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CHU Underwriting Agencies
CHU is one of Australia’s largest and most awarded insurance underwriting agencies and is recognised as a leading strata specialist. Our local state o ces, national customer service and claims teams, together with our online digital self-service tools, allow brokers to choose when, where and how they are supported by CHU.
1300 361 263 1800 022 444 (emergencies) info@chu.com.au www.chu.com.au
CHU SPECIALISES in providing comprehensive insurance products for strata schemes, including residential strata apartments, units, villas and townhouses, commercial strata, and community title properties. In addition, CHU o ers personal insurance to protect customers’ personal property and possessions.
CHU created the fi rst residential strata insurance plan in Australia and started trading in Sydney in 1978. Now, more than 40 years later, CHU has grown to become recognised as a leading strata insurance specialist, underwriting more than 100,000 schemes across Australia, which equates to an insured value of nearly half a trillion dollars. CHU is part of the Steadfast Group, the largest general insurance broker network and group of underwriting agencies in Australasia.
CHU’s strata insurance products are regularly updated to ensure they continue to o er market-leading cover. It is mandatory across Australia for strata title properties to have insurance. CHU’s insurance products are designed with each state and territory’s minimum regulatory requirements in mind to assist an owners’ corporation/body corporate in obtaining cover for their property.
CHU Underwriting Agencies Pty Ltd (ABN 18 001 580 070, AFSL 243261) acts under a binding authority as agent of the insurer, QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited (ABN 78 003 191 035, AFSL 239545). Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply to the products referred to above. Any advice is general advice only. Your client should consider the relevant Product Disclosure Statement available at www.chu.com.au and whether or not the product is appropriate for your client in deciding whether to acquire, or to continue to hold, the product.
KIMBERLEY JONSSON, CEO
KIMBERLEY JONSSON joined CHU more than 16 years ago and has worked exclusively in the fi eld of strata insurance since that time, primarily in underwriting. She holds extensive knowledge of the strata industry and the legislation that governs it. As CHU’s CEO, she has great insight and an innovative approach to creating solutions for the major issues facing the strata industry, such as combustible cladding and building defects.
PRODUCTS
•Residential Strata Insurance Plan Covers the strata building, common property and common area contents, as defi ned on the title for the property
•Commercial Strata Insurance Plan
Covers the strata building, common property and common area contents, as defi ned in the policy for commercial strata title properties
•Landlord’s Insurance
Designed for owners who are renting their properties to tenants, it provides cover for accidental loss or damage to the contents of the landlord in a rental property, along with cover for loss of rent and legal liability • Community Association
Insurance Plan
Provides community associations and lot owners with protection over their assets and potential liabilities
•Community Association Insurance Plan – Lot Owners’ Homes Protects individual homes that are part of a community association scheme from accidental loss or damage, and also o ers cover for legal liability and machinery breakdown
• Community Association
Insurance Plan – Lot Owners’
Commercial Buildings
•Contents Insurance for Strata
Designed to protect the personal contents of people who reside in a strata property, it provides cover for household goods and personal items such as clothing, jewellery, furniture, TVs, computers, internal carpets, blinds and electrical appliances belonging to you and any other person named in your policy schedule as the insured. It also includes legal liability as a standard cover.
Terms, limits, conditions and exclusions apply. Please refer to the relevant Product Disclosure Statement for details.
KIMBERLEY JONSSON, CEO
What’s your agency’s unique value proposition? As a leading strata insurance specialist and established agency, CHU is uniquely positioned to arrange insurance cover that delivers on all fronts. We offer one of the most comprehensive covers in the market for residential strata, commercial strata, community title and company title, as well as landlords and contents insurance for strata.
CHU provides a full customer service and claims team in every state that are able to offer local expertise, and has the largest national support team in the strata insurance industry. This, coupled with a suite of full-service digital tools, allows customers to choose when, where and how they wish to be serviced, which sets us apart in the strata insurance sector.
How do you support brokers? Brokers have the option to deal with CHU in the traditional way, with the local support team in each state/territory. However, brokers also have the flexibility to be able to use CHU’s digital platform 24/7 with full policy life cycle management.
Traditionally, CHU’s distribution was primarily through strata managers as authorised representatives. In recent years, distribution has moved towards brokers due to the increase in risk complexity, size and the need for multiple quotes. Eighty per cent of CHU’s business is now brokered, compared to 40% in 2015. The increasing complexity of schemes will continue to drive the shift to brokers, and CHU is creating tools and services to support this.
Strata living is growing, and as residential strata insurance is mandatory in each state and territory, it is a growing area for the insurance industry, especially brokers, and will continue to be so for some time. Our commercial approach to underwriting cladding and defects in strata and working with brokers to find a solution for their clients is noteworthy.
How is CHU leveraging technology to improve its offering? Our StrataTech platform has been a gamechanger, giving brokers the choice to have full control of their strata insurance portfolio with CHU online, 24/7. CHU’s digital strategy provides multiple ways for brokers to access information, easily view items such as the current status of a policy, and obtain claims information and updates. Interconnectivity with brokers and their systems is enabling a high degree of straight-through processing.
We accommodate both the traditional and digital way of doing business. If a broker wants to have quote-only functionality, we transition the customer experience from a broker’s systems into our own to complete the process. If a broker wants to build the complete policy life cycle in their own system, we can provide that integration too. We are developing our AI functionality alongside our digital tools.
Have you introduced any new products recently? We are launching a new product to accommodate the emerging market of ‘build to rent’ and see this as a natural extension of the specialist products and service we offer. CHU’s Build to Rent product is suitable for apartment buildings not subject to a strata subdivision and owned by the developer/original owner. This new product has been specifically tailored to non-strata apartment buildings.
It provides coverage options for the building, liability, machinery breakdown and catastrophe cover. Liability extends to communal areas, as well as property owner’s liability for your apartments. It also provides cover for the owner’s contents in furnished apartments; however, a tenant’s contents are not indemnified under this product. It also covers contents in the apartment and the insured location, should an owner occupy it.
Do you have anything interesting in the pipeline? CHU always has a lot on the go. We are working with optical character recognition [OCR] technology to read broker quote slips and claim forms. This is with a view to allow the broker to choose how they deal with us and not need to complete a new quote slip for each insurer each year.
We are further refining our underwriting rules in StrataTech, with a view to have 90% of risks go straight through without manual underwriting intervention.
Is there an achievement you’re most proud of? CHU has received the gold medal for strata cover and Brokers’ Pick for best product for our Residential Strata Insurance Plan for five years running, based on the results of the Insurance Business Brokers on Underwriting Agencies survey. CHU won the Underwriting Agency of the Year Award in both 2017 and 2018 at the ANZIIF Australian Insurance Industry Awards. In the same awards, CHU won the inaugural Excellence in Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Award in 2019.
What’s the ideal broker to work with? Brokers working in strata and personal lines who are keen to work with us to find the best sustainable solution for their clients.
If you could change one thing about underwriting or insurance, what would it be? Having construction data for every strata and residential building in Australia – we are well into this journey.
What is the greatest challenge facing underwriting agencies today? Digital disruption, as well as the impact that our business and the strata industry as a whole has on the environment and sustainability. These challenges are a key strategic focus of our business.
