A major insurer has released the country’s first SME insurance index which reveals a tipping point at which businesses become more complex and require advice to understand the impact of change and growth on their insurance needs.
The report from
Vero Insurance’s ‘
Vero SME Insurance Index’ reveals that 69% of SMEs with six or more employees are more likely to purchase insurance through a broker or adviser compared to 57% of SMEs with one to five employees.
Also, 58% use a broker to save time so they can focus on their businesses; 45% rely on a broker or adviser’s expert knowledge and advice; 39% attain additional peace of mind by using a broker to find the right insurance; 22% of SMEs use a broker to get cheaper prices; and more than half of brokers’ clients gave an eight out of 10 for service satisfaction.
According to Vero executive general manager for distribution
Cris Knell, brokers can make informed judgements as to the challenges and opportunities faced by SMEs and provide a better service when armed with this information.
“Insurers do not usually interface directly with clients so brokers have a key role to play in terms of understanding their SME clients and shaping products,” he said. “Therefore we need to pass on useful insights to brokers to enable them to integrate this information and offer an optimal value proposition to their customers and potential customers.
“The significance of the right product with the right risk at the right price cannot be overemphasised.”
Knell also stressed the importance of remaining abreast of changes in the digital environment so as to enhance product offerings digitally and better engage with customers.
Suncorp New Zealand, which includes the Vero,
Asteron Life,
AA Insurance and AA Life brands, has at its disposal a huge customer database – “it’s in touch with 28% of households or 860 000 customers in New Zealand while Vero alone has a relationship with approximately 30% of the country’s SMEs,” Knell said.
“Although any business of any size can purchase insurance through a broker or adviser, the tipping point demonstrates the value that a broker or adviser can bring to an SME in terms of advising on how to protect business and income and more importantly to fill in knowledge gaps around insurance,” concluded Knell.
The research for the index was conducted by BrandMatters and based on a survey of about 1,000 SMEs.
Copyright Bloomberg 2017
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