It looks like Queensland-based Evolution Insurance Services has ‘a good problem to have’.
Speaking with Insurance Business, founding director Lizzie Nelson (pictured) said hiring plans could be in the offing as the relatively new brokerage lays the foundation for its growth. Securing top-notch hires, however, might prove difficult.
“I think what I find challenging is getting all the back-end stuff done,” noted Nelson, whose business entered the market in 2020. “So what I need to do is make sure that I’m staffed correctly, make sure that we’re growing in the right way to support that.”
“It’s one of those things,” she continued, “do you get the staff first and then have them do all that back-end stuff for you, or do you just keep rolling and doing the back-end stuff for yourself until you can afford the staff? So we’re sort of in that space where our projections speak to the fact that we are going to grow and we are going to be looking for team members that will support us in doing that.
“Whether that’s a challenge, I don’t know, but I know it’s something new for us. I know it’s something that we’re looking at to really get a hold of. And, in this industry, it’s hard to secure good staff. Good brokers are hard to find.”
Currently, it’s just Nelson manning Evolution Insurance Services from her home office – a task she carries out by apportioning her time correctly and being extremely organised. And while Nelson does have “some admin help,” the broker recognises the need to eventually get a team behind her.
“That will all come in time,” she said, acknowledging the amount of work involved in running a broking operation.
Looking back at the firm’s first seven months, the authorised representative (AR) principal shared that Evolution Insurance Services – an AR of Insurance Advisernet – was fortunate to not have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus crisis.
Nelson, who is thrilled to be working in her own business, stated: “For us, there’s nothing really negative that happened to us last year, because we were so young – everything was growing and rolling on, and it was really nice. We are focussing on growth, on acquiring new business. We’re very excited about what’s coming in the next 12 months.”
At present, the insurance brokerage isn’t zeroing in on one particular sector but instead is “taking everything in” with the help of referral channels.
“We’re getting a lot of business through referrals,” said Nelson. “And I knew that was going to be important as soon as we went out, and I decided it’s what we’re doing. We knew quality referral partners – people that are bringing a lot to the table and really love their clients so that we can love them, too.
“That was a huge focus for us. And it’s really done us a positive. We can actually rely on that – there’s always a community there where we’re all sort of talking to each other.”
As for finding good broking staff, the director shone a spotlight on the broker’s role in supporting businesses and the value of advice within an insurance market that continues to be challenging.
Nelson stressed: “We are advice givers; that is what we do. That’s what we provide to our clients, and we need to double-down on that. We need to level up; we need to keep growing; we need to keep learning; and we need to keep providing that to our clients.”
