QBE Insurance has launched a new digital workers' compensation platform, named QuickQuote, which went live on April 30 for brokers placing eligible SME policies in Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, and Tasmania. The platform is limited to risks with annual premiums below $50,000 and is designed to process policies without manual underwriter involvement for qualifying risks.
Brokers using QuickQuote can move from quote to bound policy without manual underwriter involvement for eligible risks, with documentation issued within minutes of binding. The system runs on both web and mobile browsers. QBE said the platform targets the high-volume, low-complexity end of the workers compensation market – the kind of renewal and new business work that has traditionally required back-and-forth between brokers and underwriting teams.
Anthony D’Oca, general manager of commercial & people risk at QBE Australia Pacific, described the rationale behind the build. “QuickQuote is designed to cut through unnecessary complexity and speed up everyday quoting, so brokers can spend more time on driving better outcomes for their clients. This program is a reflection of how we’re working differently with brokers – co-designing digital solutions, listening to feedback, and continuously evolving our offerings to meet their changing needs,” D’Oca said. QBE said broker input shaped the platform’s development and will continue to inform future changes.
The four launch jurisdictions share a structural characteristic that sets them apart from the rest of the country: workers compensation in each is privately underwritten. Employers in these states and territories are required to purchase cover from licensed private insurers rather than a government authority or its appointed agents. By contrast, Queensland runs a government monopoly scheme, while NSW, Victoria, and South Australia operate government-managed arrangements in which private insurers act as appointed agents with limited pricing discretion. WorkCover WA notes that the Western Australian scheme is the largest privately underwritten workers compensation arrangement in Australia. The practical consequence for brokers is that in WA, ACT, NT, and Tasmania, they have genuine market choice – they can approach multiple insurers, compare pricing, and negotiate terms. A digital quoting tool that speeds up that process has direct operational value in these markets in a way it does not in monopoly or semi-monopoly jurisdictions.
QBE’s move into digital distribution for workers compensation comes at a time when brokers are losing ground in this product category to direct channels. The 2025 Vero SME Insurance Index, which surveyed 1,750 Australian businesses, found that only 10% of SMEs now purchase most of their insurance through a broker – a figure that represents a 27% decline compared to 2018. Workers compensation was specifically named in the index alongside commercial motor and travel insurance as a line that SMEs are increasingly buying direct. Broker satisfaction also declined over the period, with the index recording a drop from 87% to 69% between 2024 and 2025. The fall was most pronounced among smaller businesses, which tended to have less frequent contact with their brokers.
The trend reflects a broader tension in the market. SMEs are seeking efficiency in how they buy routine, compulsory covers, while brokers are under pressure to demonstrate value beyond policy placement. A faster quoting tool gives brokers a way to handle workers compensation transactionally without losing the client relationship to a direct channel. At the Insurance Council of Australia’s (ICA) annual conference in October 2025, ICA chair Steve Johnston framed the pace of digital change as a sector-wide obligation. “It’s time for insurance to modernise, for products to be designed to meet the needs of customers in areas where traditional products simply can’t respond. We need to innovate at pace,” Johnston said.
QBE has not announced a rollout timeline for additional jurisdictions or a broader expansion of the product’s eligibility criteria. The insurer said the platform is built to be updated incrementally, with broker feedback determining the direction of future changes. Workers compensation’s mandatory nature and the relative standardisation of risks in the sub-$50,000 band make it more suitable for straight-through digital processing than most commercial lines. Whether QBE extends QuickQuote into the more complex end of the privately underwritten market – or into the agent-based jurisdictions – will depend on how the initial rollout performs.
QBE's launch reflects a wider push across the Australian insurance industry to modernise claims and policy management through technology. CGU has restructured its workers' compensation operations under a single team to reduce broker touchpoints and partnered with Navigator Group to automate parts of the claims process, with a particular focus on mental health outcomes. Suncorp has built SunGPT, a generative AI platform that powers its Single View of Claim tool, used by around 1,500 claims staff to consolidate case notes and recommend next steps, reducing per-claim review time by up to 30 minutes; the insurer is also replacing legacy policy administration systems as part of its multi-year Digital Insurer program.
Allianz has introduced MyJourney, a digital screening tool that tailors recovery plans for injured workers at the outset of a claim, alongside an Early Intervention Program designed to provide faster support for psychological injury claims. TAL, operating in life and income protection, announced in April 2026 a five-year expansion of its Microsoft partnership to embed Azure AI across its claims operations, with its existing AI knowledge assistant having handled over 37,000 claims-related queries and saving an average of seven minutes per question. Across the industry, the direction is consistent: less manual intervention, faster resolution, and greater use of data to support both claimants and the businesses that serve them.
