At this week’s Underwriting Agencies Council (UAC) Market Exchange in Adelaide, a familiar theme kept surfacing in conversations with brokers moving around the floor: the hunt for cover on hard-to-place risks. The brokers’ hunting ground was more than one hundred tables occupied by agencies and other industry stakeholders. With those agencies and stakeholders, IB was able to engage in broad conversations about capacity, compliance and where they see their value to brokers in a market being reshaped by consolidation and artificial intelligence (AI).
Four underwriters and one major restoration contractor offered a candid look at what's occupying their attention, in conversations that ranged from digital access to the mounting compliance burden facing everyone in the claims supply chain.
Darren Trott (main picture), executive general manager of Ambrose Construct Group, a restoration and repair group working across the claims chain, raised a distinct pressure point: the rising cost of compliance for anyone servicing insurer and broker panels. "We take compliance - whether with the General Insurance Code of Practice or building compliance - very seriously, because ultimately we're providing a lifetime guarantee on the quality of the work on behalf of the insurer," he said.
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Trott noted that the cost of maintaining that compliance regime has pushed smaller operators to consolidate under larger groups. "A lot of smaller mum-and-dad builders have said maintaining that compliance regime just isn't profitable for us," said Trott. "That's part of the reason our group has grown," he said, noting Ambrose had welcomed two new businesses to the group this year alone.
Several underwriters raised an operational concern: the tension between digital efficiency and brokers simply wanting someone to pick up the phone. Ingrid Ibbotson (pictured below), newly appointed as a business development manager at Hutch Underwriting (Hutch), said her agency was investing heavily in tools such as its AI email-ingestion quoting system, but stressed technology alone wasn't the answer. "It's actually hard for brokers to get somebody on the phone," she said. "Everyone has an electronic solution, but when you actually need to speak to somebody, there can be nobody there," she said.
Karen Taylor (pictured below left, with colleague Amelia Bluett), senior property underwriter with Pen Underwriting (Pen), raised a related challenge from the other side of the ledger, noting that Pen's largely relationship-driven process - while sometimes seen as a drawback against fully automated platforms – can also work in brokers' favour. "You get to speak to the person making the decision rather than just receiving an automated answer," she said, though she acknowledged it costs the agency some business from brokers who prefer instant online quoting.
Selina Fowler (pictured below centre with colleagues Anita Lane and Andrew Boyce), senior casualty underwriter at CFC, brought the conversation back to fundamentals. IB asked her about the quality of brokers' submissions in this soft market. "In a soft market, submission quality tends to slide because underwriters are hungry and will quote on minimal information," she said. "Know your client's industry and business, and tell me that story."
Fowler's broader concern centred on emerging corporate structures she said many brokers aren't always aware of - particularly internal labour hire arrangements that can quietly convert a general liability exposure into a worker-to-worker one. It's a reminder, she said, that no amount of automation replaces an underwriter's judgement on complex casualty risk - a view echoed elsewhere at the expo, even as agencies push AI deeper into quoting and triage.
IB asked underwriters for their first thoughts about the possibly imminent acquisition of broking giant Steadfast Group, how this could impact this juggernaut's influence and the consolidation trend across the industry. David Jones (picture below), managing director of Edge Underwriting, one of the market's fully independent agencies, was direct about the trade-offs of staying outside buying groups. "With high-risk, high-claim lines, you need to price at your own pricing and set the excesses you need,” he said. “You can't be dictated to by a major buying group applying pressure on a deal because of their size – it just wouldn't be sustainable long-term.”
Taylor of Pen - who said her firm is a strategic partner of Seadfast - saw the consolidation trend differently. "I think it's a good thing - brokers can have a one-stop shop and get everything they need in one place," she said, noting Pen sees strong volumes of business flow through its Steadfast relationship as a result.
IB's conversations at UAC Adelaide painted a market where underwriting agencies and their partners are backing both ends of the spectrum - doubling down on digital efficiency and compliance discipline while insisting that specialist expertise and direct relationships remain their sharpest point of difference for brokers navigating an increasingly consolidated distribution landscape.
