On Thursday night, 800 industry professionals attended the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) Australian Insurance Industry Awards.
It was an engaging evening celebrating the industry’s high achievers. Arguably, the best of all came towards the end in a spontaneous gesture. CEO Prue Willsford (pictured above), who is transitioning out of her role, hugged and joined hands with Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Tony Morgan, and they left the stage together.
Morgan had just delivered a stirring, unscripted speech celebrating both Willsford’s decade-long tenure and the insurance industry’s positive contributions to businesses and people.
Earlier in the night, Willsford – dressed immaculately in a glimmering dress: “your sequined hostess of the mostess,” she said – told the audience that she wouldn’t be as brief as she usually was during her opening address. After all, it was her last awards night outing as CEO.
“I do beg your indulgence for a few extra minutes,” she said. “I have loved serving ANZIIF.”
The audience were likely expecting Willsford to reflect on her years leading ANZIIF and the industry. Instead, she spent those extra minutes launching the industry’s new claims handling framework.
“Tonight, I am proud to announce the launch of the general insurance claims handling framework,” said Willsford.
A video started on the big screens giving details of this widely supported collaborative industry effort. Willsford said it will “improve the professionalism of the insurance claims handling workforce when it comes to claims handling and settling services.”
A step forward for the industry no doubt – but Willsford wasn’t allowed to get off so lightly.
An evening all about celebrating the achievements of industry firms and professionals also became Willsford’s night. Numerous awards sponsors and awardees chose to honour her personally during their moment on stage.
Tony Morgan, who is national executive adjuster at Sedgwick, won the 2023 ANZIIF Lifetime Achiever award. Morgan’s career has included advocating for education across the industry. He helped establish the Australasian Institute of Chartered Loss Adjusters (AICLA) and developed ANZIIF’s own loss adjusting program which, according to Willsford, is now regarded as setting the standard for the industry in Australasia.
“There is absolutely no doubt that this positive impact on the Australian and New Zealand insurance industry will endure for many lifetimes to come,” she said.
When Morgan took the stage to accept his award he mentioned another achievement.
“I have to say that what’s among the proudest of my achievements, as I look back over the last 10 years, was to have been part of a subcommittee of the ANZIIF board tasked 10 years ago with finding a new CEO for ANZIIF,” he said.
Morgan said more than 60 credible candidates were listed and then shortlisted to eight.
“Prue was not on that shortlist,” he said. “We decided, I think largely based on intuition, that we should at least interview Prue, and I’ve got to tell you, her passion, her…Am I allowed to say this Prue? Desperation to get the job, her intellect, her emotional intelligence, her insights - they blew away the field.”
The rest is history. Morgan also expressed his pride in the industry where he’s spent the last 50 years.
“I know we get some criticism and some of it’s justified on occasions but overwhelmingly we play such a critical role in the society and the economy that we’re a part of,” he said. “We certainly underpin what our society and what our economy can do to enable people and businesses to take sensible risks, and then, when disaster happens, we help to put the pieces back together again.”
He told the professionals in the room to be proud of their work.
“I would just encourage everyone who’s part of this industry, to be proud of the part that you play in different ways in making this happen,” said Morgan.
On the night, there were other energetic and capable people who showed the best side of the insurance industry, like Win-Li Toh, who won the Insurance Leader of the Year award.
“I really believe that with open minded and generous dialogue - combined with probably thoughtful applications of evidence-based data, that’s the actuary in me! - there’s really nothing we can’t solve,” she said.
It was a great night and Insurance Business felt lucky to be invited.
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