Insurer aims for savings

AN insurance start-up backed by big US insurer Liberty Mutual says it is on track to providing savings of $100m to long-suffering regional Queensland consumers.

Sure Insurance, launched by former RACQ executive Bradley Heath in 2019, says so far it has returned $21m in premium savings.

With the support of consultants, it says it has delivered average savings of $1900 a customer from Bundaberg to Cape York Peninsula.

Mr Heath said current and expected savings were a result of its rapid growth and staying focused on providing affordable household premiums.

“Independent research has revealed that Sure is delivering average annual household insurance premium savings of over $1900 per customer across Central, North and Far North Queensland,” Mr Heath said. “It’s money back in the pockets of regional Queenslanders to assist with cost-ofliving pressures and to spend locally on day-to-day essential household and family expenses such as groceries, health care, childcare and education.”

Mr Heath said they were constantly seeing householders who previously held no insurance taking up cover with Sure, primarily because of their affordable pricing.

“Our market-leading household and residential strata insurance price position has continued to drive consistent and solid growth in policy numbers over the past two years,” Mr Heath said.

Sure launched from mid-2019 promising to return fairness to consumers paying the highest premiums in the country.

The underwriter of the Queensland-owned business is Liberty Mutual which had revenues of Us$44bn ($60bn) last year.

Mr Heath said they insured more than 20,000 residences but expected to grow that to more than 50,000 by next year.

Also, they expected to announce soon a “big increase” on its current $5m upper value limit on strata properties it insured. He said they were able to pass on the benefits of a low cost base, use good data to risk rate every location and provide both good pricing and claims experience.

“In the end it’s about specialisation and focusing on the market itself rather than a national focus and where regional Queensland becomes the poor cousin,” Mr Heath said.

He said they continued to work closely with stakeholders on the design of the federal government’s $10bn Reinsurance Pool expected to start on July 1 next year.