Our Hollard Select Brokers business model puts brokers in control of many of the most critical insurance functions, from rating and risk acceptance to claims management.

Twenty-five years ago a well-respected insurance broker approached Hollard (South Africa) with a proposal to help him improve his service to clients. He'd devoted his working life to building an amazing business, which unfortunately was starting to suffer at the hands of inflexible insurers and their inefficient admin requirements. He was fed up and wanted to shake things up with Hollard.

The broker was particularly frustrated by having to spend so much of his time shuffling paperwork for insurers, and worse, being tied to their slow turn-around times. Quotation requests. Additional information. Certificates. Endorsements. Renewals. Claim processing. There were inefficiencies at every step that cut into the time he could better spend servicing his clients.

Hollard worked with the broker to re-design the way we did business together. The result was that we reduced the double handling of work between the broker and us by trusting the broker to manage more of the policy and claims functions. Instead of submitting a quotation request to us and waiting for an underwriting decision, we authorised him to accept business himself within agreed guidelines. Instead of being told what premium to charge, he was given considerable discretion over what was appropriate under the circumstances. Instead of waiting for a claim to settle, he could settle it himself.

Changes like these paid immediate dividends. Turnaround times reduced. Administration costs improved. Clients' premiums became more stable. And it freed up time for the broker to grow his business. It also freed us up to tailor training, support and oversight to the broker - a great result us, for the broker, and most importantly, for the client.

Since then we have been refining and perfecting what has become our extremely successful Hollard Select Broker business model.

HSB in Australia

Our Hollard Select Broker business model works in Australia much the same way as it has internationally for 25 years: we identify leading brokers and put them in control of key insurance functions. By empowering brokers to make policy and claims decisions and handle critical administrative responsibilities, we're able to minimise red tape, improve risk selection, reduce loss ratios, improve claims handling and generally operate more efficiently. This, in turn, minimises expenses, which helps us keep our premiums competitive, and also allows us to properly remunerate brokers for administering policies and claims on our behalf.

We've established a dedicated Hollard Select Broker team to identify Select Brokers and manage our relationships with them. Before we partner with a broker we perform a detailed check on the broker, the broker's business and its people. The broker must:

• Share our values;
• Be owner managed;
• Have a proven history of top class service;
• Have loyal clients;
• Have management and staff with a good reputation in the community.

We take a long-term approach to partnerships. Since launching in 2006 we have carefully selected a small number of leading brokers. Our plan is to grow our Select Broker presence slowly over time by partnering with Australia's best insurance brokers.

More Information

For more information about becoming a Hollard Select Broker, please email us at ContactHSB@hollard.com.au or call (02) 9253 6600 and speak to Troy Brown.