It is a familiar story in the insurance industry. One family member follows another down the path of insurance and never looks back.
That was the same for John Elliott, CEO of Elliott Insurance Brokers, who followed his father Arthur into the industry before branching out on his own.
“My father has not only been the one to introduce me to the industry, he has been my idol and my mentor throughout the process,” Elliott told
Insurance Business.
“He has always been the rock that is there and I credit him with putting me in the position and giving me the opportunity and the introduction to the industry that I never would have had.
“Not only that but being one of the greatest sounding boards for the company’s development. There are not many things that we do without running past him, he doesn’t have to have an integral understanding of the technology to know what’s good advice, what the client requires, getting a good product and making sure that the client is the forefront consideration of everything that we do.”
After his early years in the industry, Elliott set out on his own and turned his own business from a one man band to one of the top ten brokerages in the country, named at number six in
Insurance Business’ 2016 ranking.
Coming to the industry from a background in sales, Elliott said that the relationships broking offers were key to his development in the industry.
“Being a trusted adviser is something that was really exciting to work towards,” Elliott continued.
“You are sitting in a business as an external resource to be able to be a value asset to their business. That was something that really appealed to me as opposed to just being that wham, bam, thank you mam and sign on the piece of paper, you take the money and you are done.”
Outside of the industry, Elliott is well-known for his charity pursuits having earned media attention in Perth earlier this year by donating his car to charity. Elliott and others, as part of the One Heart Foundation, are currently trying to raise $1.2 million to build a sustainable village in Kenya.
Elliott doesn’t just push boundaries for charity; he has taken a similar tact with his brokerage too.
“Whenever there has been an opportunity or a temptation to get comfortable and just keep doing what we do well, we have never sat in that comfort level for very long,” Elliott continued.
“Our premise as a business is to push the boundaries, to not always take the low hanging fruit and to constantly try to reinvent ourselves so that people don’t look at Elliott insurance and say we know exactly what they are about they look at Elliott Insurance and say what are they going to do next?”
For more information on One Heart Foundation, click here.
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