion. 

Business placed with APRA-authorised general insurers made up the largest portion of transactions, accounting for $18.2 billion of receipts, followed by invoices to Lloyd’s underwriters ($2.5 billion) and policies arranged with unauthorised foreign insurers ($1.16 billion). 

In the UFI space, 60% of business went to Singapore-based insurance providers and the majority of invoiced premiums were for fire and industrial special risk cover ($597 million). 

After Singapore, UK-based UFIs accounted for 24% of business placed ($280 million), then continental Europe (8% or $97 million) and other countries (5% or $60 million).

By product, fire and ISR made up 68% of invoiced premium with UFIs while product lines grouped as “other direct classes” came second, at 15%

The rest of business with UFIs comprised 2% for marine and aviation; 1% for other accident; 6% for public and product liability; and 8% for professional indemnity.

The bi-annual APRA data says there were 1735 intermediaries in the June half.

The National Insurance Brokers Association says the board will finalise its new code of practice in coming weeks, after receiving more than 300 pieces of feedback.

Contributions were made via submissions, a member survey, a national webinar, and workshops and stakeholder sessions, and came from sole practitioners and regional firms through to mid-tier networks and large multinationals.

Participants also included regulators and government agencies, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), consumer and financial counselling organisations, strata advocates, professional bodies and the Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee (IBCCC). 

“Good decisions rest on evidence,” CEO Richard Klipin said. “The board kept returning to evidence of client outcomes, evidence of broker behaviour, and importantly, evidence of client impact - not hypothesis, not hyperbole, and not what might simply feel good to say.” 

Draft code feedback has included criticism for not widening remuneration disclosure requirements for small business clients regardless of product, but the document has introduced the requirement for strata customers and any client that asks for details must be told. 

NIBA says brokers placed $35.6 billion in premium with Australian Prudential Regulation Authority-authorised insurers in 2024-25, or 46% of the market. 

Its report titled Complexity to Clarity: The Broker Advantage showed 95% of advised clients said brokers are critical to claims resolution, and 98% reported claims had been successfully resolved, while 91% said brokers helped them achieve better business outcomes. 

AFCA data shows clients accounted for less than 0.6% of the 117,000 complaints received in the past financial year. 

NIBA says the picture is different in strata, where an IBCCC review found none of the representative agreements it examined met code requirements. It made nine breach determinations and referred three brokers to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and NSW Fair Trading. 

In response, the draft code extends remuneration disclosure to strata, with the requirement covering residential and commercial strata corporations, whether or not the owners’ corporation is a retail client. 

"Strata remains the clearest pressure point, identified by AFCA, the IBCCC and a number of state-based inquiries. That is a real finding, and we treat it as one. Being evidence-led means going where the evidence points," NIBA President Nick Cook said. 

NIBA says a code that merely restates the law adds no protection for clients and its value lies in lifting the minimum above the legal one where there is proven detriment, and in being nimbler than legislation.

The ACT government says it wants to “incentivise” latent defect insurance take-up with the introduction of amendments to a property developer licensing scheme that starts next month. 

Last week it introduced changes to the Property Developers Act 2024 that would mean an individual director’s liability for serious defects will not apply if a compliant LDI policy has been taken out by the developer on behalf of future residential apartment owners. 

“The amendments … will provide a strong incentive for developers to take up latent defects insurance, which provides 10 years of protection for an owner's corporation if defects are identified after a building is completed,” Minister for Planning and Sustainable Development Chris Steel said. 

“This is a first resort scheme, making it easier for defects to be addressed without delay and costly legal action that is often required by owners’ corporations. 

“Importantly LDI also helps to prevent defects in the first place, through a rigorous inspection regime throughout the build. 

“The ACT government will now undertake further work to consider mandating the insurance for class 2, multi-unit residential buildings.” 

The Property Council of Australia has welcomed the amendments. 

“We have consistently supported strong consumer protections, accountability for your role and what you have control of in the building supply chain, and we support the development of decennial liability insurance as an important additional protection,” ACT and Capital Region executive director Ashlee Berry said. 

“Importantly, the government has now recognised that where appropriate insurance protections are in place, there is no public policy justification for treating directors as the ultimate ‘insurer of last resort’.”

ABC Insurance, which is seeking to enter the NSW solicitors’ professional indemnity market, says the Attorney General’s role in approving Lawcover as the sole provider should end. 

