Before Trowbridge’s 2023 Strata Study, there was Trowbridge’s Insurance Council of Australia 2021 Study
We all know that John Trowbridge was engaged by Steadfast in 2022 and 2023 to study strata insurance issues as we explained in the Daily Post Who’s John Trowbridge & What did he do on Strata Insurance.
But. before that, he was engaged by the Insurance Council of Australia in 2020 and 2021 to study commercial insurance availability and affordability for small and medium sized enterprises. So, it looks like he’s a serial insurance report writer.
In John’s and @ICA’s 76 page report Role of the Private Insurance Market – Independent Strategic Review: Commercial Insurance he says the following things that I noticed:
The 4 insurance problems he addresses are: affordability and availability [which are symptoms]; market failure [which is an implied cause of the symptoms]; and; government intervention [which is a solution].
Solution options are both market driven and regulatory based.
There are 16 solution options between 3 areas: Awareness Building; Insurance Industry Changes; and; Government Actions.
Co-insurance models should be explored to improve availability and affordability.
Group Captive Insurer models should be considered where special purpose insurance companies sponsored and established by an individual industry or profession that’s similar to underwriting consortia but owned by a customer group as sponsor instead of by the insurers.
And, where commissions are paid to brokers is ‘conflicted’ then:
’the extent that broker remuneration is not transparent and that there may be conflicts associated with volume bonuses, commission overrides, profit shares, undisclosed fees that are additional to commissions and any other payments that are not fully disclosed, there is a strong case for rectification and elimination of conflicts’.
So, the report is [in some ways] a precursor to John’s and the Steadfast Groups 2023 strata insurance study and report.
You can find out more about the ICA Trowbridge study here.
And, you can read the paper Private Insurance Market – Independent Strategic Review: Commercial Insurance here.