Winning first place in Insurance Business Australia’s Top Brokerages list is a great accomplishment for any company. Earning the same recognition for the third year in a row after only six years in business, as Queensland-based Shielded Insurance Brokers has done, is an even more laudable feat. In this interview, the company’s director Doug Strong and principal Josh Scutts talk about Shielded Insurance’s fast growth and the changes that the industry faces this year.
Although the two executives were not insurance brokers prior to launching the company in 2016, Shielded Insurance has “experienced rapid growth and gone from zero to where we are now… So, while we stay in our lane and focus on what we do to get that recognition, it lets us know we’re on the right track and it definitely lifts team morale,” said Scutts.
Strong emphasises the company’s almost 100% year-on-year growth and the “rapid increase in workload and everything else” that comes with it. “It’s really important that we have a good team in place that’s able to adapt, so that we can facilitate our growth and continue to grow in the future,” he said.
Scutts adds that key to the company’s adaptation is offering a “younger mindset” in insurance broking. “For us, it’s about having that team with a common goal strive to give our customers the best solution, coupled with in-house technology. We’re not having to rely on anybody else and just focus on what we do, which is build our own technology and grow an awesome team.”
Reviewing and improving what the company has done in the past is another way to evolve. Shielded Insurance ensures that it has the right tools and maintains team communication, in addition to “working together as a unit” instead of having a “traditional hierarchy,” he said.
Effective internal communication helped the team’s transition to a work-from-home arrangement when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The company was able to deal with the initial challenges, thanks to motivated employees who get the job done, said Strong.
For the rest of 2022, Shielded Insurance aims to continue scaling up, sustaining its growth and providing opportunities for team members. The company anticipates the impact of top-level regulatory changes, but “those changes are going to be well thought out before they’re implemented, and [they] are designed to better serve the customer, so we’ll embrace those changes as they come through,” said Scutts. At this point, Shielded Insurance is focusing on assisting customers from the frontline and keeping a finger on the market’s pulse.
Strong agreed that regulatory changes are not something to worry about. “There’s always going to be changes in the industry and, as an insurance broker, it’s our role to navigate the client through that. We’ve been doing it great so far and we’ll continue to do that… [If the changes are] better for the client, it’s going to be better for us in the long run, too,” he said.
