Three of New Zealand’s largest broking operations are publicly making the same argument to commercial clients in 2026: insurance placement alone is no longer sufficient. A Christchurch appointment crystallises a structural question the whole industry is navigating.
Abbott Insurance Brokers announced on July 29 the appointment of Michael Carswell (pictured) as broker and business development executive in its Christchurch commercial team. Carswell brings more than two decades of experience across underwriting, executive leadership, and commercial broking, with senior roles at NZI, QBE, and Aon on both the insurer and intermediary sides of the market. The structural logic behind the appointment is as significant as the hire itself. Abbott is placing one of its most experienced practitioners directly into a client-facing advisory role – an explicit reversal of the industry convention in which seniority typically moves people away from daily client contact and into management, national practice, or business development functions.
Abbott chief executive Mark Reid said the firm is deliberate about that choice. “Many organisations see experience as something that naturally moves further away from clients as careers progress. We’ve taken the opposite view. We believe our most experienced advisers create the greatest value when they’re sitting alongside business owners – understanding their ambitions, navigating complexity, and mitigating risk,” Reid said.
Carswell said the rationale reflects where he believes senior practitioners can make the most difference. “One thing has become increasingly clear to me – the conversations that create the greatest value for clients rarely start with insurance. They start with understanding the business – where it’s heading, the opportunities it’s pursuing, and the risks that could stand in its way. Insurance then becomes one part of a much wider conversation about protecting value, supporting growth, and building resilience,” he said.
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The commercial stakes of getting advisory engagement right for small and medium-sized businesses are significant. Small businesses make up around 97% of all enterprises in New Zealand and contribute about 42% of total economic value, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) – making the SME segment the primary commercial broking client base across the market. That segment is navigating a period of sustained pressure. SME confidence entered positive territory for the first time in five years in MYOB’s 2025 Business Monitor, with 46% of SMEs expecting the economy to improve over the next 12 months. While economic sentiment has improved, SMEs continue to contend with cost pressures and regulatory obligations that influence business resilience and risk management decisions, including inflation, consumer demand, utility costs, interest rates, fuel and transport costs, and compliance requirements.
Research and regulatory findings point consistently to a gap between the advisory depth New Zealand businesses require and what they are receiving. The Financial Markets Authority’s (FMA) Access to Financial Advice Review, completed in March 2026 following consumer research and sector engagement conducted from July to December 2025, found that only 28% of New Zealanders had accessed financial advice in the past 12 months. FMA chief executive Samantha Barrass said that improving access to quality financial advice is critical to New Zealanders’ long-term financial wellbeing, and that there is “significant opportunity to expand access to advice so more New Zealanders can benefit from it.”
That finding sits alongside structural regulatory change. Since March 31, 2025, insurers have been required to hold a financial institution licence and establish a fair conduct programme under the Conduct of Financial Institutions (CoFI) regime. Alongside existing obligations on licensed financial advice providers under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 and the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services, the changes have strengthened expectations around the quality of insurance advice and customer outcomes. Meanwhile, Vero New Zealand’s 2026 SME research described Kiwi SMEs as increasingly valuing practical risk advice in addition to their cover.
Abbott is not making this argument in isolation. Two of New Zealand’s other leading broking firms have published closely aligned positions in 2026, drawn from their own client-facing research and market analysis. Gallagher Insurance New Zealand published guidance in March 2026 arguing that commercial clients treating insurance as a transactional purchase are most exposed when disruption hits. Chief broking officer Mark Jones stated that underinsurance “isn’t just a claims problem anymore – it’s a financing and governance problem,” with banks and investors “asking sharper questions about insurance to value, business interruption modelling, and location exposures.” Jones framed insurance adequacy as directly relevant to loan covenants, mergers and acquisitions transactions, and growth plans.
Marsh New Zealand's February 2026 market update made a parallel case. The firm advised that “strong risk management continues to deliver the best insurance outcomes” and that, even in a competitive market, insurers favour businesses that demonstrate “sound governance and planning.” Marsh positioned its brokers explicitly as risk management experts rather than placement intermediaries. The convergence of this messaging across competing firms is the most significant signal in the current market. When Abbott, Gallagher, and Marsh are all publicly framing commercial insurance advice as a risk management and governance conversation rather than a product transaction, this represents a directional shift in how the industry is positioning itself – not a point of differentiation for any single firm.
Prevailing conditions are sharpening that pressure. The Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) reports the industry’s average combined ratio improved significantly, from 97.9% in December 2023 to 78.6% in December 2024, and many businesses achieved premium savings on property insurance in 2025, with that trend expected to continue into 2026. In a soft market where premium outcomes are increasingly available across the board, competing on price alone becomes a weaker value proposition. The broking firms that can substantiate a broader advisory role are responding to a commercial reality as much as to client demand. The question Abbott’s appointment poses for the broader market is not whether senior experience should be closer to clients – the evidence on that is converging. It is whether firms will restructure to make it so.
