Scrutiny of strata insurance over the past two years has focused on conflicts, commissions and transparency - much of it originating in arrangements between strata managers and brokers. New research points to something more basic sitting underneath: the owners who approve a broker's appointment often do not know what the role involves. The findings come from CHU, the strata underwriting agency owned by Steadfast Group, whose policies are underwritten by QBE Insurance (Australia) and whose strata cover extends to more than 100,000 buildings nationally. CHU commissioned independent research agency Fuller to survey 1,000 strata lot owners.
The 2026 CHU Strata Index reports that half of owners are confused about the boundaries of a broker's role. Owners misattributed to insurance brokers the coordination of maintenance, management of the strata scheme's finances, and the sourcing of contractors and service providers. The confusion runs across every owner type in the study.
Kimberley Jonsson (pictured), CEO of CHU Group in Sydney, said the gap is one the profession can close itself.
"There's an opportunity for everybody to become more visible in what they do and the value that they add, because if someone doesn't know what you do, they can't value you for it," she said.
That framing matters because the numbers do not describe hostility. 63% of owners trust their insurance broker and 65% think their broker offers good value. Yet 46% indicated a preference for buying strata insurance directly from an insurer, driven largely by habit and assumptions rather than any aversion to broker services. The most common reason given for going direct was that it is what the scheme has always done.
Jonsson's diagnosis starts earlier than most industry conversations about value.
"Even for example, broker - the word broker - is industry jargon and so it's really going back to basics and explaining what your role is," she said.
The research supports the point. Strata owners are not a professional audience and most encounter intermediated advice nowhere else.
"For many of these people, they don't use an insurance broker in other parts of their life, and so they don't inherently know what the broker's role is," Jonsson said.
She said the study also picked up a second-order effect, where the boundary between two professions blurs. "We also saw a misunderstanding in the roles and duties of brokers and managers and who's responsible for what," she said.
The Index frames this as a value suppressant. If owners cannot distinguish a broker's contribution from that of a strata manager, insurer or committee member, they have no basis on which to price it and the strata manager loses recognition for work they did perform.
The commercially consequential finding is about who is in the room.
This year's Index introduces three owner mindsets: Actives, who hold the strongest knowledge of strata insurance requirements and are the only group the research identifies as clearly able to recognise a broker's value; Pragmatists, the practical middle focused on adequate cover but wanting clearer guidance; and the Disengaged, who have the weakest knowledge, lowest confidence and a stronger need for reassurance.
Brokers might reasonably assume that committee members skew towards the first group. They do not.
"It might be easy to assume that committees are just made up of active and engaged unit owners, but they're actually fairly well represented, the three typologies across committees," Jonsson said.
That means insurance decisions are being approved by owners who, on the study's own measure, may not know what they are approving. The gap in appetite for professional input is wide: 88% of Actives agree they would appreciate advice from their strata insurer on maintenance and managing risk, against 74% of Pragmatists and 46% of the Disengaged.
The commercial logic runs in the broker's favour because engagement and spend travel together.
"Our active owners are the happiest owners and our active owners are the most satisfied with the services that they receive from strata managers, from brokers... But they're also using far more professional services than those people who are less interested," Jonsson said.
Read in reverse, that is a growth argument. Owners who understand what a broker does are more satisfied with the broker and buy more advice. The path from disengaged to active runs through explanation.
The timing sharpens it. From October 1 2026, new and returning strata committee members in New South Wales must complete free online training delivered by NSW Fair Trading within three months of appointment, or be automatically removed from the committee. The course covers legal duties, governance and the management of repairs and maintenance. For the first time, a cohort of committee members will arrive at the table with a baseline understanding of what they are responsible for and, by implication, what they are not.
Brokers working in a market where conflicts of interest and remuneration disclosure have drawn regulatory attention have an obvious reason to want owners who understand the difference between a broker and a strata manager. The same clarity that lifts perceived value also makes conflicted arrangements harder to obscure, which is the ground on which consumer groups have asked ASIC to examine strata broker appointments.
The Index's implication for brokers is that segment-relevant communication and clear role descriptions are not marketing. They are the precondition for being valued at all — a point that runs alongside the sector's continuing debate over strata manager commissions and reform.
Details of the NSW requirement are available from NSW Fair Trading's strata committee training guidance and the state's staged program of changes to strata scheme laws.
