Business insurance broking for Australian SMEs and mid-market companies.
Here are six ways your broker could be letting you down.
Jobs wait on a certificate of currency, and you sign contracts with the insurance clause unread because the deadline would not move.
Your broker knows what the renewal form tells them. Every change it missed, from a new site to a contract that makes you liable for someone else's loss, is a gap you find at claim time.
With days to spare there is no time to test the market or fix what pushed the price up. You sign what you are sent, and next year's renewal starts from the higher premium.
Each new person on your account means explaining the business from the start. When a claim comes in, nobody left can say why a limit was set where it was.
You lose weeks to follow-up calls, then settle for the first offer because nobody on your side knows the wording well enough to push back.
If the premium is the only number anyone tracks, the rest goes unmanaged. Nobody checks whether a higher excess or better risk controls would bring the total down.
Trust and quality service go hand in hand.
Every advisor works with a broking and support team who know your program, so a question does not wait on one person being free.
The team behind the advisorsDiscovery comes before any policy. We write down every exposure we find and hand the map to you, so the program does not live in one person's head.
How we workThe strategy review starts three months out and the submission goes to market at six weeks. On renewal day the invoice is a number you have already seen.
See the renewal calendarThe true value of your cover is discovered at claim time, and this is when you need us most.
Who you'll work withWe know the wording and the insurer's expectations, and we push back when we need to. A contested claim is where clients most often see the value of having us in their corner.
What happens when you claimWe add up fees, excesses and the losses you carry below them, then show where a higher excess or better controls would bring the total down.
How we work out total costMost businesses measure the cost of insurance only by the annual premium. Ardent's Total Cost of Risk framework adds the rest: the losses you retain below your excess, what you spend on risk control, and the shortfall when limits or sums insured turn out to be too low. Seeing the whole number shows where risk is better controlled, transferred or retained.
A standard review starts and ends at renewal. This framework treats insurance as one lever in a wider risk strategy, the approach large corporates use, applied to Australian SMEs and mid-market businesses.
Standard review
Ardent's Total Cost of Risk framework
Four more costs sit beneath it, and at each one a standard approach and Ardent's part ways. Scroll to reveal them.
Select any layer to explore it
The annual cost of transferring specified risks to an insurer. Visible, quantifiable, and the only number most renewal conversations are built around. It feels like the full cost. It is only the invoice.
Negotiates rates at renewal and benchmarks against prior year and market movement. The conversation begins and ends here.
Positions your risk quality to earn better terms. Uses claims data, controls and program structure to make your business an attractive risk to write.
The real cost of claims you absorb below your excess, uninsured events, and self-insured layers. Cash out the door that never appears on an insurance invoice, and is rarely tracked between renewals.
Not reviewed between renewals. Only visible when it appears in next year's claims history.
Tracks frequency, severity and root cause. Uses retained loss data to set your excess strategy and build a claims record that improves your standing with insurers.
Risks your current program does not cover: contractual obligations, excluded perils, emerging liabilities, or structural gaps in how cover is arranged. Invisible until a claim arrives and is declined.
Identified only if the client raises specific questions. Coverage gaps are rarely mapped systematically at renewal.
Systematic exposure mapping across operations, contracts, supply chain and emerging risks. Every gap is documented, then insured, reduced or knowingly retained.
Expenditure on safety systems, compliance obligations, prevention measures and training. Most businesses manage it separately from insurance, yet it drives claims frequency and how insurers assess your risk.
Outside the standard scope. Insurance and risk management are treated as entirely separate functions.
Integrates risk control investment into the program strategy. Prevention spend is shown to insurers as a marker of risk quality, which influences pricing and terms at renewal.
The shortfall when insured values or limits fall short of real replacement costs or liability exposure. It surfaces at claim time, after a major loss.
Relies on client-provided values and limit nominations. Rarely stress-tested against real loss scenarios.
Replacement cost analysis, limit adequacy review and scenario-based stress testing. Identifies underinsurance before a claim forces it into view.
Three examples of how a renewal-only program comes apart.
A manufacturer's business interruption cover was set at twelve months when the business was half its size. After a storm takes the roof off, the building is back in ten weeks, but the orders take eighteen months to return. The last six months of lost profit are the owner's to carry.
We recalculate the indemnity period and the declared gross profit at every review, against how long the business would really take to recover.
The outcomeWith the right indemnity period in place, the loss of profits can be met, including the extra cost of working from a leased site while the roof is repaired.
A head contract makes the builder responsible for the site and for its subcontractors. The policy was placed off last year's form, so the principal's indemnity and the subcontractor cover are missing on the day a worker is hurt.
We read the head contract before we place cover, then add the principal's indemnity extension and cover for work done by subcontractors.
The outcomeThe claim can be met under the builder's policy, subject to its terms, and the job keeps running.
A building sum insured is rolled over at the same figure for three years while construction costs move. After a fire the rebuild costs more than the policy pays, and the shortfall is the owner's to fund.
We check the sum insured against current rebuild costs every year and lift it at renewal when it falls behind.
The outcomeThe rebuild can be settled on a reinstatement basis, without a cut for under-insurance.
These are illustrative examples. Every claim is assessed by the insurer on its own facts and under the terms of the policy.
We walk your site, then work through the business the way a new doctor works through your history: operations, loss history, what drives claims, and the exposures a renewal-only review skips.
We work out where risk can be avoided, reduced, transferred or retained, and benchmark your program against the real loss drivers in your industry.
We design the program around your risk profile. Steadfast relationships open wordings, limits and markets that are otherwise hard to reach.
We stay involved through the year: reviewing claims, watching for operational changes, and using every loss to improve the program before the next renewal.
It takes time to complete renewal of your insurance program. The best results come from careful, considered planning well ahead of the due date. The aim is the best available outcome without last-minute surprises, leaving you to focus on what you do best.
We work through what has changed since last year: new sites, new contracts, headcount, plant and equipment, anything that shifts your exposure.
Your submission goes to insurers with the risk information that earns better terms.
You see the terms and pricing side by side, what moved the premium, and what we recommend and why.
Cover is bound and documents issued on the terms you agreed.
What could you lose, who could hold you responsible, and who depends on you.
Assets
Buildings, stock, plant, vehicles, cargo and the revenue that stops when any of them do. That includes specialist covers such as Jewellers Block and Private Vault. Sums insured are set at today’s cost to rebuild or replace, since the figure on the books is rarely the one you would need.
See asset covers
Liabilities
Claims from customers, the public, regulators and employees, and the personal exposure of the people who run the company. Limits are set against your contracts, since a principal or landlord often names the number before an insurer does.
See liability covers
People
Cover for the people who work for you, travel for you, and hold a stake in the business. That includes the workers compensation you must hold in every state you employ in, and key person and buy-sell cover when the business depends on one or two people.
See people coversRelationships are key to good business outcomes, and we ensure the relationship we build with you flows through to when you need us most: at the time of a claim.
Each of our advisors works with a broking and support team who prepare renewals, place cover, issue certificates of currency, lodge claims and pick up the phone when your advisor is with another client. We know your account, so a question does not wait on one person being free.
