IAG’s half-year result has given the insurer’s broker-facing leadership a chance to sharpen the message it has sold to the market for some time: the intermediated engine is performing and the next leg of the strategy is about reducing workload and wait times for brokers who distribute CGU and WFI products.
Jarrod Hill (pictured), CEO of CGU and WFI, said the numbers show a “solid result” from the intermediated business even as growth remains “moderated” in the current market environment. In an IB interview his emphasis was less about headline profitability and more about what the result is meant to signal to the channel: IAG is investing in technology and process change to remove friction and it wants brokers to feel that uplift in day-to-day transactions.
As brokers, like their customers, absorb cost pressures and operational complexity, Hill framed IAG’s technology program as a way of easing those challenges. He said the insurer must improve its own efficiency while also making it simpler for intermediaries to trade - particularly in segments where small businesses and rural clients are sensitive to price movements and service delays.
At the centre of the near-term broker story is IAG’s plan to modernise its core broker access point, which includes work linked to Sunrise. Hill says the upgrade is scheduled to land in the coming months, reflecting a push to improve service levels and chip away at “frictional costs” that sit between a broker, an insurer and the end client.
“We’re talking about removing some of the frictional costs, moving to a much more modern capability, which will enhance the service levels we’re able to deliver for brokers,” he said.
The language is a familiar one in distribution strategy - less rework, faster responses, fewer manual handoffs - but Hill’s rationale is explicitly tied to the economics of the channel. Brokers are managing their own cost bases while trying to shield SME and rural customers from premium shocks; in that environment, a slower or more cumbersome insurer workflow can compound stress across the chain.
Hill also said that the efficiency dividend cannot be inward-looking. The objective, he says, is not just to streamline IAG’s own operations but to reduce time and effort for brokers issuing and servicing CGU products - an important distinction in a market where broker loyalty can turn on responsiveness, claims experience and the ease of doing business.
“All of the efforts we’re doing are not just focused on how does it make it more efficient for us, but how does it make it more efficient for our brokers to trade in CGU products,” he said.
However, modernisation programs can create short-term disruption and brokers often judge upgrades by whether they reduce the number of clicks and fields that must be completed at the point of sale. Hill acknowledged that brokers have raised the persistent industry-wide frustration of data entry, particularly when multiple products and portals are involved. His answer is that the burden is shrinking but not yet eliminated and that the next phase will be about connectivity.
Padlock is the first product on IAG’s new PolicyPlace broker platform that Hill said demonstrates measurable broker-facing benefits. He said the tool has moved beyond basic quoting into a fuller service capability, allowing brokers to handle policy lifecycle tasks: renewals, endorsements and certificates of currency.
He also pointed to the level of automation now available in parts of the process, with implications for speed to quote and speed to bind. “Outside of that, we’ve got straight-through processing up to 90%,” he said.
For brokers, higher straight-through processing should mean fewer referrals, faster turnaround and less time spent chasing underwriters for routine decisions. Hill’s broader contention is that those gains, if sustained across more products, can translate into more competitive service for customers and a better experience for the broker who is doing the work.
However, even with a more efficient portal, brokers can still be forced to enter considerable information into insurer systems - particularly when connectivity between broker platforms and insurer platforms is incomplete. Hill described that as the next problem to solve, while conceding it is neither easy nor uniform across the broker market.
“The next stage then will be: how do we connect with them - is it API, or how are we going to connect? - so there is only a single point of entry,” he said.
Hill said some brokers are not ready for API-style connectivity and IAG is working with close partners to map a pathway that reduces duplication without breaking existing workflows. The underlying bet is that fewer touchpoints and fewer manual steps will help the intermediated business compete more effectively - especially as IAG rolls out additional products into its core SME lines, targets higher auto-quote rates, and expands into areas such as commercial motor, farm pack (including a hobby farm split) and liability.
In the months ahead, the question for brokers testing these new tools is whether the promised reduction in friction becomes tangible at scale, across products and across the many different systems brokers use to place and service risk.
