Toni Ferrier was appointed CEO of Marsh McLennan’s NZ operation last October, her latest high-profile role after decades in the sector.
She talks to CoverNote about her career, how the industry has changed, and her best advice for young brokers.
How did you first get into the insurance broking industry?
I know many people say joining the insurance industry wasn’t a deliberate choice, but it was for me. When I was a corporate litigation lawyer, I worked with insurance companies and found the work interesting and challenging. One of these companies invited me to join and set up an in-house legal team. Since then, I’ve done a bit of everything, including underwriting, claims, broking and risk advisory. My time in the industry has been hugely satisfying and rewarding, both personally and professionally. Insurance is a great industry – needed through good times, and especially bad.
What have been the biggest achievements of your career so far?
Helping to lead the Canterbury earthquake response while at an underwriting business is one of my most meaningful career experiences. This earthquake sequence was, at the time, the fourth most expensive insured, global natural disaster, and tragic for many in our country. Navigating the response to an event of that size with so many resulting claims within a tiny population, many of whom were traumatised, was very challenging. It was very satisfying to see tangible results in the Ōtautahi Christchurch community as my team and I delivered solutions and settled their claims. To be able to tell my children that I was helping to rebuild one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s biggest cities is something I’m very proud of.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given in insurance?
When I first joined the sector, I believed I couldn't apply for different roles or opportunities because I wasn’t an expert in all aspects of the role. One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to reflect on the job you have, what you've learned from it, and how you can apply that to your new role. If you have the right behavioural capabilities and work well with people, there are many things you can learn 'on the job', rather than already having the technical learnings or being a subject expert
You commenced your role as CEO of Marsh McLennan New Zealand and President of Marsh New Zealand at the start of 2024. What do you see as the biggest opportunities for the company in the coming years?
Innovation. It’s a strong ethos in our business to keep improving on how we deliver risk-based outcomes for our large clients. For example, Senstrisk, one of our AI-powered platforms, enables our clients to map their supply chain risks in real-time through all layers of their global suppliers, and Blue[I] Analytics Solutions allows them to make informed business decisions by entering their asset data and model different scenarios. These are powerful tools with exciting advantages for our corporate clients. Our next step here in Aotearoa New Zealand is to make innovations like these relevant, cost effective and available to all business clients regardless of size.
More broadly, one of the biggest opportunities for Marsh McLennan is the power of our four businesses. We are not just Marsh broking. We are also Guy Carpenter reinsurance solutions, the Mercer investment business, and Oliver Wyman consulting. For our clients, it brings together the power of our four businesses to access solutions across advisory services, insurance, reinsurance and financial management. We can be true partners in all aspects of their financial and risk profile.
What are the biggest challenges for the broking sector, given the current market conditions?
Broking has fundamentally shifted from focusing purely on traditional insurance because accessibility and affordability is starting to be challenged through market cycles, and it’s likely that this will continue. Brokers have a key role to play in helping solve this. It means looking more broadly at risk issues facing our clients and exploring alternative risk solutions with them, such as parametrics and captives.
What is your assessment of the market at the moment?
There is constant movement in the market and that’s why we keep clients and industry informed with our quarterly Global Insurance Market Index and other market updates throughout the year.
However, a notable underlying trend in Aotearoa New Zealand is clear: the frequency and size of catastrophic events continues to increase. This means a rise in physical risk and may have implications for how transition risk will be defined in the future. Even as the market cycles up and down, this trend will continue to affect access to and affordability of traditional insurance solutions in the long term.
How can brokers adapt to deal with ever more complex and evolving client risks?
The bigger the complexity, the bigger the value of a risk adviser who can bring a holistic, global perspective to the table for clients, whatever the business size. Businesses in New Zealand can no longer afford to ignore global issues and their implications on their local operations – for example vulnerabilities in their supply chain. Who could have predicted that within weeks of the Hamas attack on Israel, an interstate conflict would become a shipping crisis in the Red Sea that halted the world’s key trade routes and impacted businesses of all sizes in Aotearoa New Zealand? Marsh McLennan supports business leaders to take a global view of risk each year through our work with the World Economic Forum for the Global Risks Report.
Do you have any advice for young brokers and people starting out in the industry?
Joining this industry means you are becoming a lifelong learner. Take advantage of any training offered by your employer, take courses and read thought leadership. I just completed Marsh’s new internal AI Academy program, which teaches the risks and advantages of GenAI, so the learning never ends!
Develop strong critical thinking skills, and get very, very comfortable with data. In this age of misinformation and disinformation, critical thinking, data and analytics are our industry’s bedrock to help clients accurately quantify and understand their risks.
Is the industry making good enough progress with diversity and female representation?
I’ve seen a seismic shift in the time I've been in the sector in terms of the industry proactively driving diversity and inclusion, particularly with women in executive and leadership roles. In 2023, 61% of our new starters at Marsh New Zealand were women. I’m proud that Marsh is also actively delivering inclusivity in other valuable ways. We are an accredited family-friendly workplace, supporting employees to balance work and family responsibilities with a focus on new parents, and those caring for elderly or disabled family members.
What are your predictions for the future of broking?
In a country like Aotearoa New Zealand, that is cat-exposed and very dependent on international trade, we need to move away from the thinking that broking is just about selling insurance. Our clients need to be able to understand all the risks they face, have options to manage risk themselves, build resilience into their business, and make informed decisions to prevent loss before they even consider buying insurance.
