Pioneering Stella boss on Aus challenges
Stella, a digital underwriting agency, launched in Australia during 2020 – in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were other challenges to take on too, including the regulatory and market differences between the UK and Australia and logistics.
Australian industry challenges and advantages
However, Australia also offered White an important advantage over her UK homeland.
“Australia doesn’t have the gender directive rule,” she said. “So that was a positive for me because I am allowed to insure women at a cheaper price than men in Australia, whereas in the UK, you’re under the European directive that doesn’t allow that to happen.”
The Equal Treatment in Goods and Services Directive 2004 is a European Union (EU) law prohibiting both direct and indirect sexual discrimination in the provision of goods and services in the EU. It’s uncertain if Brexit will have any impact on the UK’s position under this rule.
Australia, said White, also has a different insurance market.
“You have a much bigger direct market with only 16% of the population buying their insurance via price comparison sites – that’s 80% in the UK,” she said. “So obviously that’s a different environment to operate in.”
Empowering local Aussies
The logistical problem presented by the distance between the UK and Australia can only partly be overcome by Zoom video calls and international flights. White prefers to empower local staff.
“My view on all business comes back to you having to get the right people and you have to trust and empower them,” she said. “So, logistically, there wasn’t an issue.”
White phone interviewed a potential general manager for Stella in Australia, Renee Cosgrave, and then invited her back to England for a week.
“We really got to the bottom of what our shared sense of values were and what we wanted to do with the business and where we want to take it,” said White. “She’s grown the Australian brand in an absolutely incredible way.”
The Stella CEO said trying to micromanage staff from a different country would likely create many issues and problems.
“If you empower people that are in the space and who have access to all of the resources locally, then you are going to get a completely different output,” said White.
At InsurTechLIVE, White is the keynote speaker. She plans to talk about why financial services needs a lot more of what she described as “feminine energy.”
White said after more than 20 years in the insurance industry she still sees too much “left brain thinking.”
“If you think about masculine and feminine energy, as opposed to men and women, because there’s plenty of men that have lots of feminine energy, and there’s plenty of women that have lots of masculine energy,” she said, “if you attribute it to the brain, left brain is analytical, process driven, very KPI focused and right brain is more creative, collaborative, empathic – much more the human side, I would say.”
White said the financial services industry – particularly in insurance – suffers from too much focus on the left side of the brain.
“We have really focused our product design, our thinking, our engagement with customers, on all of those left brain attributes,” she said.
Stella, in both Australia and the UK, is mainly staffed by women. Locally, the product is underwritten by QBE.
Technology is a focus, with an Aventus operating system including an open API approach that connects CRM, policy administration and call centres right across the customer journey.
“Stella is a shining example of what being customer-centric means,” said Peter Goodman, CEO and founder of Aventus when Stella launched in 2020.
“How many insurance companies’ quote and bind websites are connected to their CRM and policy administration systems within their call centres? Virtually none of them, which is why you have to wait so long while they rekey your information,” he said.
InsurTechLIVE 23 is taking place in Sydney today, on Wednesday, February 15.
Insurance Business TV will be publishing a video interview with Sam White in the coming days.
