Insurance purchase behaviour is more complex than you may think
Using a broker for some, but not all, business insurance appears to be widespread in Australia. When we look at the proportion of insurance that SMEs claim to be buying through a broker, less than a third of SMEs say that they do not use a broker at all (non-users), compared to 27% who claim to use broker for at least 90% of all their business insurance (broker users). The largest group, at 42%, is SMEs who say they use brokers for some (between 1% and 89%) of their insurance (mixed users).
What percentage of your business insurance do you buy through a broker?
What role does online play?
Our findings this year suggest that the biggest challenge for brokerages is not losing clients altogether, but rather that SMEs are turning to a range of different channels to meet their insurance needs and relying less exclusively on brokers. There is no question that online channels will continue to play an important and evolving role in insurance, as in virtually every other field of business. There were two key findings:
- Online comfort levels are high across the board with the vast majority of SMEs claim to be at least somewhat comfortable dealing with their insurance online
- Comfort levels are highest with administrative tasks such as renewing existing policies, getting quotes, making enquiries, and filing claims.
