Ethan Gerrard dropped out after doing first year health science, which is usually the start of a medical career. He realised "absolutely not, this is not for me." Needing a job, his insurance broker father pointed to a vacancy within the industry. Ethan applied, and the rest, as they say, is history.
His father isn't someone who talks about work at home. So, Ethan started in insurance knowing "absolutely nothing" about the industry. “People say you must have known something, but I genuinely had no idea.”
Perhaps starting with a blank slate made it easier to question everything.
A tech-forward founder
After stints at a couple of the big broking houses, Ethan saw an opportunity. "I'm a very tech-forward thinker. I could see processes weren't optimised and believed everything could be done more efficiently."
What's clear in talking to Ethan is that his real passion isn't so much insurance broking – it's business. "I’m pretty decent at insurance broking," he says candidly. "But running a business is the thing I really like - the marketing, the hiring, the training, leading the team. That sort of stuff gets me out of bed. That's why I started the business."
Starting from zero
Most people who start insurance broking companies follow a predictable path: they leave an existing brokerage where they've had clients for 20 years, and some of those clients choose to follow them to the new venture. Ethan and his business partner had none of that.
"We had to find everybody from scratch," he explains. "And we didn’t have any capital, because we're two young guys. I think we started with like five grand each. That buys you a laptop and not a lot else."
They faced a fundamental problem: they didn't know anyone with businesses of sufficient size to become meaningful clients. "Any of my mates who owned businesses were really small. It takes a long time to become a big business, so I don't know anyone."
The first year was difficult. But they found a niche, and since then, the firm has doubled in size every year. "Of course, that gets harder as you get bigger," Ethan acknowledges, "but we should easily be able to do it again next year (2026)."
How did they do it? That's where Ethan becomes protective of his intellectual property. "This is the stuff I don't like talking about because I don't like giving competitors our information. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars testing different stuff to see what works.”
The AI reality check
For a self-described tech-forward business, Gerrard's approach to AI is surprisingly measured. "We use a lot of AI, but probably less than people might think because insurance is one of those industries where even if something's wrong one out of 100 times, it's a massive PI exposure for us."
They've tested AI on numerous processes, including having it automatically email clients. "Every one out of 20 times it'll say something completely bizarre or just wrong. So that’s not very useful."
Ethan says AI has to be heavily "boxed in" to perform its function safely. But he's optimistic about its role. "It's great because it speeds up people. It makes them faster at doing things and makes them better – empowers them to do more. Does it replace them? No, but it definitely does make them better."
His philosophy is simple: computers do the things they're best at, and people do the things they're best at. "That's where we’ve captured efficiencies. Routine and structured stuff where it’s quite hard to get people to follow exactly – computers will do it the same way every time."
The secret sauce
Ask Ethan about the key to Gerrard's growth, and his answer is simple. "Hiring the best people and then paying them well. We're very particular about who we hire, and then we try to empower them to do as good a job as we can, and we reward them. We have zero issues. We have a great team."
The key moment when Ethan knew they were building something special came from an unexpected source. "I was talking to someone who was telling me about all the nightmares they were having with their staff. And I was like, I've never had any issues. We've never had any issues. Everybody's great." That's when he realised, "We're on to something here. We're building something that's actually good and will stand up long term."
Problem-solving as philosophy
When asked what it takes to succeed in insurance broking, Ethan focuses on problem-solving. "You have to enjoy solving problems. Every client has a problem. You're basically getting them a solution for that problem. The more creative or better you can think about that problem, the better outcome you get for the client."
The firm primarily deals with small and medium businesses, "taking principles that are applied at the high end and using technology enable them to be applied at the other end. If you enjoy problem-solving, you'll do well."
This extends to how they handle the technical and legal complexity of insurance. "We're very good at saying we don't know, but we’ll find out," Ethan explains. "We'll just tell the clients it's a great question and we'll figure out the answer. We're not precious about that."
The insurance PR problem
Like the other Rising Stars, Ethan identifies insurance's awareness problem among young people. "I've never met anyone who said insurance is what they wanted to do when they grew up, and I don't think I ever will."
