Top Insurance Claims Carriers in Australia and
New Zealand | 5-Star Claims

The top insurance claims carriers in Australia and New Zealand are not being judged on product breadth or premium competitiveness. They are being judged on something far more fundamental – and far harder to sustain. The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) recorded 34,231 general insurance complaints in 2024–25, a 17% increase on the prior year. The number one issue, year after year, was not disputed coverage, not premium shock, not bad faith. There were delays and poor communication. 

In a sector managing billions of dollars in claims across two countries, dealing with natural disasters and rising complexity, the thing that drives people to a regulator most often is being left in the dark. Not hearing back. Not knowing who owns their claim. Not understanding what happens next. 

At the 2026 Claims Leaders Summit in Sydney, AFCA’s chief executive put it plainly: the fundamentals that prevent complaints are timeliness, communication, transparency and closing the loop. She called it “doing the basics brilliantly.” 

And yet the industry still refers to communication as “table stakes.” – something you do as a minimum. A baseline, not a differentiator. 

This report argues that framing is wrong – and the data proves it. The insurers that brokers across Australia and New Zealand nominate year after year as their best claims partners are not always the largest. They are not necessarily the most technologically advanced. What they have in common is that they communicate, they own the claim and they do both things consistently – at scale, under pressure, claim after claim. That is genuinely hard. And the gap between those who do it and those who don’t is wider than anyone in the industry is comfortable admitting. 

In New Zealand, the pattern is identical. The Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme (IFSO) accepted a record 600 disputes for investigation in 2024–25 – a 25% increase on the prior year and more than double the total from 2022. Delays and customer service failures were, again, the primary drivers. The IFSO’s own guidance is explicit: even during catastrophe events, insurers are required to update customers at least every 20 business days and to identify and respond to customers experiencing vulnerability. That obligation reflects how seriously regulators view the communication gap – not as a soft-skills issue, but as a compliance one. From 31 March 2025, insurers operating in New Zealand have also been required to hold a financial institution licence and publish a fair conduct program, making transparency a condition of market operation, not a cultural aspiration.  

Ask brokers what they want from a claims insurer, and you won’t hear a long list. The answer is almost always the same: someone who picks up the claim, knows what they’re doing and keeps moving. 

Katherine Wilson, chief executive of IBANZ in Auckland, is unambiguous about where the pressure point sits. 
 

“The one thing claims insurers can do to make a broker’s job easier is communicate proactively and consistently. Brokers are managing both client expectations and often highly stressful situations, so timely updates and clear ownership of claims can make a significant difference to outcomes and client trust” Katherine WilsonIBANZ

Wilson is not describing a luxury. She is describing the minimum that brokers need to do their own jobs properly. When an insurer goes quiet, the broker fills the vacuum – chasing updates, managing anxious clients and doing work that should not be theirs to do. The claim doesn’t just become a burden for the insured; it becomes a burden for the broker. 

Laura Meyer, director of MeyerInsure in Australia, works across property, professional indemnity and cyber claims. Her view of the market is candid: “The technology side has definitely improved. The service side, if I’m being honest, feels a bit mixed. Some insurers I used to consider the gold standard on claims don’t feel like they’re where they once were, which is disappointing.” Her gut assessment – that claims teams are being asked to do more with less – is one that the AFCA data appears to support. 
 

“On paper, you might have a dedicated claims consultant, but in reality, a lot of teams seem under pressure and backlogged, which can lead to slow responses, double handling, mixed messaging or long periods of silence. That’s usually where frustration starts, for brokers and clients alike” Laura MeyerMeyerInsure

The pattern Meyer describes – paper commitments that don’t survive contact with caseload reality – is the single biggest source of erosion in broker-insurer relationships. It is not that insurers don’t know communication matters. It is that they underestimate how hard it is to sustain at scale when the claims queue is long, staff are under pressure and complexity is rising. 

Meyer deals in specifics. When a client recently faced a significant cyber claim – the kind of event where the first 48 hours define whether the business survives intact – what made the difference was not the policy wording. It was the insurer’s incident response team and panel lawyers engaging immediately, giving the client a clear point of contact within hours and a defined strategy before the end of day one. The claims team was UK-based, which created some communication friction across time zones, but the specialist expertise on the ground was unambiguous. The client felt held. The broker felt informed. That confidence in the early stages set the tone for the entire claim. 

