Managing director Max Cuzzocrea (pictured) may have been at the helm of Maxton Insurance Brokers since 1986, but the industry stalwart is still keeping up with the times.
“What has happened is you just find the mediums so that you can adapt to these new changes,” said Cuzzocrea, who won Australian Broker of the Year at the Insurance Business Awards 2020. “It’s a completely different way of doing business. At Maxton, we’re now doing virtual surveys with clients – which if you’d told me that two years ago, I would have said, ‘No, I’m going out there to do the survey and I will do this’.
“What we’ve been able to do is we have now engaged a facility where the client is aware that they walk around their own factory or property with the phone and that virtual survey then gets loaded up and sent to the underwriter. It’s certainly something that I didn’t think we were going to be doing in 2021 – maybe 2031, but it’s here and it’s for all of us to use.”
Educating clients has been a key focus as well. Cuzzocrea said the brokerage now speaks to commercial clients on a quarterly basis, with the discussions far from being one-way in nature.
The award-winning MD told Insurance Business: “When we’re doing renewals, we’re at least eight or 10 weeks out talking to them about the renewal coming up, and not just about the changes in their business but letting them know the changes to the industry. I think clients are a little bit unaware of why things are going up.
“When you explain to them that the market has certainly diminished and we’ve got underwriters that haven’t got capacity, they say, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ And you say to them, ‘Look, basically what [the underwriters] are saying is that the reinsurers that were taking on the risk have either removed or have increased their rates, and therefore it sort of flows through to you and I’.”
For Cuzzocrea, it’s about making clients understand the hard market cycle, instead of just stating that it is a hard market and that premiums have risen.
“You’ve got to speak to them on the level of ‘these are the reasons why’ rather than saying ‘this is what they’re doing’,” he asserted. “And you can’t talk to a client three days before renewal and tell them that their premiums have gone up 25%.
“Also, at least expose them to the fact that, ‘Look, in your market or in the industry that you’re currently in, it has been difficult and there’s been lots of claims, and underwriters are now saying, for them to write the business, you need to be doing this, this, or this’. We try to get them to understand that they may need to improve their risk by putting certain things in place.”
This effort, which Cuzzocrea’s staff is well-trained for, doesn’t go unnoticed.
The broking boss noted: “Clients have been delighted for the fact of being able to understand or being put in the picture of where it could be, because they said when they talk to other friends that have got insurances, their brokers and insurers are just saying, ‘These are the rates and there’s nothing we can do about it’.
“It’s something we’ve never seen before where insurers don’t really want to take on business, whereas in the past you always had someone there that would at least look at a risk. From our feedback point of view, clients have been surprised but understanding as to why it’s happening. They still don’t like it, obviously, but they understand that the market is like that across the board and it’s not just one insurer.”
The other change that Maxton Insurance Brokers is equipped to face is the continuing COVID-19 situation. Cognizant of the real possibility of further lockdowns on short notice, the business holds regular drills where phone systems are tested outside the office.
“That’s certainly something that is so important – that we’re aware of the changes, but more so that we’re aware that everyone really has suffered in one way or the other and you need to empathize with that,” Cuzzocrea told Insurance Business.
“Also, it makes you realise that [the lockdown] is something that has to be done and you just need to do it and cope with it. The modern broker of today just steps up and gets on with it and certainly adapts to the changes that are put upon them to protect their clients and their staff, accordingly.”