The insurer’s submission to a parliamentary committee inquiry says a Uniform Law, which is aimed at regulatory consistency across states, includes comprehensive minimum policy standards and insurers are federally regulated. 

“The Uniform Law does not provide the Attorney General with a regulatory role and it is not appropriate or necessary for the Attorney General to assume any such power, particularly when the Attorney General and the Department of Communities and Justice are not equipped with the specialist resources or skills to do so,” it says. 

Liberty Mutual-backed ABC has sought to offer mandatory PI cover for NSW solicitors and law firms but Attorney General Michael Daley has not granted approval, leading to the parliamentary inquiry into the potential for competition reforms. 

ABC’s recommendations also include that the department be investigated “to explore whether it acted lawfully and without bias in its advice to the Attorney General to maintain the Law Society’s monopoly” and that the Law Society of NSW should either divest its interest in Lawcover, or a different body become the regulatory authority. 

It argues the current system creates a monopoly, risking a “single point of failure”, inflates premiums and creates a two-class legal system that favours large law practices operating in multiple jurisdictions that have choice. 

Lawcover has stressed it operates like a mutual and is not structured as a conventional profit-maximising insurer, a commercial entrant would have an incentive to “cherry pick” lower risk practices and it has brought market stability.  

It says Victoria and NSW data shows premiums for practices earning gross fee income of less than $100,000 are comparable and in many cases its premiums are lower, and its constitution prohibits paying dividends to its Law Society shareholder without Attorney General approval. 

A Department of Communities and Justice submissions says the approval pathway involving the Attorney General reflects a longstanding NSW position that professional indemnity insurance should have independent scrutiny. 

“The Attorney General’s approval of the policy type, level of insurance and policy terms, together with consideration of broader public interest factors ensures compliance with the Uniform Law and provides certainty that an approved policy satisfies the statutory requirements for legal practice in NSW,” it says. 

Gina Cass‑Gottlieb has been nominated by the federal government for reappointment as Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for a five year period from March 20. 

The government is seeking state and territory agreement to recommend to the Governor‑General that Ms Cass‑Gottlieb be reappointed. 

“Ms Cass‑Gottlieb is an outstanding leader of our competition and consumer watchdog," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

“Over the past four and a half years as chair, Ms Cass‑Gottlieb has led the implementation of the most substantial merger laws in more than 50 years, and reforms to protect Australians from unfair trading practices. 

“Under her leadership, the ACCC has won landmark law cases against supermarkets, airlines and digital platforms, and established the National Anti‑Scam Centre. 

“Ms Cass‑Gottlieb’s reappointment will provide certainty for the ACCC’s ongoing leadership and strategic direction, as it implements reforms to product safety and digital platforms. 

“Ms Cass‑Gottlieb’s distinguished career includes 25 years as a senior partner in competition and regulation at Gilbert + Tobin, serving as a non‑executive member of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Payments System Board, and serving as a member of the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority from September 2021 to March 2022.” 

A Victorian truck driver has been ordered to return more than $200,000 he took from the state’s workers’ compensation scheme while working. 

Brendan Joyce started getting weekly compensation payments in September 2012 for sciatica pain caused by an injury while working as a transport manager. 

He returned to modified duties with the same employer between January 2013 and July 2014 and did not disclose a return to work after this date. 

An investigation by WorkSafe Victoria later found he became a truck driver with an excavation business from February 2018 until June 2020, working up to five days per week from two to 12 hours daily. 

He continued to submit certificates declaring he had not worked and had no capacity to work, and received $200,686 in weekly compensation payments over that period. 

WorkSafe Victoria says bank records revealed Joyce received $175,316 from his truck driving job and was at the same time getting his compensation money. 

Joyce was sentenced in the Wonthaggi Magistrates Court on Tuesday after earlier pleading guilty to three charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception. The 61-year-old was also placed on a two-year Community Corrections Order with a condition to complete 300 hours of unpaid community work. 

WorkSafe Victoria’s Brendan Rowbotham says the driver's “fraudulent behaviour is completely unacceptable and a criminal offence which undermines the integrity of our workers' compensation scheme.

"Over more than two years, this worker deceived the system by completing dishonest declarations that he had not worked while receiving compensation payments.”

The NT government says it’s providing funding for a Katherine South levee that will protect an additional 210 homes and businesses, following devastating flooding earlier this year. 