“Most brokers don’t expect perfection,” Meyer says, “but we do want to know someone is genuinely owning the claim and keeping it moving. The insurers that stand out are the ones where the process feels connected, and nobody is left wondering who’s actually driving things.” 

Wilson identifies exactly where the system most commonly breaks down: “A common disconnection is around transparency and responsiveness. Brokers and clients expect clarity, accessibility and timely progress updates, while insurers are often balancing internal processes, resourcing pressures and increasing claim complexity. The gap usually comes down to communication.” 

Insurance Business asked this year’s 5-Star Claims entrants to describe in detail how they handle claims – their philosophy, their processes, their tools and what they have changed in the past 12–24 months. The submissions were substantive. When you read them together, a consistent picture of operational excellence emerges. These are not aspirational statements. They are the mechanics behind what brokers experience.

The strongest performers have eliminated handoff-heavy models. A dedicated handler is assigned at lodgement and stays with the claim – or a named, accountable team does – through to settlement. No mystery queues. No re-explaining the circumstances to someone new. This sounds obvious until you try to maintain it under volume pressure. The leading insurance claims carriers have built it into their operating model, not left it to individual effort. Several have automated the assignment process itself so that from the moment a claim is lodged, the insured and broker have a name and a contact number. 

The leading firms are not automating for its own sake. They are using straight-through processing, AI-assisted triage and automated workflows to clear routine, low-complexity claims at speed – freeing experienced handlers to focus where judgement actually matters: complex losses, vulnerable policyholders and contentious coverage questions. Technology used badly creates another layer between the customer and the resolution. Used well, it removes the administrative friction that buries good claims handlers in tasks that add no value. Several of this year’s entrants have redeployed staff freed by automation into senior claims management positions – moving people up the value chain, not out the door. 

A recurring feature across the top submissions is structural integration between claims and underwriting. Real claims outcomes feed back into policy wording and product design. Claims professionals sit with underwriters, join key account tenders and flag coverage ambiguities before they become disputes. The result is that when a claim arrives, the handler understands what was promised when the policy was sold – because they helped shape the product. This loop closes the gap between underwriting intent and claims reality, and brokers who work with these firms notice the difference: fewer coverage debates, faster decisions and consistent messaging from both sides of the house. 

The best operations treat communication as a system. Automated updates go out at defined points in the claims lifecycle. Brokers have real-time visibility of where a claim sits. Customers are not left in silence between assessor visits. The firms with the strongest communication records are not simply sending more messages – they are designing the right messages, at the right moments, with clear next steps and a named owner attached. Some of the leading insurance claims carriers are now sending hundreds of automated real-time updates daily across their portfolios. That kind of consistency cannot be achieved through individual effort alone. It requires workflow design, platform investment and leadership that treats communication as a measurable operational output. 

Generalists claim teams cannot handle complex losses well. The top performers have built specialist streams – professional lines, commercial motor, personal injury, cyber, specialty, catastrophe – staffed by people who understand the specific exposure, the policy intent, and the commercial reality the client faces. When a large cyber loss or a complex property claim comes in, the handler already knows the territory. That expertise translates directly into faster, better-calibrated decisions and fewer escalations. Knowing the claim will land with someone who genuinely understands it is itself a form of communication. 

For the Australian and New Zealand markets, maintaining service standards during catastrophe events is no longer a nice-to-have – it is a minimum expectation. What separates the leaders is that their surge capability is pre-built and tested, not improvised when the event strikes. Early-warning intelligence, pre-defined activation triggers, trained surge workforces and structured governance frameworks mean that when the volume hits, the operating model holds. The firms that struggled in recent catastrophe seasons did so because they treated scale-up as a problem to solve on the fly rather than a system to have ready.  

Technology has improved the front end of claims dramatically. Online lodgement is faster. Digital document upload has removed friction. AI-assisted triage is accelerating routine decisions. The insurers at the top of this year’s field are using agentic AI to cut settlement times on certain claim types from days to hours. Real-time decision support tools are allowing handlers to stay focused on the customer during calls rather than toggling between systems. The picture is genuinely more advanced than it was two years ago.

Meyer, who handles claims across property, professional indemnity and cyber, offers a useful corrective to the technology optimism. 

