Covered or Just Compliant: What Queensland Businesses Get Wrong About Insurance

Episode 5 | Jack Bailey | Founder & Director, Elevate Insurance Broking

Jack Bailey did not plan to become an insurance broker. He started university studying paramedicine, saw the local job prospects were thin, dropped out, and took a bookkeeping role servicing insurance brokers through his old footy coach.

He had one firm rule: he was not going into insurance. His father was already in the industry, and Jack had no interest in following the same path. Then he got close enough to the work to see the real problem: many businesses are insured, but not always properly covered.

In this episode of Queensland Business Stories, Jack sits down with host Chris Tipper to talk about the insurance gaps Queensland businesses miss, why cyber cover is no longer optional thinking, and why a five-minute conversation can save a business from a very expensive lesson.

From Paramedicine to Policies

Jack started in domestic insurance — homes, landlords and cars — before moving into commercial insurance, where the complexity of real businesses started to pull him in.

“Insurance itself is boring, but I get to work with businesses in so many different industries and understand what drives them, what motivates them, how their businesses work, how they make money.”

That curiosity became the foundation for Elevate Insurance Broking: a Brisbane-based business built around understanding the client first, then translating that into the right cover.

Covered Is Not the Same as Compliant

Most business owners know they need insurance. Fewer know what their policies actually say, what they exclude, and where the gaps are hiding.

Jack says a business could easily need 20 different policies if it tried to transfer every possible risk. That is not realistic for most operators. The broker’s role is to cut through the noise and work out what matters for the business in front of them.

“Our job as an insurance advisor and broker is to cut through the noise, talk realistically about what your business needs at its current stage, and give you a better idea of what you’re covered against.”

The danger usually appears at claim time: a business has bought cover online, assumed it was enough, and then discovered the policy was never designed for the risk it actually had.

The Claims That Catch People Out

One example Jack gives is a builder who carried public liability and contract works cover. On paper, that looked sensible. But the builder was not just building homes. He was designing them too.

When a client suffered a financial loss because of a poor design, the claim was denied. Public liability did not respond. The missing piece was design and construct cover.

“Had we had a five-minute conversation and he told me that he designed these builds as well as built them, we’d be talking about design and construct insurance, which would have covered him.”

For trades, the gap can be even simpler. A tradie insures the ute, leaves $10,000 to $15,000 worth of tools locked in the back, then finds out after a break-in that the tools are not properly covered under the commercial motor policy.

“There’s a $500 benefit under the wording, but you’ve got a thousand-dollar excess. So there’s nothing. You’ve got no cover.”

For anyone moving from employee to business owner, public liability is usually the first essential step. But vehicles, tools, personal injury, contractors and the real nature of the work all need to be part of the conversation.

Cyber Risk Has Arrived in Queensland

Cyber risk can still sound abstract until it becomes very real: intercepted invoices, fake bank details, ransomware, damaged data, locked systems and business interruption.

“In the last three years, I’ve had four cyber claims lodged for local businesses. Three of them were payment fraud — invoices that had been intercepted and sent on with different bank details.”

Those smaller claims ranged from around $10,000 to $50,000. The largest was a ransomware incident in the property industry. The business lost access to its systems for three months, its data was damaged, and the total loss was around $3 million. It had only $500,000 of cyber cover.

“It does really happen to Queensland businesses.”

The good news is that cyber insurance is becoming easier to access and more proactive, with insurers increasingly using scanning tools and risk reports to identify vulnerabilities before an incident becomes a disaster.

Why Queensland Is Different

Queensland is not a neutral insurance market. Cyclones, floods, commercial property exposure, construction activity and regional risk all shape what businesses pay and what insurers are willing to offer.

Jack says the further north a business goes, the harder the insurance implications become. Even in South East Queensland, home and business property insurance can sit higher than in other parts of the country.

There is one bright spot: commercial property insurance has softened recently as new entrants have increased competition and pushed some insurers to sharpen their pricing.

“That’s generally how the market cycle works. It starts with a bit of profit being made, competition goes a bit too hard, they start losing money, prices go up, and it starts again.”

What a Broker Conversation Actually Looks Like

One reason businesses avoid reviewing insurance is that it feels complicated or expensive before the conversation has even started. Jack’s process is more straightforward than many expect.

A first meeting might be on the phone, over coffee, in person, or at the business premises. It usually starts with a 10-to-15-minute conversation about what the business does, who it works with, turnover, staff numbers, contractors, assets and sums insured.

“We don’t charge anything for the initial meeting. We go through everything, we provide advice on the cover you need, and we get paid when we place your cover — only after you accept it.”

That makes the first step low pressure. If the quote is not right, the business owner does not have to proceed. But they will at least walk away with a clearer view of the risks they are carrying.

AI Will Change the Admin, Not the Relationship

Like every industry, insurance is being reshaped by AI. Jack expects the administrative grind to change quickly: processing policies, filing documents, claim follow-ups and other repetitive work that takes time away from client conversations.

“AI will take a lot of the basic processing parts out of my role. That means I can spend more time speaking with the customer or getting them the best outcome.”

But AI will not sit across from a business owner, understand what they actually do, read the relevant exclusion on page 50 of a 110-page wording, and connect that back to a real-world risk the owner had not thought to mention.

“AI is not going to replace relationships and what we already deliver.”

The Takeaway

Jack’s message to Queensland business owners is simple: do not wait until claim time to find out what your policy does not cover.

“It’s completely free to shop around. If you haven’t had a look at your insurance properly in a couple of years, have a chat to a broker.”

If your business has grown, changed, added contractors, bought new equipment, moved premises, started designing work instead of only building it, or become more reliant on digital systems, your old cover may not match your current risk.

Insurance may never be the most exciting part of running a business. Fair enough. But when something goes wrong, it becomes one of the most important. The goal is to understand the risks worth transferring, the risks you are choosing to carry, and the difference between looking compliant and actually being covered.

Connect With Jack

Phone: 0402 216 694
Email: [email protected]
Website: elevateib.com.au

Have a Queensland business story worth sharing? Apply to be a guest. And if you found value in this episode, a Google review means the world to us.