“When it comes to high-net-worth insurance, the real risk is not the assets – it’s the assumptions,” said Bram Bains (pictured), founder and CEO of Maverick Insurance Brokers. His concern isn’t around overlooked collectibles or underinsured properties – it’s about an industry failing to evolve alongside a new generation of global, complex wealth.
Bains, who previously held roles at three major Canadian carriers before moving to the broker side, has seen the disconnect from both ends. “You’ve got the players with the rich history in the space and the expertise, and the experience, and the staffing levels. And then you really have a lot of the other ones which have entered the market... but they don’t really have the understanding of the clients themselves,” he said. Carriers accustomed to the mass market are increasingly misaligned with the specialized demands of private clients.
That mismatch creates risk – not only for clients, but for the credibility of the broker-carrier relationship. “A client may purchase a Ferrari... and now they’re going to the broker that they’ve worked with all these years. And the broker just doesn’t have the expertise or the market or the capacity to actually service that,” Bains said.
One root of the problem is how high-net-worth clients have changed. “There’s a large wealth transfer that’s going to be happening... there’s a lot of new wealth that’s being created as well. And just people tend to spend their money differently,” said Bains. From art to real estate to rare collectibles, asset profiles have diversified far beyond what traditional underwriting frameworks were built for.
“Some people like to have the car collections, some people like to have houses in different parts of the world. Some people like to collect art... sports memorabilia, cards and things of that nature are starting to make a bit of a comeback,” he said.
According to Bains, legacy underwriting teams often lack the fluency needed to interpret this kind of lifestyle risk. “I don’t believe that the staffing in the industry generally is keeping up with or understands that to that scale,” he said.
Effective underwriting in the private client space, he added, begins before the first quote. “Before you even underwrite the risk, it’s underwriting the client. Like, who is this person? What’s their source of wealth? How did they accumulate their wealth?”
Bains pointed to a fundamental structural flaw: high-net-worth clients are being evaluated through a retail lens. “A lot of markets are fairly rigid in their underwrite. They see things as black and white. It fits this mold or it doesn’t.” That rigidity can result in missed nuances, rejected risks, or poorly matched coverage – especially for clients with cross-border holdings, unique collections, or non-traditional income histories.
He said this inflexibility often leads to brokers submitting business to the wrong carriers. “I think a lot of business that flows through is in the wrong places. It’s with markets that it should not be with.”
When a claim eventually arises – on a $4 million home, for example – coverage gaps emerge. “It just takes a claim... and then something will come to light that this is a $4 million house,” Bains said. “It shouldn’t even be with this market. How did it get there?”
Global clients introduce another layer of complication, especially around cross-jurisdictional assets. Bains described two common approaches: working with global carriers who can integrate coverage across borders, or piecing it together manually through a network of regional brokers.
The latter, he warned, is inherently risky. “It’s kind of like a Frankenstein method... connecting with other brokerages in your network.” The risk is not just inefficiency – it’s exposure due to patchwork policies and inconsistent service standards.
Even when coverage is placed, service often doesn’t keep up. “There’s a very manual nature involved in quoting and reviewing a lot of these accounts,” Bains said. “And some of the carriers and the systems that they use don’t allow them that flexibility to be able to move quickly.”
The result is long delays, inconsistent service, and underwriters overwhelmed by volume. “Their workload is so large,” Bains said, “they may want to move on to the next file.”
That service gap is compounded when clients stay with brokers who can no longer support their lifestyle growth. “Ten years later, as they’ve grown their wealth... that broker that they started with is a retail type broker. They just don’t have the markets or the specialty to be able to service that client going forward.”
High-net-worth distribution is still heavily relationship-based – through financial advisors, family offices, or peer referrals. But Bains said trust alone isn’t sufficient. “It’s about just showing up, doing your best, acting with integrity, answering the phone call, being available.” Brokers must also be willing to admit when a case is beyond their expertise. “It’s a little bit of quieting that ego and working with others as opposed to taking a position that may be wrong or misinformed.”
Those who excel in this space do more than sell – they translate. “The brokers that do it very well are the ones that actually take the time to listen and understand who that client is, communicate in the same type of language that they understand, and know which markets or which carriers that would be a best fit for them,” Bains said.
Private client brokers who rely on outdated models and one-size-fits-all service risk losing relevance as client expectations and asset profiles evolve. Expertise, flexibility, and a deeper understanding of client identity – not just their portfolio – are quickly becoming the baseline, not the differentiator.
