Nominations for the Insurance Business Awards 2027 close in two weeks, leaving insurance professionals across Australia until November 20 to put themselves or a colleague forward.
Any individual or company working in the local insurance industry is eligible to enter, either on their own behalf or on behalf of someone else. The ceremony returns to the Fullerton Hotel Sydney as a black-tie gala dinner with music and entertainment.
It arrives at a demanding moment for the sector. Rising premiums, natural catastrophe exposure and sustained cost pressure have made the job harder across broking, underwriting and claims – which is part of the argument for marking the firms and individuals getting it right.
Alistair Harold (pictured), co-founder and CEO of settlement automation firm Grappler.io, which is Gold Award Partner for the 2027 awards, said the quality of work across the industry deserved a public airing.
“There’s a lot of good work happening across Australian insurance, and I think it’s so important we recognise and celebrate it,” Harold said.
He pointed to the range of competing demands insurance businesses are managing at once.
“Running a successful insurance business isn’t straightforward. There’s huge pressure to grow, improve service, manage costs and keep adapting to a changing market. The businesses doing that well deserve recognition, as do the people behind them,” Harold said.
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His case for the awards is not only celebratory. “These awards give the industry an opportunity to acknowledge that work and learn from those raising the bar,” he said.
There are 22 categories covering the work of brokers, underwriters, insurers, business development managers (BDMs), authorised representatives (ARs), claims teams and insurtechs.
Alongside those are accolades for young achievers, lifetime achievers, women of distinction, top chief executives and excellence in diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Past winners have ranged from large national insurers through to small, highly specialised brokerages built around a single sector – evidence, organisers say, that scale is not the only measure of a strong operation. For smaller firms, a win often lands as validation of an approach rather than a size.
The breadth also serves a secondary purpose. Relatively few people outside the industry understand what its various stakeholders actually do, and the categories offer a window into the range of specialisations the sector contains.
For Harold, sponsoring Insurer of the Year lines up with what the business is built to do.
“At Grappler, our goal is to help insurers build strong, sustainable businesses, so sponsoring Insurer of the Year was a natural fit,” he said.
Grappler.io automates the settlement process – the matching of premium and claims payments and their reconciliation across the parties involved – work that has traditionally been handled manually and in spreadsheets. Harold said automating it allows finance teams to support more business, more products and higher volumes without growing headcount at the same rate.
Nominations are shortlisted by the Insurance Business awards team to produce a list of the strongest candidates in each category. Those Excellence Awardees will be announced online on February 22.
Their submissions then go to an independent judging panel of senior industry professionals drawn from insurance businesses, associations and peak bodies. Each submission is scored against set criteria, with every effort made to keep the process impartial, balanced and fair. Scores are aggregated to produce a single winner in each category, announced on the night of May 28.
Key Media thanks Event Partner AAMC, Gold Award Partner Grappler.io and all other sponsors for their support of the 2027 awards.