The $13.3 million allocation from a $100 million Flood Recovery Fund follows spending of $4 million on Katherine North levee upgrades. 

“This will give greater confidence to residents and businesses in Katherine South who will have greater flood protection,” local member and minister responsible for the recovery fund Jo Hersey said. 

The combined north and south levees will provide greater protection for Katherine residents, mitigating impacts up to a 1-in 20-year flood event, the government says. 

The new levee will comprise of 1.6-metre-high earth embankments, a 1.5-metre-high wall levee, and road raisings on Murphy Street, Murray Street, and Bicentennial Road. 

The project will also maximise a $9.1 million federal contribution. 

Widespread flooding inundated the NT last wet season, with Katherine experiencing its worst floods in nearly 30 years. The Insurance Council of Australia declared a significant event in March. 

“The devastating impacts reinforce why investment in mitigation and resilience infrastructure remains so important,” ICA said in welcoming the levee funding. 

“Reducing risk is one of the most effective ways to improve long-term insurance affordability and availability. Projects such as levees, resilient infrastructure and better land-use planning can help reduce damage, strengthen communities and support more sustainable insurance outcomes over time.” 

The ICA’s 2025-26 insurance catastrophe resilience report shows insurers had received 389 claims as of July 30, with incurred losses of $41 million from the NT flooding. 

The average claim size of $104,300 was the highest of any declared event during the reporting period, and more than seven times the average of the concurrent Queensland flooding, reflecting the severity of damage sustained, it says.

Brokers are entering the profession with higher education levels than in the past but pathways remain largely informal, a report released by the National Insurance Brokers Association shows. 

“Pathways into the profession are not currently well connected to education and education at entry is not consistently linked to career expectations,” the Pathways to Professionalism: Developing the Next Generation report says. 

“Without clear articulation of how they connect, the profession risks relying on informal networks and individual initiative at a time when competition for talent is high.” 

Survey findings show 48% of brokers aged 18-29 held a bachelors degree on entry, compared with 15% for those aged at least 60, while 27% of the younger cohort had an education level to Year 12 or below compared to 49% for the older group. 

“This divergence reflects broader changes in education participation across Australia but also signals rising expectations around formal education in professional services roles,” the report says. 

Larger firms have a higher proportion of bachelor-educated entrants, while smaller firms tend to reflect broking’s traditional openness to diverse educational backgrounds. 

“Taken together, these findings suggest that insurance broking occupies a transitional position between trade and profession,” the report says. 

Formal education is becoming more prevalent but hasn’t displaced experiential pathways and the challenge lies in integrating these models in a way that maintains accessibility while supporting changing expectations among new entrants, according to the report.  

Broking is spanning two educational paradigms simultaneously, one rooted in experience and tenure, and another aligned with contemporary professional education norms, it says. 

The fourth report in a NIBA series was produced in partnership with QBE and with insights from CoreData. 

Senior brokers overwhelmingly enter the profession after building experience within insurance companies while younger brokers are more likely to enter through referrals or cross-industry recruitment. 

Smaller firms and sole traders also depend more on referrals, family connections and authorised representative models. 

The report says findings reveal a profession that remains accessible but unevenly visible, with no dominant or clearly articulated entry pathway for new entrants encountering the industry. 

It finds broad agreement on the value of continuing professional development. 

“There is also a clear, consistent understanding of how the broker role evolves over time, from learning and communication in early careers to strategic leadership and specialisation at senior levels,” it says. 

Click here for the full report.

An insurer was entitled to partially decline a bushfire claim from a beekeeping business after the industry ombudsman ruled the policy’s temporary removal benefit did not cover hives primarily located at apiaries. 

The case concerned beehives destroyed in the 2019/20 bushfires at third-party properties where the Kangaroo Island business operated apiaries. 

The business owner argued the hives were temporarily stored at the apiaries and should be covered under the policy’s temporary removal benefit.  

He also claimed the insurer’s agent had provided misleading advice about the cover required for his beekeeping operation. 

CGU had accepted a $15,000 claim under the policy’s general property section for 50 beehives but it declined cover for additional beehives under the temporary removal benefit. 

The policy covered other property or stock while temporarily stored at third party locations in Australia, and when in transit between the main premises and those locations. 

But AFCA ruled that the beehives were not being temporarily stored at the apiaries, but were primarily located there and being used as part of the business’s honey production activities. 

