Brokers and underwriters are battling to get work done for clients as Microsoft struggles to restore services to its 365 productivity apps, used by more than 430 million subscribers globally.

An outage disrupted access to Outlook email and Co-pilot today, while Teams has so far functioned normally.

“We’re still plugging away,” Adrian Gamble, GM at underwriting agency Coversure, told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “Our biggest challenge is that a broker wants to bind a piece of business that’s due today or tomorrow and they can’t get through to us and we can’t get through to London.”

Mr Gamble says he was unable to access emails from brokers and has had to arrange alternative forms of communication.

“We’ve tried to get around it. We’ve got Teams meetings booked … to go through the risks that we’ve got to bind, and the brokers have rung us about stuff. So we’ve got a list and it just has to be done manually over Teams, and we’ll send documents over Teams.”

Macedon Ranges Insurance senior risk adviser Alex Taylor says the Microsoft outage has “really hindered all of our work. For example, we can’t even see our claims notes … we haven’t been able to review any of our saved documentation.

“We actually haven’t been able to really function at all, even though we’ve still got access to our Sunrise and [Steadfast Client Trading Platform] and things like that.”

She says the broker has been in touch with clients via phone while the outage drags on today.

Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister Tony Burke says he has been in touch with Microsoft executives in the country and they “do not believe they are dealing with a cyber event”.

“They believe that they’re dealing in some ways similar to what we saw with respect to CrowdStrike, where there is an update that has gone awry,” he said.

Marsh Pacific head of cyber Brylee Jaghbir says the outage “could, for many, become a claimable incident.

“We are advising clients to keep detailed records of any actual or potential loss. This includes how, when and where it was identified, any loss mitigation efforts, and a timeline of the outage and recovery. Track costs and expenses from the outset to support financial reporting and potential insurance recovery. This also includes documenting any increased costs of working.”

Piranha Risk Group director Josh Ryan says the outage is a “small taste of what a cyber incident feels like”.

He too has been trying to navigate the disruption today. “Any sort of urgent matters, we still have text and phone calls and we can still access broking platforms and document management systems that allow us to be able to access contact information.”

Mr Ryan says Envest acted quickly, sending a group notification to network members like him.

An Envest spokesperson says the group’s broking, agency and claims platforms and records remain operational and although it has been affected by the Microsoft outage, it continues to communicate with insurers and clients.

“We are keeping our staff updated and proactively working with clients and insurers to support communication via phone and SMS. We will also be providing dedicated out-of-hours phone support for clients over the weekend.

“As part of our duty of care, we are also cautioning clients and staff about the increased risk of solicitation and cyberattacks during this outage.”