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Departing Aon Australia CEO Lambos Lambrou has revealed what has had the biggest impact on the Australian broking market during his time in Australia.
Having spent the last four years in Aon’s top job in the region, following a career spanning more than three decades, Lambrou revealed to Insurance Business the four biggest changes brokers have faced since he took the role of Aon Australia CEO in 2013.
“One would be the impact of data and analytics and the impact that has had on the industry,” Lambrou said. “Also, the powerful impact that is having in terms of our ability to use fact-based insights to better inform decision making for our clients.
“In addition, the use of predictive modelling as a way of understanding how current and emerging risks are behaving, or are likely to behave – and as a result of that how we can price risk transfer solutions and improve our relevance to our customers accordingly.”
Lambrou noted that the emergence of new risks has also changed the broking sector. He highlighted cyber risk as an example at the “top of the tree” of new risks as brokers develop ways to meet their clients’ changing needs.
“As clients’ needs are changing, and how their risk profiles are changing, as new risks come into the business community, how we respond to that is a huge opportunity for the industry to step up,” he explained.
The changing nature of business models has also played a part in changing the role of the broker, Lambrou said, as the industry gets to grips with different aspects of the value chain and clients seek to reduce costs. In addition, he highlighted partnerships and collaboration, both within and outside the industry, as having changed the market.
“The nature of partnerships and collaboration and the increased nature of that type of behaviour that is happening in the industry - we need to ensure that we can reinvest together, back into our clients and ensure that we continue to raise the bar around the way that we see their expectations,” he noted.
Lambrou also said that the industry needs to “improve the relevance around which we can, quite frankly, help bridge the gap between strategies and the results that they achieve.” Lambrou said that investments in staff have led to the firm being well placed to meet these changes head on.
“The people and colleagues within Aon are our biggest asset,” Lambrou said. “We have a really focused strategy around our people.”