The ombudsman also found that the ordinary meaning of “temporarily storing” and the commercial purpose of the policy did not support the claim. 

The panel rejected the business owner’s alternative argument that the in-transit provision applied to hives being moved during the bushfire.  

Although some hives were in transit from apiaries to the business premises, the policy’s requirements for transit between premises where the property was temporarily stored were not met. 

The complainant also alleged that an insurer’s agent had misled him when arranging the policy. AFCA found the available call records supported the conclusion that a discussion had taken place about insuring beehives under the general property section, including quotes for 1000 and 500 hives. 

The owner ultimately selected cover for 50 hives, with a $15,000 sum insured. AFCA found no evidence that the agent had misled him into selecting that level of cover. 

Click here for the full ruling.

McLardy McShane Specialty has launched, helmed by director and principal broker Dave Stott. 

“Formerly McLardy McShane Commercial, the move to specialty marks an exciting evolution for the business – bringing together deep industry experience, strong client relationships and an increasing focus on risk management, technology and innovation,” the company said in a LinkedIn post. 

Mr Stott will lead a team of 10 to grow the business. 

McLardy McShane says he “brings 30 years of insurance experience... Beginning his career with five years in underwriting before moving into broking, Dave has worked across a broad range of industries, clients and risks throughout his career. 

“It’s this breadth of experience that is helping shape the direction of McLardy McShane Specialty. While traditional broking and personal relationships remain at its core, Dave and the team are also looking at how technology and innovative risk management tools can help clients better understand, manage and respond to risk.” 

Mr Stott joined McLardy McShane in April. His prior experiences include roles as head of broking and EGM insurance broking at Coverforce.

The National Insurance Brokers Association has shortlisted the finalists for its claims broker of the year award. 

The three contenders are Jack O’Mahony (Lockton), Maree Solvyns (Gallagher) and Robert Krleski (Marsh). 

“Claims is where the value of broking is felt most directly by clients,” association CEO Richard Klipin said. 

“Each of these finalists has guided clients through the process with skill, professionalism and genuine care, and we're proud to recognise the difference they make.” 

NIBA will reveal the winner of the Sedgwick-sponsored award at its annual convention next month on the Gold Coast.

The rapid expansion of data centres is creating highly concentrated exposures to extreme weather, armed conflict and community disputes, according to new research from Howden.

The broker’s Insuring the Data Centre Supercycle report found that just 20 US locations account for about 80% of data centre floorspace affected by severe tornadoes and hailstorms over the past decade. 

A total of 155 US locations with data centres were hit by at least one severe hailstorm or tornado during the period, but the 20 most affected locations accounted for the vast majority of impacted floorspace. 

The data centres in those locations generate an estimated US$16 billion in annual revenue, illustrating the scale of the potential business interruption exposure as well as physical damage risk. 

Howden says the findings highlight the importance of considering location when assessing data centre risks, with access to power and land often driving development in areas exposed to natural catastrophes.

The research also found growing proximity between data centres and active conflict zones. 

Data centre space located within 10-15km of active conflict zones during last year was equivalent to about 60% of the total recorded during the previous five years combined. Howden says risks have escalated further this year, with up to five commercial data centres in the UAE and Bahrain reportedly struck by Iranian drones. 

The convergence of physical damage, cyber outages and business interruption creates challenges for insurers because war, property and cyber policies can respond differently to the same event. 

Community opposition to data centre developments is also emerging as a significant liability issue. 

Major lawsuits and arbitrations involving data centres more than tripled from four in 2021 to 14 in the first half of 2026, according to Howden’s analysis. Planning, zoning and environmental disputes were major drivers, while noise and nuisance complaints relating to cooling systems, generators, water consumption and visual impact have increased. 

Noise accounted for half of the 14 cases recorded in the first half of 2026. Of nine noise disputes tracked by Howden, only one had been resolved, resulting in the closure of a data centre. 

Howden's chief commercial officer global speciality Edward Howland Jackson said: “For data centre operators, developers and investors, understanding where these risks are concentrated is critical.

"The opportunity for the insurance market is not simply to provide more capacity, but to use data, specialist advice and risk transfer to help clients identify these exposures early and build greater resilience as the sector expands.” 

Click here to read the full report.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's decision to block IAG's proposed acquisition of RAC Insurance is one of the main topics discussed on the Insurance News podcast.

