Local brokers are facing a market with more underwriting options than ever before. The New Zealand Underwriting Agencies Council (NZUAC) is using its Christchurch Expo on May 18 to demonstrate that the real challenge is no longer finding capacity — it is knowing where to look.
This reflects a structural shift in how risk is being placed in New Zealand. With the market continuing to soften in parts but remaining uneven and class-specific, brokers are increasingly turning to both insurers and specialist underwriting agencies to access a broader range of solutions, particularly where risks require more flexibility or specialist expertise.
"Choice matters, because a more complex risk landscape will require more flexible solutions and whilst standard products still are key, they don't solve everything," Uprichard said.
As capacity continues to expand, brokers have more choices and less reason to select a standard option. Aon's global insurance market insights report for the first quarter of the year identified New Zealand as having abundant capacity available for most lines with soft pricing of up to 10% in cyber and commercial property. But softer pricing in headline lines disguises a more complicated picture beneath: residential property in higher-risk areas, seismic-exposed commercial portfolios and certain liability classes are not moving in lockstep with the broader market.
“Across our membership, the feedback is that it’s a mixed bag, although still largely softening,” said Uprichard.
“That said, it’s encouraging to see a continued focus across the market on delivering long-term, sustainable outcomes for customers.”
UAC's executive director said the growth in agencies has given brokers more options for all types of risks, but it has also increased the importance of understanding where different solutions fit. With more agencies, more wordings, more appetite statements and more capacity sources available, the opportunity to match solutions to customer risk requirements has increased.
"The challenge for us now is making sure brokers can see those options clearly and understand how to use them," he said.
The Expo's rapid roundtable format — central to the day and well received in 2025 — is explicitly designed to compress that discovery process.
“It gives brokers direct access to a wide range of underwriting agencies and specialist providers in a short space of time to have meaningful conversations about underwriting appetite, product structure or where different solutions can support their business effectively,” said Uprichard.
The growth of the agency channel in New Zealand mirrors a broader global trend. Specialist capacity is increasingly supporting areas of the market that traditional insurers have a diminished appetite or require a more tailored underwriting approach for a variety of reasons. For example, cover in certain higher-risk areas are not often seeing rate reductions but agencies can hold the appetite for precisely those harder-to-place risks.
Uprichard said the Expo also brings together supplier partners across claims, technology and other key services, giving brokers a chance to streamline their operations and strengthen how they support customers.
That broader supplier ecosystem reflects the fact that the agency proposition is no longer just about niche underwriting — it increasingly extends into claims handling speed, technology integration and service responsiveness, all of which feed into how a broker recommends a particular underwriter.
The Expo's pitch, Uprichard said, is fundamentally about giving brokers more tools to operate confidently in a market that is not straightforward. With capacity expanding, products multiplying and customer expectations rising — particularly as AI reshapes what clients believe is possible — the value of an event that puts much of the specialist underwriting market in one room has arguably never been higher.
“We’re focusing on what actually helps brokers operate in this environment which comes down to two things for us, in choice and partnership,” said Uprichard.
Insurance Business New Zealand is the official media partner. This article was written in collaboration with NZUAC.
