2017 Hot List Recipient

2020 Hot List Recipient

2021 CEO of the Year

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Milestones

1883

1992

2003

2007

2012

2022

Vero traces its origin to the establishment of UK-based Alliance Assurance in Australia. Alliance Assurance wrote one of Australia’s first-ever life assurance policies.

1883

Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance Insurance merge in Australia to form Royal & Sun Alliance.

1992

Royal & Sun Alliance restructures and changes its name to Promina. The Vero name is launched as the general insurance business of Promina.

2003

Promina Group and Suncorp Network join in what becomes one of the largest financial services mergers in Australia.

2007

Vero launches its SME Insurance Index, a groundbreaking new study into the behaviours and attitudes of SMEs towards insurance and insurance brokers.

2012

Vero celebrates 32 years as a partner to the National Insurance Brokers Association, as well as sponsorship of the NIBA Warren Tickle Memorial Award for Young Brokers and the Warren Tickle Memorial Award.

2022

Putting brokers at the heart of business

Michael Miller is full of enthusiasm about leading the Vero business to meet brokers’ needs. “I'm absolutely thrilled to run this business – it’s a really important part of Suncorp’s insurance business, with great growth prospects,” he says. Miller’s new role is heading up Vero, the intermediated insurance brand of one of Australia's largest financial services companies. He’s certainly done his homework. “I’ve spent a lot of time actually talking to our customers who are our brokers,” he says. The Vero executive general manager has also engaged with senior management and the board of directors and says they really believe in the future of commercial insurance in Australia.

“Looking forward 10 years, it's where the growth will be, because a lot of the mega trends around automobiles, natural hazards and the like really suit that commercial insurance area,” he says. Miller has also engaged with his employees to understand what works well and what doesn’t. The idea, he says, is not to make the Vero brand all things to all people, but to be the first choice. “My ambition for the business is simply that where a broker can choose Vero, they do,” he says. “And how do you become the first choice? It's really about understanding our brokers, our customers, our partners and delivering really good products.” Miller summarises the changes and trends in the intermediated insurance space. He says over the last decade and going forward these revolve around the customer, people and technology. “I think the customer focus for organisations has really been turned up,” he says. “And when I talk about customers at Vero, I’m really talking about brokers. They want personalised service, they want relationships, they want quick turnaround times, they don't want mistakes, and they want trust.”

To achieve that, Miller has spent recent months understanding how to apply Vero’s technology roadmap and where best to invest. One innovation he is pushing is the company’s new intermediated digital platform to quote and bind SME package policies. “The ISME platform is really cutting-edge in trying to turn around those package businesses for small business insurance for brokers. I’m really excited by that,” he says. One reason for Miller’s excitement is the consultative method his team adopted to build this platform. “We haven't just gone and built it from the IT function,” he says. “We've got some retired brokers helping us out in an advisory stream, and we've got a broker forum really trying to tell us how do we make this work really well?”

Miller says the upfront investment is tens of millions of dollars. “We want to do it once and we want to do it really well,” he says. The Vero exec sees these technology advances in the commercial insurance space from two perspectives. On the one hand, it’s all about providing brokers with quick turnaround times and interfaces that aim to seamlessly connect into their back offices. “I think the ISME platform is a game changer for us. It’s really having a technology out there providing an almost instantaneous ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to do that business,” he says. This gets to the heart of Miller’s philosophy of providing brokers with what they want. “They want a trusted partner that they can go to and know that they'll get a seamless service, where there are good people who know their products really well and give the right advice,” he says. This side of the technology transformation involves really understanding the data and analytics much more quickly and then applying it to pricing, he adds. Ultimately, the idea is to simplify the claims process and provide the best customer experience possible. Miller sees the other side of technology as helping in the “tailored underwriting” area, including motor and property insurance. The aim is to make it easier for Vero’s people to get the job done, understand the risks better and also comply with regulations. “When you don't get risk right it really damages the brand of that insurance company but also the industry more broadly,” he says. “So that's how I think about technology: it's broadly enabling our people and making it easier for people to interface with their own insurance.”

Spotlight

The Vero head sees improving customer service as a key focus area critical to the brand’s success. “Do we do it well all the time? I think that's something that we really need to improve on, and I think most brokers would say that's the same with all insurance companies,” he says. But he’s convinced that the key to a thriving intermediated brand will hinge on customer service. “If you look around at all of the companies that have been very, very successful over the last decade,” says Miller, referring to the Googles and Apples of this world, “their total orientation is around how do we make it easier for the customer? How do we actually fulfil their needs? How do we build a product that they want to use?” On the people side, Miller says having good staff is not just about hiring quality talent, it’s also about ongoing education and training. That’s something Vero does well. “There’s great employee longevity at Vero; we've got a great pedigree. A lot of people have been here for a long time and know their skill sets really, really well – that’s great,” he says.

Vero provides quality business insurance products to help protect Australian businesses. The company believes that impartial specialist advice is paramount when it comes to selecting insurance; that’s why it offers its products exclusively through insurance brokers. Vero provides insurance with real insight, delivering an award-winning claims service, so brokers can be confident about recommending Vero to their clients. With Vero, brokers have access to one of the largest risk engineering teams in Australia, as well as local BDM, underwriting and claims teams who bring expertise, intelligence and experience to their relationships. For more information, visit vero.com.au or follow Vero on LinkedIn.

Company Profile

$2.1bn

GWP across commercial general lines

100

MANPOWER

43%

PROPORTION OF WOMEN AMONG FUNDSERV EMPLOYEES

60%

PROPORTION OF WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

63,514,128

NUMBER OF ORDERS PROCESSED IN 2019

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2017 - Present

BAsed In

Toronto, Ont.

Career highlight

“Leading a small team of two to three people and growing it to 3,000 people when I looked after motor, property and speciality claims for Suncorp”

Michael Miller

EGM commercial and intermediated insurance, Vero – Suncorp

Hear how Vero’s new leader is turning up the customer focus and ambitions for the brand

Read on

“When I talk about customers at Vero, I’m really talking about brokers. They want personalised service, they want relationships, they want quick turnaround times, and they want trust”

Michael Miller, Vero

“If we’re not nimble enough with technology, if we don’t invest enough in technology, I think long term other entrants will come in and make it very difficult for us”

Michael Miller, Vero

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“If you want to go quick, go alone; if you want to go far, go as a team”

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But he still wants to bring in new people with different approaches to add to the existing skills base. “Let's face it,” Miller says. “A lot of what we do in commercial insurance is very much relationship based. In all the business that I've been in, that personal touch, understanding, and the trust, that tactile feel for people, is very important – and that's why people are so important.” Another big challenge is technology. He warns that insurance companies need to keep up with the advances of big tech or they will face the consequences. “If we're not nimble enough with technology, if we don't invest enough in technology, I think long term other entrants will come in and make it very difficult for us,” Miller says. He explains that insurance companies are “plagued” with legacy systems that have served their purpose. “We really need to leapfrog forward and say, ‘How do we get technology to work really well?’”

Insurance Business Insurer of the Year 2020

NIBA Large General Insurer of the Year 2019

Gold Mansfield Award for Claims Excellence in 2020 and 2021

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