Insurance Business Australia (IB) asked hundreds of brokers to rank a selection of insurers across 11 categories to help determine this year's Brokers on Insurers special report winners.
The IB team invited brokers from across Australia to rate the performance of nine insurers currently operating in the country, specifically those that the brokers dealt with in the past 12 months.
For each category, insurers were ranked in order of merit according to an average score calculated from a tally of their ratings. The top three insurers in each category received a gold, silver, or bronze medal. Meanwhile, the insurers' combined average score from all categories determined the medallists for Insurer of the Year.
Aside from ranking insurers, brokers revealed the challenging aspects of working with these companies.
One of the brokers interviewed by IB claimed that the art of underwriting is declining as insurers “move to auto-rate, standardised guidelines.”
Another broker said: “In an age where businesses are having to be innovative to remain relevant by offering new or additional products and services, insurers are struggling to keep up. If it is even close to outside of the insurers' perceived box, it's a decline from most of them.”
A broker added that claims management and new people coming onboard with staffing changes could make it challenging to work with insurers.
Another broker pointed to “significant increases in pricing and changes in underwriting guidelines with a lack of appetite for higher-risk clients.”
The insurers rated by brokers in this year's survey and recognised for their excellent performance are:
See what made these insurance companies the best of the best in the Australian insurance industry by reading the IB Brokers on Insurers 2023 special report.
