Willis, the broking business of WTW, has launched a global defence and security practice, bringing together specialists across regions and lines of business to serve defence contractors, suppliers and security firms - a development that arrives as New Zealand’s own defence spending rebuild reshapes the domestic supplier landscape.
The practice is led by Jennifer Caldarella, Willis’s global defence lead, and gives clients access to risk transfer, risk advisory, analytics, cyber, crisis management, claims, risk engineering, operational resilience, workforce risk, and capital and transaction advisory services across 140 countries.
New Zealand’s government committed NZ$12 billion over four years in its Defence Capability Plan released in April 2025, including NZ$9 billion of new spending, with a target of lifting defence expenditure from just over 1% of GDP to more than 2% within eight years. The plan covers new maritime helicopters, enhanced strike capability and uncrewed systems, alongside closer equipment alignment with Australia.
The Defence Industrial Strategy that followed in October 2025 is the more immediate change for brokers. It introduces procurement rules requiring larger defence primes to work more closely with smaller New Zealand firms and to demonstrate how their tenders will deliver economic benefit domestically - including through the use of local suppliers.
Those rules are the key development for commercial brokers. If primes must use local suppliers, more New Zealand manufacturers, engineers and technology firms will enter defence supply chains, in many cases for the first time.
Those businesses will face contractual insurance requirements set by primes and the Ministry of Defence - higher liability limits, specific cyber and security standards, and exposures linked to drones, autonomous systems and AI-enabled technology that standard commercial policies were not written to address. Products liability, professional indemnity, cyber and marine cover are all likely to see growing demand as the supplier base expands.
Willis flagged that global military spending reached a record US$2.9 trillion in 2025, according to SIPRI, and could reach US$4.7 to US$6.6 trillion by 2035. New Zealand’s share of that cycle is modest relative to larger allies, but the domestic flow-on for SME suppliers is real and the insurance implications are specific.
Brokers who build familiarity with defence contract requirements will be better placed to support clients entering the sector. Those who do not risk losing them to larger global brokers with dedicated defence capabilities.
