High Street Underwriting Agency

High Street Underwriting Agency is a truly independent Lloyd’s agency bringing underwriting and broking into the technological age. We are fi ercely loyal and strive to o er brokers a seamless underwriting experience through service and online capabilities.

1800 096 829 www.hsua.com.au

HIGH STREET Underwriting Agency is a market-facing, truly independent Lloyd’s coverholder with the capability to underwrite hard-to-place risks alongside straightforward day-to-day exposures. High Street excels in the liability space but, in recent years, has found a fi rm footing writing contractors’ plant and equipment, fi nancial lines (professional indemnity and cyber), personal accident, property, and motorsport lines of business.

Through smart yet keen underwriting over the past few years, High Street has seen enviable growth in terms of both written premium and sta numbers. We have dedicated underwriting teams who look after all facets of their portfolios. From new business quoting to renewal automation and mid-term changes, brokers will have comfort in getting to know who they are dealing with. The underwriters are specialists in their respective fi elds, undertaking ongoing training to better themselves through professional development.

Aside from traditional underwriting, we are committed to helping brokers adapt to the technological age. We o er an online portal that allows brokers to get an immediate quote value, as well as process and complete a policy with minimal work. This online portal is a constant work in progress, with new products and features being added on an almost weekly basis.

We also o er bespoke website integrations to our brokers, allowing their clients to do all the input work for them, while we do all the output work, creating and sending insurance documents at no cost to the broker. This is all achieved by running an in-house tech team of seven full-stack developers, overseen by our chief technology o cer.

High Street has the London relationships in place and feet on the ground locally to implement scheme arrangements and develop new products. With a strong track record in promptly turning around complex insurance placements and facilities, High Street really is the go-to agency for many Australian brokers.

KYLA WOOD, NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

DECEMBER 2021 will mark Kyla Wood’s 34th anniversary in the insurance industry. The expertise she brings as national development manager at High Street Underwriting was honed during her years spent at Federation/WFI, CU/CGU, Allianz, Austagencies/SURA Commercial and 360 Underwriting, with roles in administration, claims management, underwriting and business development. Wood played an integral part in the rollout of the 360 product nationally, including product and system training for brokers.

As national development manager, Wood’s focus is on building connections and helping High Street gain market share. She works with the support of High Street’s underwriters to evaluate risks and ultimately place business. With a keen focus on relationship-building, Wood closely supports brokers to ensure they understand High Street’s appetite regarding binders, line slips and open market placements. She also helps brokers increase e ciency by providing them with training for the products available on the High Street online portal so they have the capability to receive quotes in real time, process applications and complete a policy with minimal work.

With insurer appetites changing and underwriting capacity issues emerging, brokers are needing to remarket risks more than ever. But gone are the days where all risks were able to be homed at a price. Wood’s personalised approach to broker relationships helps to keep connections strong. With her sights set on improving user experience and e ciency, Wood is working to improve the High Street portal with a focus on making brokers’ experience as streamlined, relevant and user-friendly as possible.

While accommodating hard-to-place risks such as motorsport, asbestos and underground mining, Wood is also actively working to change the perception that High Street is just a hard-to-place market. Reinforcing the agency’s ability to o er vanilla liability, mining, property, fi nancial lines and accident & health insurance will serve to expand business and ensure High Street’s continued success.

BLAIR WHITTLE, COO

What’s your agency’s unique value proposition? Our unique value proposition is being able to offer hard-to-place risks such as motorsport, asbestos and underground mining, along with vanilla liability and property risks through our custom-built online portals. We are trying to change the perception that agencies just place distressed/hard-to-place business. We want to create more waves in the area of straightforward vanilla risks with the help of technology.

How is High Street leveraging technology to improve its offering? We now have a dedicated team of seven full-time developers working in-house alongside our insurance staff to build and maintain our online portals. We believe that creating efficiencies through the implementation of technology will allow us to gain a greater market share faster. It will also allow us to compete better against the insurance companies that offer standard insurance solutions.

Do you have anything interesting in the pipeline? We already have a broad range of products on offer that most brokers probably don’t know about. From personal accident to environmental liability, our product range is extensive.

Although we don’t see any additional products in the pipeline, we are focusing on helping to educate the broker community about how we can help them with our current offering.

What are the greatest challenges facing underwriting agencies today? The challenge that agencies face is being able to fight the perception that we are just a hard-to-place solution. We are working hard to let brokers know we can do more than help with the hard-to-place risks.

Another problem agencies face is ensuring the acquisition costs borne by the capacity holders are minimised to ensure the long-term success of the portfolios of business. This means we need to leverage technology as much as possible to create efficiencies in the underwriting process.

What’s the ideal broker to work with? As long as there is a high level of mutual respect between the broker and underwriter, you can’t really go wrong. Traditionally, we have always done more business with small brokers and ARs, as we are able to build longer-lasting, meaningful relationships.

PRODUCTS

Accident & health

Financial lines • Cyber • Management liability • Professional indemnity Mining contractors • Liability • Professional indemnity • Statutory liability • Tools Motorsport Plus Property • Barbers • Cafés and restaurants • Gyms • Office risks

Public & products liability • Blue-collar trades • Demolition and asbestos removal • Environmental contractors • General • Hard-to-place risks •Market stalls • Retail risks