Broker profile: 'it just struck a chord'

Sydney-based Tim Wedlock – MD at AEI Insurance Broking Group and Lex McKeown Trophy recipient, ANZIIF broking leader of the year 2018 and longstanding NIBA member – says the industry quickly hit the right note when he tried it on the advice of an uncle 35 years ago.

What made you embrace insurance as a school leaver?

My uncle (AEI Group Chairman Stephen Bennett) was the one to suggest I look into insurance as a career opportunity when I was only 18. I deferred university and wrote away to five different insurance companies and GRE Insurance was where I got my first job, in the reinsurance department. I found that extremely interesting. It just really struck a chord.

There were some great mentors and wonderful people I still keep in touch with today and we remember the good old days. We had a tea lady who used to come around, the Bundy clock (time card) system, and you could smoke in the office. I had a desk right next to the window so I felt very privileged.

I asked for an underwriting opportunity which I was given, and then my uncle founded Australian European Insurance Brokers with a couple of partners, and he encouraged me to come for an interview. I was employed as an account executive to support the senior brokers. There were about seven of us in a little house in Sydney. Being a people business, it just really resonated.

That is where my journey in broking began and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That was back in 1987 – I have been at AEI ever since. I progressed from management roles to getting a shareholding opportunity in the early 2000s. AEI was one of the earlier businesses to join Austbrokers and we are proud to be part of the network.

I was involved in the heavy transport space back then and I had a relationship with a couple of associations and I thoroughly enjoyed working with transport and logistics and it just sort of stuck, and we have grown to be one of the largest transport logistics brokers in Australia.

I became MD in 2007 and the business has continued to grow. We now have offices up and down the eastern seaboard in NSW, Brisbane, Melbourne and recently Canberra, with a team of 100.

What is your view of current insurance market conditions?

In my 30 years-plus of doing what I do, this by far has probably been the toughest market I have ever seen.

I say that because I have been in situations where I have not been able to place risk. I have never seen that before but that is what we have had to deal with. It has not been easy so this is where our knowledge and professionalism has really had to stand up.

I am very pleased to see rates have remediated, with capacity coming back into the market now, and I am sincerely hopeful that insurers will come back in the market and allow us to place things the way we used to.

There was so much pressure on insurance, rates got too cheap, and the other aspect has been the amount of global catastrophes, in particular the recent string of weather events, be it cyclone, east coast lows, bushfire or flooding. We just haven’t been able to take a trick. It is real and it is happening more frequently globally.

If a council approves a building in a floodplain zone, then why should an insurer be told they have got to insure against flood when clearly it is going to happen? It should not just always be up to the insurer to come to the rescue. Some of the taxes we have to pay makes insurance unaffordable as well, NSW ESL in particular. All the other states found a way to even the spread and everyone contributes.

How do you give back?

One of the biggest things I have enjoyed is trying to find more opportunities to get people to choose insurance as a career path as opposed to falling into it.

I still remain on the NIBA board today and I dare say it has been the best part of 20 years I have given back to the National Association because of my passion for what it stands for, and what we do.

I do what I do because I enjoy it. I still go to career days to try and promote what we stand for and get behind promoting careers in insurance. There is a lot more excitement about people now realising how valuable our profession is and what a wonderful career pathway, though more work needs to be done.

You’re a keen Rugby Union fanatic?

I still love my Rugby. I am on the Gordon Rugby board and I played a couple of hundred games for the club, so it is nice to see sport back on the paddock, and I also have the odd fish where I can.

I had an opportunity in my early 20s to move to Moree with AEI and I went out there for 12 months to understand more about rural Australia and working in regional areas, which I totally enjoyed.

I had to leave my local Rugby club, but rural areas just embrace you generally speaking, so I got to join the local team out there and they took me under their wing and made me feel at home. They made me feel very welcome and I had a really tremendous 12 months before returning to Sydney and getting further development opportunities in my job at AEI.

My wife Prue is a burns nurse and I remember at a Senate inquiry with (former NIBA CEO) Dallas Booth, I said my kids are very proud of her, but at the same time I am an insurance broker and I know my kids are just as proud of what I do to help our communities, our people and our economy. I believe it got their attention!