Sure thing In a disaster-prone area of Australia where many insurers have retreated, a smaller competitor says it’s doing well By John Deex Speaking up for Queenslanders: Bradley Heath
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orth Queensland can be a difficult place to write home and strata insurance, with some major providers either not willing to operate there or quoting eye-watering premiums that some residents simply cannot afford. It’s understandable. The area is uniquely exposed to cyclone risk, as well as the floods and fires Australia is renowned for. But that’s little consolation to homeowners, who either have to pay significant sums – up to $30,000 a year in some cases – to insure their major asset or play the cyclone lottery every disaster season. Into this environment in 2019 stepped Sure Insurance, an underwriting agency backed by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company to specifically service the north Queensland market and promising significant savings for customers. Two years on its Managing Director Bradley Heath says many ambitions have been achieved, and Sure is in the market for the long term. To be clear, Sure is still a relatively small player, with single-digit percentage market share. But it says it’s growing fast and has taken on an advocacy role for north Queenslanders that goes beyond business profits.
It’s insuring some 30,000 residences from Hervey Bay to Cape York and expects to triple that figure over the next few years. Having started by offering home and contents direct, it has now moved into the broker channel, and offers strata too. Sure says independent analysis by actuarial firm Finity shows it saves customers an average of $1900 per year and that overall it’s saved the regional Queensland economy about $20 million. That’s a big claim, but Mr Heath believes 10 years as RACQ Insurance chief executive has given him critical insight into the area’s issues and possible solutions. He says there was a “market crisis” and Sure believed it could help, measuring its success in terms of “how many people we’re giving a better deal to”. “Of course, we need to measure dollars, we need to be viable, we need to be solvent, and we need to have a solid business; but at the end of the day we’re doing what insurance always set out to do and that is help people,” Mr Heath tells Insurance News. “We’re very happy with our growth, and very happy with what the trajectory looks like. “The brand is now clearly very well recognised [in north Queensland]. In terms
of the impact on the market, it’s been considerable. “The brokers have taken us on as well. I mean, they’ve lost brands up there and they’ve seen massive price rises through some of our competitors. That’s their strategy and there’s nothing wrong with that. But brokers have embraced us and customers have embraced us.” So how is Sure able to provide cheaper cover? Insurers criticised about high prices in the region point back to the underlying risk, and various official inquiries have supported that view. Sure can work in such a difficult market because, frankly, it’s nowhere near as big as its competitors and it focuses solely on the north Queensland market. Being smaller it’s also lean and flexible and can use technology to build its share of the market. Mr Heath says it’s about data – and, more importantly, how that data is used. Sure says it has highly relevant product features, and it can ask specific risk-related questions that can lead to lower premiums. Those “highly relevant features” include 18 months temporary accommodation, as opposed to the more common 12 months, and there’s no excess on frozen food losses. It also covers pool water replacement
insuranceNEWS
October/November 2021
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