Willis aims to provide friction-free, industry-tailored insurance for a new generation of SME owners as it makes a significant move in the market through its Zest Insurance direct offering.

As previously reported, the Zest website was launched last week to provide a fully digital customer journey, with the first industry product set – administration and support services – underwritten by Chubb.

Head of commercial and affinity for the Pacific region Brent Lehmann says Willis has “never been big in SME”, but in 2021 it began considering how it might gain a foothold in the large and growing market.

Local and international trends were examined as plans for Zest came together, and Willis looked to “do something different” that could launch in Australia and then be rolled out to other countries.

“From an overall economy perspective, Australia is an SME economy,” Mr Lehmann told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“And the research we did was starting to show that a number of SMEs – because of the changing demographic of a business owner – were starting to demand more of a digital-first relationship with their insurance provider.”

However, more than 80% of owners do not understand what they are buying from a direct provider, Mr Lehmann says.

“So, you’ve got clients wanting a digital-first relationship with their insurance provider, ideally a broker, but they want to know that the product they’ve acquired from the broker has been designed specifically for them, and to support them in the industry in which they serve.  

“That was the genesis of what we went ahead and created. This is a digital-first business model with bespoke products that have been crafted for specific industries.”

Zest is not an aggregator – each industry product will be backed by a single insurer. Willis says it has seven more industry products “in the pipeline”.

The website operates under a general advice model, but clients can step outside the digital journey should they prefer a more traditional broker-client relationship.

Mr Lehmann believes that in a sector dominated by Steadfast and AUB, Zest has to stand out from a “sea of sameness”.

“This is no criticism of Steadfast because they’ve built a fantastic model, but through their SCTP platform ... which is that aggregated model down to numerous insurers, the customer still has to go to a broker. The broker then inputs the information, so there’s still that delayed process.  

“What we are trying to do is bypass that, and give the customer direct access to a market, and a product that has been purposely designed for them in their industry. In all of the research we’ve done in the Australian market, we haven’t seen anything like this.”

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