A note from Michael Gill, IBCCC Chair

WHY MAKE IT DIFFICULT?

The Independent Chair of the Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee, Michael Gill, who drafted the original Insurance Brokers Code in 1994, shares learning and insights from his career.

MICHAEL GILL

Chair, IBCCC

As I conclude my role as the Chair of the Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee (IBCCC), I am asked to reflect on the role, the Code and, to some degree, my long association with the world of insurance broking.

One article would be insufficient to discuss my broker heroes. So, I turned to Dallas Booth to help me focus. That he did.

So, here are just a few brief things that are not new or revolutionary.

As is the case with so many government licences, authorisations and the like, they are granted on behalf of Australian society to further the common good of society, to provide for its needs. Their primary purpose isn’t to increase personal wealth or service capital. Although in recent times, one would be forgiven for believing that has become the preferred business model.

That purpose needs to be at the centre of all business culture and behaviour. It fits neatly with the Australian personal culture of a fair go.

When we leave home and enter our workplaces (pre-COVID-19), we do not change personality – or at least we should not. We are not Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

We all know the challenges, and frustrations and feelings of unfairness as we confront so many institutions in our ordinary daily lives. So, at work, when we wear the shoe on the other foot, empathy should not be difficult. “Do unto others, etc.” should not be far away.

So many people and businesses are good at this, but not all. Maybe some are better suited to other careers.

For insurance brokers, it should be so much easier than for many others who sell products. You sell a special set of services, critical services, on which people might rely for their very survival. Your interests are often aligned with those of your clients, as you seek fairness and justice for them.

The numbers of Code compliance and dispute statistics each year largely bear this out. Especially in the broader financial services context where most of the others sell banking or insurance products. There is always room for improvement.

And the best people and businesses set their own standards and create behaviour expectations of a high standard, which is both informed by their culture and informs their culture. It’s the same in all professional service sectors.

It has to do with much more than law and regulation which, by definition, is always playing catch.

These businesses are led by intelligent people of integrity who long ago recognised the seamless connection between having a successful business, a fulfilling life, happy staff and customers, good risk management practices and service standards that not only go well beyond the law, but also define their businesses in the marketplace.

And all of this is done in a professional context which understands the value of the right reputation for the profession as a whole. Or it should, if all brokers are to be of a profession.

In short, they are outstanding in most senses. So coming back to Dallas, his question to help my focus was: you have mentioned that the Committee does not set best practice standards – it notes what best practice brokers do, and adopts their position. Can you expand on this?

The standards set by the best are obviously both attainable and considered to be appropriate in the above contexts. They are not the artificiality of those who don’t practice, who may be purely academic or seek to impose as a regulator. We should never expect those solutions to always be the best.

Best brokers are best placed to know what should be reasonably expected of all brokers. They live in that space 24/7 as they handle the many personal and business issues I have referred to.

So, we at the Code don’t need to invent things for you. We just need to accurately identify what the best of you already do and then spread the word, encouraging all to do likewise.

The best will, by definition, is always seeking to do things better. And once again, the profession/industry will be establishing a new aspirational benchmark. That’s one reason why the law is always playing catch up.

In my more than 50 years in legal practice working with the insurance industry, the volume of law and regulation applicable to the insurance industry has expanded exponentially (figuratively). And, despite the wise and cautionary words of Kenneth Hayne in the Royal Commission Report, the legal/regulatory spread has galloped a pace since then.

Time alone will not prove whether it has had the desired effect. It never has. New and more law might create good feelings in some. Beyond that? Surely our objectives must always be better outcomes for the common good.