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[00:13] Paul Lucas: Hello everybody. Welcome to Insurance Business TV. We are here at InsureTech Connect 2026 for another of our peer-to-peer interviews. And today we're catching up with one of our favorites here in Insurance Business America, and it's Jacqueline Waters. She is managing director and practice leader Aon Financial Services Group Legal and Claims. So, Jacqueline, I'm going to talk a little bit about the brokerage and risk advisory sector right now. So, of course you're at one of the biggest brokerages in the world. How has the role of the broker perhaps changed over the last few years beyond simply placing risk?

[00:44] Jacqueline Waters: Yeah, and I think look, we have a very large clientele and a range of clients from the very largest into the small and the mid-market and affinity space. So, there's a lot of different types of needs that are served by these clients. And I think we've done very well at kind of identifying them and being very much more consultative rather than transactional. Obviously, transaction is still a major part of this business, but some of the clients need some more specialized consulting, some discussions, some advice.

[01:18] So, I think the role has evolved from just placing the best, cheapest, whatever you call it, whatever is your thing program to something that includes some value add, some really services consulting, some ideas about how they might do things, might they structure it different, might they use different markets, might they do something completely different, and engage with the clients in that way to become more than just a transactional facility.

[01:45] Paul Lucas: Of course, there's been a lot of consolidation in the brokerage space over the last few years as well. Of course, Aon's deal for NFP would stand out among that pack. But, not talking specifically about that deal, but in general, what would you say is perhaps driving this rush of consolidation? Is it about scale, technology, is it something else?

[02:02] Jacqueline Waters: Yeah, I think it depends which seat you're sitting in.

[02:04] Paul Lucas: Yeah.

[02:04] Jacqueline Waters: If you are being acquired or if you are the acquirer. I think, and I do not work in that part of business for my company just to be clear. I'm not in advising or choosing those targets in any way, shape or form. But I think you're looking for a niche of things to fill in or a good fit, a good balance of something that might complement but enhance what you already do.

[02:33] If you're in a specialty, something that grows a little bigger, something that branches out a little bit more. If you're in a smaller niche, maybe geography, it might be something else where you want to fill in space, or it's the talent. It's the people and the kind of business. If it is compatible, you're probably not going to get something that overlaps completely with what you do. You're probably going to get something that is a nice complement that you can work into the system and work together pretty much immediately.

[02:58] You don't want to have a lot of ramp-up time to get these things done. You want some returns on that to be pretty quick.

[03:01] Paul Lucas: Yeah. And of course a lot of things have changed over the last few years as well. Are you having any perhaps difficult conversations with clients that maybe you weren't having a few years ago?

[03:10] Jacqueline Waters: Yeah, so I'm not going to say difficult, but what I will say is some clients, and depending where the buyer is, where the engagement is with a particular broker, us or anybody else, they're using the AI tools to get information and/or their friends and family, we used to call this, right? So they're getting information and they're coming up with some things that they think is the right solution.

[03:40] And you either perhaps have to explain gently about the nuance or explain why, well, that could be kind of true in a sense, but it's not perfectly true and it doesn't work for you. There's a lot more explaining because buyers and users are thinking they are getting more information that is right and that fits their situation when that may not be the case.

[04:03] So, you have to really listen like, where are you coming up with this question? This sounds like someone generated that. It happens on the claim side, too. Someone says, this is what your policy should do. Like, okay. That's great except blah blah blah blah blah. There's nuance, there's differentiation. And so, it's not at a place where they're going to come up with that answer. But, I think that's a new wild card that has been thrown in in the past few years as more and more individuals at the various companies start using those tools to gather information and maybe try to do things without hiring someone to pay for it.

[04:36] Paul Lucas: Well, I was probably turning a little bit of a negative question at you there. So, I'm going to throw a positive one at you as well, if you don't mind. Just talk to me about where you see perhaps the biggest opportunities for growth in the next few years.

[04:47] Jacqueline Waters: Yeah. When we talked a little bit at the beginning about consultation, there are, look, years and years ago, there are insurance products that didn't exist in this world 15, 20 years ago that are quite big and popular and they're still growing now. There's space for these things to get refined and develop and branch off into other things. And there will be new things that come that you or I can't imagine.

[05:10] So, it's really trying to be ahead of it. What are the needs of a client in this modern kind of way we do business? How are they going to do business in the future? And what is the risk that that's going to engender?

[05:21] Paul Lucas: Yeah.

[05:21] Jacqueline Waters: So, that you can develop a product and really it's going to be that personal touch, if you will, the consulting. It's not just going to be a placement, which maybe could get done by a bot somewhere. But, it's going to be something where you give the nuance and understanding for each client so that they really understand what is best for them and what options they have available to them.