Broker profile: Tim Ross signs off

JMD Ross Insurance Brokers MD Tim Ross has retired after almost 50 years in the industry, leaving him more time for his unusual hobby.

Did you fall into insurance by chance, like so many others?

It was a little bit like that. I was working for Westpac and my eldest brother Sandy was working for a brokerage called HM Bates Australia, and one of his fellow directors asked me if I’d be interested in joining the company.

Working for Westpac in those days, you had to be mobile, you just had to be prepared to go anywhere at any time around the world. And I just thought, I prefer to live my life mainly in Sydney.

Sandy suggested that it would be better for me to learn the business of insurance broking with a broker in Adelaide. I was there for 18 months, before I came back to HM Bates in Sydney where I spent about 12 years, and then it was on to JMD Ross.

That was 34 years ago, and it was really John Duncan senior [a JMD Ross founder] who I had initial conversations with. We had the same attitude and work ethic with clients. Generally we looked after them the same way. So it worked out extremely well over the years.

What are your career highlights?

The part I liked the best, and was involved in for most of my time at JMD Ross, was the tourism industry.

We acted for, and still do act for, an organisation called ATEC, the Australian Tourism Export Council. And that relates to inbound tourism, in the main.

I had a friend who was prominent in that industry. And he introduced me to ATEC because there had been a death on a jet boat in Tasmania.

There was an inbound tour operator, based in New Zealand, but with an Australian operation, that was sued as a result of this death. I’m sure [the deceased] was probably told not to stand up in the jet boat, but he did. And, unfortunately, he had a camera and was taking video and hit a branch.

And so the inbound tour operator was sued. He submitted a claim to his underwriter. And the underwriter rejected the claim, because of the contractual arrangements he’d entered into.

Following that, he contacted his association, ATEC. And ATEC said this is something we’ve got to look into. They contacted me, and we put together a combined public and products liability and professional indemnity policy for not only inbound tour operators, but also suppliers of services to that industry. And that’s still going today.

The other thing really is just seeing the business grow, profitability grow.

When I started, there were only six of us. And now there’s 22.

You were in broking for a long time. What did you enjoy about it, and what would you say to younger generations to encourage them into an insurance career?

While there’s always a lot of underwriter contact, it was more the client contact that I enjoyed, helping them evaluate their risk and insurance issues.

It’s been wide and varied. I did a bit of everything over the years.

I was told, in my early days, that insurance oils the wheels of industry. So with graduates I’d start there, with the benefit of insurance to businesses.

What are the main challenges facing brokers at the moment?

Certainly compliance is uppermost. We’re lucky being in Austbrokers and having the resources of AUB in that space.

It seems to me that underwriters are changing. I think it’s too easy for them to say no, and that’s certainly a symptom of the market, because it is a hardening market.

But with world markets opening up as well, there is usually somewhere else other than an Australian-based insurer to place business. And that is happening more and more.

One thing that concerns me a bit is the connection with the client. So much of the work these days is done online. I don’t see as much face-to-face connection with the client as there has been in the past. And that’s something our business has tried to work on.

Losing that relationship with the client can be quite disastrous.

How do you see the commissions debate panning out?

I think it will be more fee for service, and that won’t be easy for insurance brokers. It’s easy to explain to the client, but whether it’s easy for the client to understand is another issue.

We certainly have been doing fee for service in our high net worth personal lines business, and I see that continuing. Over time it will be all fee for service.

I think it will be driven by the external pressures from reviews that are being done by governments and government bodies.

There’s pressure coming to bear on them, particularly in some areas like North Queensland, and there’s always the issue of if an insurance broker is prepared to accept a commission based on, say, a $5000 premium, and then the premium goes to $20,000, should the broker get that additional income?

I think that’s where a fee for service should come into play.

How will you keep busy in retirement?

I’m a collector of vintage fountain pens. My wife says I’ve got 300, I say I’ve got 200.

It really started when we went with our three children, when they were very young, on a few days’ holiday to the Blue Mountains.

We happened to be across the road from an antique shop. I just wandered in and saw this old Parker pen and it just grabbed my attention, so I bought it.

I had it fixed and [my hobby] seemed to just grow from there. I’ve also got vintage mechanical pencils, and I’ve probably got 60 or more of those.

So it’s pencils, pens, inkwells, bottles of old ink that go way back. I didn’t go right back to the quill, or dip-in pens. It’s been since you’ve been able to fill them, which is from about the early 1900s.

The company gift given to me at my retirement lunch was a Parker snake pen, which is very famous. It’s been reproduced but the original is from the 1920s, so a fantastic present. Another one to add to my collection.

Somebody said to me at one stage, ‘have you got them noted on your insurance policy’? Like a good insurance broker, I said no.

I worked out there’s quite a few dollars’ worth of pens. So my plan is to start selling those. I could probably get a few nice overseas trips out of what I’ve got. But I couldn’t possibly sell them all.

I’ve just been to Scotland and back. My grandparents on my father’s side came to Australia from Scotland. So I did visit that part of northern Scotland where they were from. It’s a wonderful country.

So yes, it’s travel, we’ve just been to New Zealand and next year will go overseas again. I play golf. I play tennis. I enjoy photography.