Insurance Business Australia's (IB) Elite Brokers list for 2023 is composed of insurance brokers with the best performance despite facing various challenges in the market.
In an interview with IB, Elite Broker Nicholas Bedggood, director and founder of Citadel Insurance Services (Citadel), outlined factors driving complexity in the Australian insurance market.
Bedggood – who has dealt with fires, floods, and COVID-19 over the past few years – shared with IB that he was able to chalk up impressive numbers despite what he described as “brutal” market conditions.
“We're in between the third and fourth year of a hardening market,” he said. “There's a lot of people overpaying. I've conditioned my clients, but every renewal is a difficult discussion. So, it's taxing in the extreme.”
When asked about what's driving complexity in the Australian insurance market, Bedggood pointed to ancillary factors, including the infamous fire services levy in New South Wales (NSW), a fee collected by insurance companies to fund fire and emergency services. Other factors include the much-maligned taxation system and a mortgage cliff, which Bedggood expects to have many people leaving real estate.
Bedggood also noted a growing disparity between the wealthy and the rest: “There's been people going to homeless shelters who were otherwise wealthy two years ago. What you would call a ‘normal middle-class person’ is sleeping in their cars.”