As previously reported, the ACCC has opposed IAG's $1.35 billion purchase of the WA business, but the company will continue to pursue deal approval through a new public interest avenue introduced this year.

This week’s edition of INsight, hosted by Insurance News MD Andrew Silcox, features editor-in-chief John Deex, deputy editor Wendy Pugh and journalists Bernice Han and Ian Welch.

The team also discusses the rise of data centres, a raft of reports on AI, and warnings over this summer's potential bushfire risk.

You can find the latest episode, and previous episodes of INsight, published here.

A free Insurance News webinar will break down how insurers can turn around communication with customers that too often is "fragmented and failing". 

Register for the webinar here. 

The 45-minute webinar on October 14 will feature Quadient enterprise account manager Mani Raman and Jamie Smith, advisor at Leaders on Demand, and will be hosted by Insurance News editor-in-chief John Deex.   

Quadient says a lack of proactive and clear communication is often what escalates a financial services complaint, with regulators finding too many claim delay notifications and internal dispute resolution responses lack mandated content or aren't timely.   

A large insurer might use thousands of communication templates, with letters commissioned separately by product, claims, legal, marketing and operation units.  

"The duplication is an organisational artefact rather than a systems one, and legacy explains why it's hard to fix. It results in a poor customer experience," Mr Smith says.   

Quadient's human-centered AI-driven automation solution for business communications includes "similarity detection" to alert when templates are duplicated or inconsistent.  

And it offers sentence sentiment and readability scoring for decline letters, while a prompt library helps with governance as it is not left to each author.  

"Change a regulated paragraph once and have it apply across the estate – fixing defects at source," says Mr Raman. 

Quadient, which serves insurer customers here and offshore and operates in 26 countries, provides a communications service layer for regulated sectors.  

It manages templates, content governance, and high-volume document generation, turning decisions into compliant and well-designed communication across every statement, letter, email and document. 

More than 170 brokers and lawyers gathered at penthouse Luminare in Melbourne for insurer Dual Australia’s Melbourne charity event.

About $87,000 was raised for north Melbourne charity Eat Up Australia – which Dual says is the firm’s largest attendance and highest fundraising result for Melbourne to date. 

A raffle and auction helped raise funds for the non-profit organisation which provides lunches to children in need. 

Sponsors for the event included AEI Insurance Broking Group, Atmos Australia and New Zealand, Barry Nilsson, BizCover, Community Broker Network, Envest, Insurance Advisernet Australia, McLardy McShane Insurance Advisors, MGA Insurance Group, Moray & Agnew, EBM Insurance & Risk, Scott Winton, and United Insurance Group. 

Dual was established in 1998 by David Howden, founder and CEO of international insurance group Howden, and functions as the firm’s specialist international underwriting division and managing general agent arm.  

It has since grown into one of the world's largest international underwriting agencies, operating across 21 countries, including Australia where it set up in Sydney in 2004. 

Dual Australia provides specialty insurance to SMEs, mid-market and corporate clients.

CHU Underwriting Agencies national customer service team leader Anna Zeeng has been named inaugural winner of the Kurt Nilsen Entrepreneurial Spirit Award. 

The award commemorates Lion Underwriting founder and former Underwriting Agencies Council chair Kurt Nilsen, who died last year.  

"The award reflects the qualities he was known for: thinking big, backing yourself, embracing opportunities and looking out for the people around you," UAC says.  

Ms Zeeng will experience the London market for a week, sponsored by Lion, HBA Legal, DWF and Clyde & Co.  

She was crowned winner last week at a graduation ceremony for the UAC Leadership Academy, which began in March with a cohort of 27.  

"Anna stood out from the beginning. She embraced every part of the program, challenged herself, supported her peers and consistently put her ideas into action," says UAC, which will begin recruiting a new 2027 Leadership Academy cohort next month.

QBE Insurance has hired James Butchart as national portfolio specialist for marine and aviation. 

The position has been vacant after Jason Colomiere left last year. 

Mr Butchart joined this month after leaving Zurich Australia where he had been marine head since May 2022, according to his LinkedIn. 

“Hand on heart, I have genuinely enjoyed every moment at Zurich,” he said on LinkedIn. 

“It is an exceptional place to work driven by great people and an outstanding culture. I have been afforded many wonderful opportunities and for that I will forever be thankful.”