Brokers placing small business risk in Australia have a new Lloyd's-backed market to call. The argument behind its launch is a blunt and valid criticism of much of the current market where the small end of town gets overlooked while insurers compete for large, listed accounts.
It is a two-sided claim. The insurers chasing scale have less appetite for small accounts and while the number of underwriting agencies keeps rising, a growing share of the premium they write sits with a shrinking number of owners.
Antipodean Underwriting, a five person, 100% independent Sydney agency that launched in September 2026 is now approved as a Lloyd's coverholder. Earlier this month, CEO and founder Jaydon Burke-Douglas collected the agency's coverholder plate from Sarah Girling, senior manager for market engagement across Australia and New Zealand at Lloyd's Australia (pictured). Coverholder status allows an agency to bind risks on behalf of one or more Lloyd's syndicates under a binding authority, with the syndicates carrying the risk and Lloyd's security sitting behind the policy.
"The plate is on the wall. Now the real work begins," Burke-Douglas said in the post.
Burke-Douglas put the neglect of SMEs and their consequent cover gap down to where the premium is.
"A lot of the bigger insurers are falling over themselves to write the big end of town and the fancy risks that are ASX-listed, where there's big chunky premiums and the small guys get neglected a lot of the time," he said.
The "small guys" he is describing are the largest segment there is. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) counted 2,814,778 actively trading businesses in Australia at June 30 2026, and on the Australian Taxation Office's turnover definition of under $10 million, analysis by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman puts 98% of all Australian businesses in the small business bracket.
"If you have a look at the ABS statistics, over 98% of small businesses are sub-$10 million in revenue, and that's the space that we're going to be trying to play," Burke-Douglas said.
Insurance Business reported in July 2026 that nearly one in 10 Australian SMEs report their insurance coverage is inadequate, drawing on the Vero SME Insurance Index, which found only 42% of businesses review their sum insured annually. That is a client behaviour problem rather than a capacity one but it sits in the same segment.
Read next: One in 10 Australian SMEs report inadequate insurance cover
Whether the segment is genuinely underserved is a complex question. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services has spent the past year examining access to, and the affordability and availability of, public liability, professional indemnity, cyber and business interruption cover for small businesses, after the matter was referred to it on 30 October 2025.
The ownership side of the argument is probably the part with the clearest numbers behind it.
"There has been a huge amount of consolidation within the market, and it seems like everyone's been buying up underwriting agencies, and for good reason," Burke-Douglas said.
Australia has 301 underwriting agencies writing approximately $10.8 billion in gross written premium, about 20% of the general insurance market, according to the Brokers on Underwriting Agencies ranking of Australian agencies. Steadfast's agencies and AUB Group's account between them for roughly a third of that premium. Steadfast Underwriting Agencies, which wrote $2.5 billion across 20 specialist agencies in FY26, passes to US wholesaler Amwins once the $7.7 billion scheme is implemented, targeted for December, as set out in who owns Australia's underwriting agencies after a year of deals.
Antipodean's counter-position is its own register. Burke-Douglas said it includes employees and a number of small self-managed super funds, and the business runs with a team of five.
The obvious objection to Antipodean's plan is the reason the neglect exists in the first place. Small premiums carry the same submission, quoting and administration cost as large ones, which is what makes the segment unattractive to write at volume.
Antipodean's answer is the platform. Its launch material described artificial intelligence as core to its operations and three of its first four products will sit on an online quote and bind system.
Read next: Brokers on Underwriting Agencies 2026 survey now open
Asked whether artificial intelligence was involved in underwriting decisions, Burke-Douglas said it was not at this stage.
"It's just taking data entry away from brokers, trying to make brokers' lives ultimately easier so that they can do more of what they do best, which is serving their clients and placing their clients' risks rather than filling in proposal forms on an online application," he said.
The first four products he named in interview were general property, which he described as a small tools of trade policy, allied health, information technology liability and excess of loss, a top-up that sits above another insurer’s limit where a client needs more cover than the primary policy provides. Excess of loss is the one that will not sit on the platform.
Independence is the thing Antipodean sells hardest and the coverholder plate can complicate it. Local decision-making and an Australian shareholder register settle who owns the business and who answers the phone. They do not settle who carries the risk. Under a binding authority the managing agent retains underwriting responsibility, and the coverholder binds only within the limits it is given. Antipodean, like every agency working on delegated authority, has won a place in the market it says is neglected rather than secured one. Whether it keeps that place depends on capacity decisions it can influence but does not make.
