Nick Cook has spent the best part of two years helping to rewrite the rulebook for Australia's insurance brokers. So it was a little surprising that, standing before a packed room on the Gold Coast, he chose to talk mostly about the things that rulebook can't reach.
"Be proud of what you do, be proud of this profession," the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) president told delegates as he opened the association's annual convention at RACV Royal Pines on Monday. It was less a policy briefing than a rallying cry, and in places a fairly blunt reply to the profession's critics.
The timing is hardly a coincidence. This year's convention, running from 18 to 20 October under a "Future Ready" banner, is also where NIBA is unveiling the final 2027 Insurance Brokers Code of Practice. The association says it asks more of brokers than any version before it.
Cook drew a laugh by describing the review process as a loop: reviewed, consulted on, debated and redrafted, and then, because brokers are brokers, put through the whole cycle a second time. His point was that the grind was worth it. Standards, trust and accountability matter, he said, and the code is how the profession tells clients, regulators and communities that it is willing to be held to a higher bar.
The numbers back up the sense of a long haul. The independent review, led by Phil Khoury of Cameron Ralph Khoury, was followed by two rounds of NIBA's own consultation. Writing in Insurance Business last week, NIBA chief executive Richard Klipin put the tally at 51 written submissions and more than 300 pieces of feedback on the draft, with 21 clauses changed between draft and final versions.
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What comes out the other end is substantially different. The 2027 code grows from 12 sections to 14, adding standalone chapters on conflicts of interest and client record-keeping, and NIBA counts 60 new provisions in all. Clients will get at least 28 days' notice before a renewal, double the current 14, and any client can ask what their broker is paid and get a dollar figure back. The code takes effect on 1 January 2027, with a 12-month runway for obligations that need new systems or training.
It hasn't been a smooth ride. Among others, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman pushed for the code to be contractually enforceable, an idea NIBA rejected, which reignited the enforceability debate during consultation.
For all that, Cook's real argument was about the limits of any code. There is no clause, he said, for sitting across the desk from a business owner who has just suffered a major loss and has no idea how they will recover. No provision covers the phone call late on a Friday night from a client having the worst day of their working life. And nothing in the document can mandate the calm judgment a good broker brings when a risk stops being theoretical.
Brokers do that work anyway, he said. "Not because a code requires it, because that's who brokers are."
It is a line that will play well in a room full of brokers, and it lines up with where NIBA has been putting its energy this year. The association launched a dedicated claims committee in 2026, and its Claims Broker of the Year award is now in its fourth year.
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Cook was careful not to wave away criticism altogether. Some of it is fair, he conceded, and healthy professions welcome scrutiny rather than fear it. His target was a narrower group: commentators he said would rather have headlines than facts, and who have never sat beside a client through a claim or negotiated a settlement when the stakes were high. Brokers, he suggested, spend too much time letting outsiders define what the job is.
The scrutiny he alluded to is real, and recent. On Friday the Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee (IBCCC) published its annual report, recording 17 formal breach findings and six sanctions in 2025-26, the most sanctions it has ever handed out. Brokers self-reported 5,417 code breaches affecting 14,824 clients, and renewals accounted for almost half of all breaches. Remuneration disclosure remains a sore point too: IBCCC chair Oscar Shub has told a federal inquiry into small business insurance that NIBA's approach falls short, and that inquiry is due to report on 27 October.
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Cook's counter was the association's client research. NIBA's Complexity to Clarity report, produced with CoreData and Insurance Advisernet and published in February, found 98% of broker-supported claims were successfully resolved, while 91% of clients said their broker's involvement led to a better outcome. Klipin has also pointed out that broker clients made up 686 of the roughly 117,000 complaints the Australian Financial Complaints Authority received in 2025-26, under 0.6%.
Those figures do, however, deserve a caveat. The research is industry-commissioned and surveys people who already use brokers, so it can't show how broker-handled claims compare with those lodged directly. Still, the trust Cook described, he insisted, was not handed to brokers. It was earned, one client at a time.
His message as president, Cook said, came down to three things: don't lose faith in the value you create, never apologise for the career you chose, and don't let the noise pull you off course. He promised NIBA would keep lobbying for brokers, keep championing professional advice and keep talking to governments and regulators, finishing the list with a pledge that the association would have members' backs.
Cook, Steadfast Group's executive general manager for Australasian networks, broker and insurer services, took over as NIBA president from Gary Okely in February 2025, and signalled that his term is drawing to a close. What gives him confidence about what comes next, he said, is not a document or a submission but people, including the younger brokers in the audience. This year's event is the first to run a dedicated young professionals pathway, with a first-timers' event and a networking night aimed at the next generation.
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The code will make the profession stronger, Cook said. But integrity, expertise and a willingness to turn up when clients need help are what really define it. "Keep doing what brokers do best," he told the room. Come 1 January, they will be doing it under a stricter set of rules.