“I love a good portal for claim lodgement – it can save a lot of time at the front end. Where I think there’s still a lot of opportunity is full life-cycle claims management rather than just digital lodgement. Being able to lodge a claim, upload documents, leave notes, track progress, communicate with handlers, assessors and repairers, all in one place, would be brilliant. The systems are only as good as the people and processes sitting behind them” Laura MeyerMeyerInsure

A portal that accepts a claim and then falls silent behind a backlogged team is not a communications improvement – it is a communications failure with a better front door. The leading insurance claims carriers understand this distinction. Their technology investments are oriented around full life-cycle visibility, not just lodgement efficiency. They are building systems that keep brokers and clients informed throughout the claim, not just at the point of entry. 

Wilson, chief executive of IBANZ, draws a clear line: “AI-assisted claims triage and smarter workflow automation are already starting to transform parts of the claims process, but the human element remains essential.” The complexity and emotional stakes of a significant claim – a home destroyed by fire, a business interrupted by a catastrophic loss – cannot be managed by a system alone. What technology can do is create the space for skilled humans to focus on exactly those moments. The top-rated insurance claims carriers have understood this from the start: automation is a lever for better human service, not a substitute for it. 

Ask brokers what the best claims experiences feel like, and they use the same language consistently: connected, clear, moving. Not perfect – brokers are realistic about complexity, about weather events and about supply chains that delay repairs. What they cannot absorb is silence. What erodes trust fastest is not a slow claim – it is a slow claim with no explanation and no owner. 

The 5-Star Claims winners for 2026 represent the top insurance claims carriers across Australia and New Zealand as nominated by brokers and industry professionals. The cohort spans large multinationals and specialist domestic players, personal and commercial lines, broker-focused and direct models. What they share is not size or technology budget. It is a consistent commitment to the fundamentals Wilson and Meyer describe: clear ownership, proactive communication and the operational discipline to maintain both when the pressure is highest. 

Wilson puts the competitive stakes in plain terms: “Leading claims carriers should focus on consistency of decision-making to provide more certainty throughout the claims journey and empowering claims teams to make informed decisions quickly.” That empowerment point is critical. Handlers who have to escalate routine decisions cannot communicate confidently. The insurance claims carriers that score highest with brokers tend to be the ones that have given their people the authority to move – and the training to do so correctly. 

From in-house electricians to AI-powered lodgement, NZI’s Meg Warner explains how a culture of empowerment, proactive broker education and a commitment to loss prevention are setting a new standard for insurance claims carriers across New Zealand. 

For NZI, New Zealand’s leading commercial insurer, winning a 5-Star Claims designation is not the result of a single initiative – it is the outcome of deliberate, structural investment in people, technology and broker relationships, compounded over years. At the centre of that investment is Meg Warner, executive manager of broker and specialist claims at NZI, who has built an insurance claims handling culture as focused on preventing losses as it is on resolving them. 

Warner’s approach is grounded in a direct principle: keep brokers informed, and better client outcomes follow. That framing shapes everything NZI does in its claims operation – from delegations designed to enable same-day resolution to the broker education programs that sit at the heart of its competitive advantage. 

Warner is emphatic that NZI’s claims performance ultimately comes down to culture. The environment she has built is client-focused, collaborative and deliberately empowering – designed so that handlers feel trusted to make decisions, confident to escalate early and equipped to work across teams when complexity demands it. That empowerment is backed by genuine career pathways within the claims function and into the broader NZI and Insurance Australia Group (IAG) business, retaining experienced talent while continuously refreshing perspectives at every level. 
 

“The more informed our brokers are, the better they are able to explain how the claim process works so our clients know what to expect and when” Meg WarnerNZI

That principle is not left to individual effort. Between April and June 2026, NZI’s liability claims team delivered a series of continuing professional development-accredited training sessions across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, reaching hundreds of brokers. Each session was built around real claims case studies covering general liability, legal liability and statutory liability – giving brokers a working understanding of how the claims process functions and how to set clients up for success from the point of placement. Feedback from brokers and NZI’s own internal teams was, by Warner’s account, exceptional.

The pressure on NZI’s insurance claims handling operation has intensified markedly in the 12–18 months to mid-2026. According to IAG’s 8th NZ Wild Weather Tracker, released in April 2026, the frequency of storms affecting New Zealand more than doubled – from a 15-year historical average of once every 19 days to once every eight days in the 12 months to April 2026 – making severe weather a near-weekly operational reality. Claims volume between autumn 2025 and summer 2026 rose 256% year on year. 
 

