Broking chief Tim Mathieson says AI will rapidly make “transactional” roles redundant, and intermediaries need to focus on risk management and advice.

The Steadfast CEO of Australasian Broking was asked on the Business Made Personal podcast what he sees as the industry’s greatest challenge.

“It’s a real need for us to move beyond just insurance into more holistic risk management,” he said.

“With the advent of AI and how quickly policy documents, [quotes] can be compared these days, through ChatGPT and the like, I think the transactional side of insurance broking is going to be dealt with very quickly in the future.

“Unless we differentiate ourselves in terms of the relationship and the quality of advice that we provide to clients beyond just the transactional broking, we are going to find it difficult.”

Mr Mathieson says mid-market and corporate clients will be less affected but “the smaller end and retail market” will be “very quickly” disrupted.

He said he recently saw “an incredible demonstration” from some developers in Europe.

“What they showed me in terms of the efficiency [with] which they can produce quotations and compare documentation and distribute that to clients is mind-blowing.

“We need to quickly move our people into that advice role and away from the transactional role, because there is just not going to be the need for those roles into the future.”

Mr Mathieson, a keen sailor, ended the podcast by telling listeners about an unfortunate incident on board CEO Robert Kelly’s boat.

“I’ve had all sorts of adventures sailing, but also misadventures,” he said. “I’ve ran aground too many times ... to mention, I’ve fallen off boats, I’ve crashed boats, and that includes the boat of our CEO.”

Mr Mathieson said he was enjoying a social sail with the company’s chief legal officer and team when another sailor “got extremely upset” that he was looking to overtake.

“He turned into our boat almost as a threat to try and get us off course. We were just having a fun social sailing event. He cut us off entirely. He’d lost control at the same time and ran into the side of the boat.

“It just about knocked us all off-board and put a big crack in the side of Robert’s yacht.

“He wasn’t sailing that day, so we had the task then of debating who among the lawyers on board was actually going to phone Robert up and tell him that we crashed his boat.”

The Business Made Personal podcast is sponsored by the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance and hosted by its GM of industry engagement Mark Silveira.

Listen to the episode in full here.