Underwriting a new era of insurance

Fiercely independent and fiercely loyal to clients, High Street Underwriting Agency has established itself as a notable force in Australia’s insurance industry

FOR BLAIR WHITTLE, COO at High Street Underwriting Agency, risk is an omnipresent part of doing business in insurance. In an era when many companies are struggling to obtain coverage and many carriers are operating with reduced capacity, being able to offer coverage for those that don’t necessarily fit the traditional mould is something Whittle sees as particularly crucial.

“From a broker perspective, I think our most important capability is offering customised solutions for risks that don’t necessarily fit in a neat box,” he says. “Obviously COVID-19 has had an impact, but there are other market factors at play too. But I think that just means that as underwriters, we’ve got to be more creative about how we approach these issues. What can you cover? Is it something that can be split under multiple policies? Is it a gap in the market where it might be valuable to create a product?”

The onus, Whittle says, is on underwriters and brokers to work together to meet the client’s needs as best they can. In practical terms, he explains, High Street Underwriting has an in-house IT system that can quote and bind risks automatically, helping speed up the process immensely. But he’s also quick to point out that the human element of insurance is crucial.

“There’s no question technology has sped up insurance immensely – it’s traditionally been such a manual process of collecting and sending documents,” Whittle says. “But you can’t forget that human element. There’s a lot of value to having those one-to-one conversations.”

Andrew Martin, chief technology officer at High Street Underwriting, agrees. “I think the big advantage for us in having our own in-house systems has been that we can be flexible,” he says. “The industry as a whole runs a bit behind where tech really should be, so by being early adopters, we don’t just benefit ourselves – we’re also able to help brokers and their clients to adapt more effectively too.”

Key lessons from 2020 Whittle is philosophical about the challenges that 2020 put forward for the insurance industry. Nowhere was fully immune from the effects of COVID-19, and delays in the processing chain were almost inevitable, he notes.

“I think it was definitely a useful tool for improving everyone’s patience,” he says. “It also really forced us to think about some of our processes and the ways we engage with clients. With everything having to be done online rather than face-to-face, we had to pivot pretty quickly.”

Today, Whittle says he’s glad to be back in the office, surrounded by familiar faces. “I think we’re all grateful for the increased in-person interaction. That was something we all really took for granted before. But we definitely feel more confident in offering flexible work hours and work-from-home arrangements. There are lots of advantages to the traditional office setting, but I think

“I think we’re probably best known among brokers for our ability to place risk that’s really high-stakes, high-drama and difficult to place. But we’re certainly here for the day-to-day stuff too”

Blair Whittle, High Street Underwriting

we’ve all seen that bricks and mortar aren’t strictly necessary for still giving clients your best work.”

Despite the inherent challenges, 2020 was also a period of growth for High Street – the agency has added eight new employees within the last 12 months. That growth is something Whittle hopes to maintain into the coming year, while still preserving company culture.

“We’re now at about 40 employees, so having eight new faces is a significant number,” he says. “It’s around this point where you can sometimes see the culture of a business shift, and not always for the better. So we’ve been really proud to maintain a positive culture, even through the working-from-home period, and our priority is to maintain that.”

On the horizon “I think we’re probably best known among brokers for our ability to place risk that’s really high-stakes, high-drama and difficult to place,” Whittle says. “But we’re certainly here for the day-to-day stuff too.”

“The industry as a whole runs a bit behind where tech really should be, so by being early adopters, we don’t just benefi t ourselves – we’re also able to help brokers and their clients to adapt more e ectively too”

Andrew Martin, High Street Underwriting

He points to the company’s new personal accident product, launched in early 2021, as an example. Whittle sees it as having signifi cant breakthrough potential with brokers.

“We’re always looking for new brokers to work with,” he says. “We’re really big on open communication, and we always want to work with brokers who treat us as an equal business partner.”

To this end, High Street has been partnering with a number of AR networks to enable better engagement with the broker community. Building relationships from top to bottom throughout the industry is something that Whittle sees as particularly critical. “We’re still a totally independent family business,” he says. “We think that o ers us a lot of advantages from the perspective of being able to o er more personalised policies and service. We just want to make sure that brokers are aware that they can approach us for help when they need it.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the year and weighing up the agency’s course of action, Whittle and Martin both see the importance of further refining their processes. Some of that will be purely internal, while other elements will involve High Street doing its part to shape trends within the wider insurance industry.

“I think the biggest issue we have as an industry is that there isn’t really an industry standard for tech,” Martin says. “Being a smaller and more nimble agency, we can stay ahead of the curve – but I really do want to see things more standardised. Some of that will be down to the syndicates; when you’re that big, a degree of conservatism around things like tech becomes the default.”

It’s not just on a program or processing power basis, either, Martin adds. “Email itself is archaic,” he says. “Particularly when you consider that so much of our business involves dealing with London-based carriers – all of a sudden you have a 24-hour round trip, waiting for new information on a spreadsheet, not to mention the potential for data loss or fi le corruption along the way.”

Whittle proposes that data will become even more important to the industry – but how it’s collected will need to shift.

“In a perfect world, we’d all love to be able to collect more data,” he says. “It lets us underwrite risk more e ectively, it opens up growth areas as an industry, and it helps us better serve our clients. But collecting it is trickier. Obviously, you can ask more questions – but you also want to create a smooth experience for clients, and you also don’t want to overcollect information. It’s got to be streamlined.”

Neither Whittle nor Martin is convinced they have all the answers – however, they remain committed to doing their part to uncover them.

“I don’t think we’re going to solve it all ourselves,” Martin says. “But I do think it’s important that these conversations are being had; it helps reframe how the industry thinks about these questions and encourages more innovation.”