NZI’s response was structural. The insurer established a dedicated Major Events team to manage home, contents and vehicle claims arising from weather events – allowing its standard claims operation to maintain service levels for non-event work simultaneously. The claims strategy continues to evolve with each event type – wind, flood and storm – rather than relying on a single approach. 

NZI is deploying AI in two targeted ways on the frontline of its claims process. First, an in-house tool that helps claims handlers navigate the multiple policy wordings in the New Zealand market – enabling faster, more confident decisions without manual cross-referencing. Second, a recently rolled-out AI-powered motor claims lodgement system that converts broker-supplied information – whether a formal claim form, an email, or a photograph of handwritten notes – into a lodged claim automatically, removing what was previously a manual administrative task entirely.  
 

“There is a significant opportunity for our claims teams in the AI space, and I’m genuinely excited about what the next 12–18 months could look like” Meg WarnerNZI

Both applications reflect NZI’s broader philosophy on technology: automation that removes friction from routine tasks so that skilled handlers can focus on complex losses, vulnerable policyholders and coverage judgements that require genuine human expertise.

What distinguishes NZI most sharply from its peers is its commitment to preventing the insurance claims it would otherwise have to resolve. After identifying a higher-than-usual volume of fire losses attributable to electrical malfunction – a finding corroborated by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, NZI introduced the NZI Electrical Review service, which it describes as an industry first in New Zealand. 

The service deploys a national team of in-house registered electricians, each holding Electrical Inspector and Level 1 Thermographer qualifications. They visit NZI commercial clients’ premises, conduct thermal imaging inspections of switchboards against prescribed New Zealand industry standards, and provide a written report detailing any required remediation – free of charge to all NZI commercial clients. Since launch, the team has visited over 2,600 clients and identified more than 7,500 problems requiring resolution, the most common being overloaded multi-boards and poorly maintained electrical systems. Driven by broker demand, the team has grown from a two-person trial to a national operation of 10. 
 

“I have numerous stories I could share on the successes of this team and am in no doubt this is preventing claims from occurring and the impact a fire can have on businesses” Meg WarnerNZI

The Electrical Review service is the commercial property equivalent of NZI’s Fleet Fit program – a risk mitigation initiative running for more than 20 years that helps commercial fleet operators manage vehicle-related fatigue risk and the challenges of an ageing driver workforce. NZI Truckie Rest Zone events, run in partnership with New Zealand Police and Hato Hone St John, bring fleet risk managers into direct contact with commercial drivers. At the most recent event in Paengaroa, NZI’s team spoke with more than 130 drivers, while Hato Hone St John conducted blood pressure and general health testing for 32 drivers on the day. 

Q: What is the key factor in NZI's claims process standing out and delivering for clients? 

A: “Be it a relatively simple claim that brokers can use their own delegations or a complex claim that sits with our technical or specialist teams, we look to understand what the immediate need is for our clients and to solve that.” 

Q: What trends have you noticed in claims over the last 12–18 months, and how have you handled them? 

A: “We are consistently seeing a lot of smaller weather events. We have set up a major events team dedicated to looking after our clients whose homes, contents and vehicles have been affected. With each event, our claims strategy continues to evolve and adapt to the type of event – wind, flood and storm. Having this dedicated team in place helps us continue to maintain our high level of service for non-event-related claims.” 

Q: In terms of turnaround times and speed, what benchmarks do you set? 

A: “We’re working with our brokers to provide enough information on day one for us to open, pay and close a claim in one transaction. This is where the broker claims delegations are really valuable – it’s a great client experience to be told, ‘That’s covered, and we’ll get the quote paid today.’ Not all claims are as straightforward as that, but where they are, we really encourage our team to fast track as much as possible.” 

Q: How big a role does AI and technology play in the frontline claims process? 

A: “We’ve built an in-house tool to help our teams navigate the dozens of different policy wordings in market – it allows the team to move quickly between agreed wordings and make faster, more confident claims decisions. We’re also using AI to streamline the lodgement of private motor claims, enabling us to take information provided by a broker, whether that's in a claim form, an email or even something as informal as a photo of handwritten notes, and convert it into a lodged claim. This has been a really exciting step for us.” 

