Executive Insights 2

Insurance Business TV was recently in the Gold Coast attending the 2025 NIBA Convention. Whilst there, we caught up with leading insurance professionals who addressed some of the top challenges the industry is facing today. My biggest hope and belief is that the efficiencies that it will produce, so both in underwriting and in broking. So for underwriting, the efficiencies, is the understanding of risk just via the data points that we'll be able to gather information from and make smarter decisions from underwriting all the way through to claims assessing and handling. And for brokers, I think it'll allow them to understand their clients better and also provide efficiencies when they're placing risk and just doing a whole life cycle for them. I'm concerned for the people that haven't recognised that it is coming and haven't gotten around to it. So I think it won't replace jobs as much as it will make people more better at their current job and the ones who don't embrace it may fall behind. Another fear is from an underwriting point of view, maybe losing the fundamentals of understanding risk. Previously, it's taken years to understand risk and be a decent underwriter. With these tools, it will become more efficient. However, we still need those fundamentals. So the training we give to new entrants should include the fundamentals of understanding risk and using AI as the tool it is to help make those decisions. Just a different way of training. Yeah, that's my view anyway. I just think we'll need to update the way we train staff when those tools become more readily available and used within businesses. I don't think it's anything new. I think it's the communicating the message, the value and marketing to clients across the whole life cycle. A massive part of my role is to educate and help brokers understand the value and the services that cyber insurance provide so they can convey that to their clients and just making sure that they understand the risk and why it's beneficial for them to do that. It's just a challenge, I think, for different parts of the insurance transaction to get that across to the small, I guess, smaller end of the market. Corporate get it. They need it. It's a board decision. But I think it's the challenge that we've been facing for the last three, five years plus. It is changing. There are common misconceptions that I think are getting debunked slowly. The old one, the IT world is not fantastically approving of cyber insurance, but I think that's changing. More MSPs and IT consultants are seeing the benefit of cyber insurance and it's not a threat. SMEs do seem to be guessing a bit more. I think more government education, more initiatives by the government is helping as well. So I think it is getting there, but there's still a lot of work to do. And yeah, I think we'll get there. Just have to take a little bit of time.