“The role of a broker continues to expand,” said Tate Harris (pictured above).
Harris is Canberra-based and a partner of insurance brokerage allinsure. One of his focus areas is construction and property-related risks, particularly construction trades.
“But that’s becoming increasingly more challenging to deal in from an insurance perspective, particularly here in Canberra,” he said.
Harris said legislative changes could be on the horizon that “will change that landscape.”
His location in the national capital, near the corridors of power, is likely a good place to monitor those sorts of changes – and also risk advise businesses seeking investment and others linked to government projects.
“We’re finally getting into some aerospace stuff,” he told Insurance Business.
Harris said his work as a broker work can range from professional indemnity (PI) programs, to risk advising for defense contracts, engineering works and health projects.
“My personal portfolio is pretty diverse in terms of industries,” he said.
Harris said he prefers that diversity because it keeps his broking challenges interesting. It also allows him, he said, to join the dots between very different industries and provide insights.
“You can relate or learn from one and pull something across from there to a conversation with somebody else in another space,” said Harris.
The allinsure principal started his insurance career about 15 years ago. He suggested the broker’s role has changed considerably in that time.
“It’s no longer just, ‘I need a public liability policy, give me a public liability policy,’” said Harris. “We wear many hats.”
Risk management advice is a focus now.
“Looking at different strategies as to how we can better a client’s risk picture or portfolio to then present it to an insurer in a better light,” he explained.
Brokers are not lawyers, he said, but there can also be a legal side to the advice.
“It’s almost like a legal hat that we wear in a sense,” said Harris. “You may have a client that’s entering into a new contract, or is tendering for a piece of work, or is looking to engage contractors to do something.”
Harris said his role involves working through those contracts in the insurance clauses and advising around how they apply and how they impact a situation commercially.
“Obviously, we’re not lawyers,” he said. “But we have a working understanding as to how that will trigger a policy or won’t trigger a policy.”
Then there’s the insurance work.
“Then, obviously your broker hat is about sourcing appropriate markets, negotiating terms, covers, premiums, excesses - you name it,” said Harris.
For the Canberra broker, there’s also his work as a business owner of allinsure and the general business challenges that brings like keeping finances in order and staffing.
Some of the work he enjoys most, he said, is connected to innovation.
“We’ve got a few different affiliations here locally, with community organizations,” said Harris. “We’re doing a lot of work with Lighthouse [Lighthouse Innovation] and their initiatives are largely new, upcoming innovation type markets.”
Lighthouse started in 2008 as a partnership between the ACT government and an early stage investment fund. Since 2014 the firm has been independent but the aim, says its website, is still “to grow ambitious businesses focused on both local and international markets.”
“When you think business, you think retail, wholesale, hospitality, the usual sort of stuff, but the work that falls outside that square is probably what interests me most,” he said. “That can involve a lot of learning about what insurance is needed and how we tailor the products that are available to those sorts of exposures.”
Harris suggested these different roles show that the definition of an insurance broker “has moved a long way past insurance.”
As a result – and also because of the stigma that can still attach to the word ‘broker’ – he said his firm tends to define his type of broker role as more of an insurance adviser.
At last year’s Insurance Business Awards, Harris won the Young Gun of the Year prize for independent firms with under 20 staff.
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