Q: What type of environment and culture do you create internally, and how does this lead to better claims performance? 

A: “We work hard to create a culture that is client focused, collaborative and empowering. Claims can be fast moving and at times emotionally charged, so it’s important our people feel supported, trusted and clear on what good looks like. That culture leads to better claims performance because our teams are confident to make decisions, escalate early when needed and work closely across different teams to keep claims moving. When people feel connected to the purpose of what they do and are encouraged to continuously improve, it shows in the quality of decisions and ultimately the experience we deliver for brokers and clients.” 

Q: What do you want clients to feel after a claim with NZI? 

A: “I’d love our clients to come away feeling that yes – they chose the right insurer with NZI. We want clients to feel informed, supported and confident that we are helping them through what is often a difficult time. Communication is a critical part of that. If clients are left with a clear sense that we were responsive, easy to deal with and genuinely focused on helping them reach a good outcome, then we've done our job well. At NZI, we believe insurance is more than just responding to events – it’s also about how we can use the information and expertise we have to help our clients prevent future losses.” 

The pressure on claims operations is not easing. Climate risk is increasing the frequency and severity of weather events across both countries. Complex commercial risks – cyber, professional liability, management liability – are generating claims that require genuine expertise, not just process compliance. Cost-of-living pressure means insured clients have less tolerance for delays and less capacity to absorb uncertainty. And regulators on both sides of the Tasman are watching more closely than they have in years. 

In Australia, AFCA has updated its claim delay guidance, placing clearer expectations on how insurers document and communicate reasons for delay throughout the life of a claim. Insurers must now clearly explain what is causing a delay, what steps are being taken to resolve it, and when the customer can expect an update. The message from the regulator mirrors the message from brokers exactly: say who owns the claim, explain what is happening, and do not leave people in silence. 

In New Zealand, the regulatory environment has tightened materially. The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) licensing regime introduced in March 2025 has formalised fair conduct obligations that were previously voluntary. Insurers must now publish a fair conduct program and demonstrate how they will treat consumers fairly throughout the claims process – including how they communicate, how they handle delays, and how they escalate vulnerable cases. The IFSO’s record dispute volumes in 2024–25 underline exactly why the regulator acted when it did. The expectation that insurers update customers at least every 20 business days during catastrophe events – an IFSO code requirement – is no longer an aspiration. It is a minimum standard against which insurers are measured. 

Against this backdrop, the gap between the insurance claims carriers that have invested in communication as an operational discipline and those that have not will become harder to close. The technology investments required to deliver full life-cycle visibility are significant. The cultural change required to empower frontline handlers is deep. The talent required to staff specialist claims teams takes years to build. None of this happens quickly. The firms that started early – and this year’s 5-Star winners represent a significant number of them – are compounding that advantage year on year. 

Wilson frames the horizon clearly: the consistency of decision-making and the empowerment of claims teams to act quickly are not just operational goals. They are the foundations of trust between insurers and the broker community – and once trust is lost at the claims stage, it is very difficult to rebuild at any other point in the relationship. 

The insurance industry has spent years calling communication a baseline. The AFCA complaint data, the IFSO’s record dispute figures, and the broker feedback captured in this report all say the same thing: it is not a baseline. Doing it well – consistently, at scale, under catastrophe pressure, across thousands of claims simultaneously – is operationally demanding in a way the industry has chronically underestimated. 

The top insurance claims carriers in Australia and New Zealand for 2026 have not arrived at their positions by accident. They have made deliberate structural choices: single ownership models, specialist teams, integrated underwriting and claims functions, and communication designed as a system rather than a behaviour. Those choices compound. The gap between the firms that have made them and those that have not is now wide enough that it will not close quickly. 

For brokers, the practical implication is straightforward: the insurers on this list have earned the trust that translates into client confidence during the worst moments. For the industry, the challenge is harder. Calling communication basic is no longer a defensible position. The data, the regulators, and the brokers have all said so. The only question left is how long it takes for everyone to act accordingly. 

 

Top Insurance Claims Carriers in Australia and New Zealand | 5-Star Claims

• 
  NZI
   
  
• 
  AIG
   
  
• 
  Arch Insurance Australia
   
  
• 
  Vero Insurance
   
  

• Allianz
• Chubb Insurance
• FMG Insurance
• Insurance Australia Group (IAG)
• QBE Insurance
• Tower