Steadfast underwriting agencies Mansions, focusing on high-value home and contents cover, and prestige and specialty cars specialist Dawes are making changes to expand in a growing market.

Following major investments in personal lines data and technology, the home and auto agencies have modernised and harmonised their brand identities, highlighting their alignment in meeting the needs of high-net-worth clients. 

Steadfast Head of Personal Lines David McMurdo says insureds in the high-net-worth market often have insufficient cover or inappropriate programs, their needs are not met in the direct market, and there is a clear opportunity for underwriters and brokers. 

“Australia has a very healthy and growing high-net-worth population and most of them have strong purchasing habits, especially when it comes to passion investments, if you think about art, wine, jewellery, watches and classic cars,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au. 

But risk management teams meeting customers have found large discrepancies between clients’ views on replacement costs and actual cover required and, in some cases, people may be overpaying for inadequate insurance. 

“Brokers play a critical role in graduating them onto the right program, so they’re better protected,” Mr McMurdo said. “Doing that well not only builds trust with the high-net-worth individual, because you’re protecting what they hold close to their heart, [but also] they’re business owners, and it’s opening up significant commercial and corporate opportunities.” 

Dawes, underwritten by Allianz, and Mansions, underwritten by QBE, have operated in the local market for more than 30 years. 

Mr McMurdo says recent data and technology investments have been the most significant in the agencies’ history. Data analytics and actuarial expertise are providing a competitive underwriting advantage, he says, while back-end processes have been streamlined. 

The February launch of the Simplafy Connect personal lines platform gives brokers a more intuitive and efficient portal that eases administrative tasks. 

Mr McMurdo says brokers want to spend more time with clients, and technology is releasing underwriters from time-consuming administration, with in-person interaction likely to remain highly important in the intermediated space. 

“If I can free underwriters up with high-quality technologies, it will give them back more time and more brain space so they can concentrate on high-value tasks. We’ll start to see a shift in the day-to-day role of an underwriter from being task-oriented to increasingly strategic contributors to the business.” 

Underwriting agencies have gained greater traction through nimbly responding to end customer needs, while helping insurers to diversify indirectly, at potentially lower risk and cost, Mr McMurdo says.  

The Mansions and Dawes brand refresh, using similar name and logo stylings, better reflects the synergies between the agencies as they service niche and specialised parts of the personal lines market. “A lot of end clients like to, where possible, bundle their home and motor propositions, and it’s enabled us to demonstrate to brokers that we have multiline capabilities,” Mr McMurdo said. 

“Brokers may have always known that, but we’ve made that more prominent.”

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