One of his solutions is digital content - and lots of it. Gerrard's is building a full production studio in their new office to create content for social media. "We're figuring that out at the moment, but we've got some ideas," Ethan says.
The challenge is significant. "If you look around the entire world, you could not find anyone who does insurance well in the content space. Trust me, we've spent a long time looking because it's quite easy to emulate someone who does something really well. So we’re going to have to be a bit creative."
He's already experimented with this. "Maybe four years ago, I made a TikTok video about getting into insurance. I had heaps of people ringing me up about it because I talked about the career and the earning potential, which is the easiest way to get young people in the door."
Even at industry functions, the insurance label kills conversations. "You start to say, 'What do you do … I'm in insurance.' Well, that's the end of that conversation," he laughs.
The irony isn't lost on Ethan. "If you interviewed someone at university and asked about their ideal career, and they didn't know anything about anything, they'd probably list out quite a few aspects that insurance actually lines up with. But as soon as they hear the word insurance, suddenly they're like, oh no, no thanks."
The silver lining
But there's an upside to insurance not being the first choice for many graduates. "It breeds a lot of opportunity for young people. While many of the best and brightest head off on other career paths, if you’re really good and you go into insurance, there's a lot of room to grow."
It's a theme that emerged across all the Rising Stars interviews: insurance offers unusual mobility for talented people willing to work hard. "At a bank, you can wait three years till the next role opens up," Ethan notes. In insurance, progression can be much faster for those who seize opportunities.
The 100-hour work week
Outside of work, Ethan's pursuits reflect his all-or-nothing personality. He's run several ultra-marathons - "that's a silly idea, don't ever do that" - and spends time with a group of business-owner friends doing "interesting things together."
But mostly, he works. "I either go to work, which is usually 80 or 100 hours a week, or I do fun stuff, and there's no in between. I don't really have any downtime."
He's made peace with this approach. "At the start of your career, everybody's like work-life balance, work-life balance. But honestly, I don't know what anyone's talking about. The less I work, the more unhappy I am."
He had an epiphany watching his father. "I used to give my dad a hard time – he works 80 or 100 hours a week. Then I kind of clicked one day: that's genuinely just what he enjoys doing, so it's fine."
For now, Ethan is all-in on making Gerrard's "the number one player. That might take a long time, and I'm happy to dedicate the time to it. Things might change, but for now, I'm all in on that. That's what I enjoy doing, so it's not a problem."
The stable industry
Despite being young and disruptive, Ethan has an interesting perspective on industry change. "After being in here what, like five years now, it's actually a lot more stable than I thought. Nothing really happens that quickly."
Yes, everyone's moving toward tech-first approaches, but "in the past five years, there's been very little change. People have just made things slightly better. I think that's just how the industry works. It's a big slow beast that takes one step forward every couple of years, and it's been doing that for the past 100 years."
Even climate change, which might seem like a looming crisis, feels distant from the day-to-day. "Premiums are going down at the moment, so whether it's having that big of an impact, I'm not sure." It's a 20-year question, not a today question – though he's quick to advise clients against buying beachfront property. "We can get insurance for it now, but what's it going to look like in
15 years?"
Differentiation
What emerges from talking to Ethan is a portrait of someone who sees clearly and speaks frankly. His fundamental approach is: identify what works, do more of it, and don't be precious about challenging conventional wisdom.
"It's quite hard to differentiate yourself in this industry when a client can go to a different broker down the street and effectively get the same thing," he observes. "In essence, we all do the same thing.”
Gerrard's differentiation comes not from what they do, but how they do it.
Looking ahead
At just 25 years old, Ethan Gerrard has already proven that starting an insurance brokerage from absolute zero is possible with the right approach.
The move to a 40-desk office, complete with in-house production studio, hints at more ambitious plans, too. If Gerrard’s can crack the code on making engaging insurance content, it could well be a game changer.
But perhaps the lesson here is that insurance broking doesn't have to follow traditional models. You don't need 20 years of client relationships or large capital to start. You do need clear thinking, technological efficiency, and the courage to challenge how things have always been done.
When asked if his passion is really about insurance or just business in general, Ethan is honest: it started with the business model. "But then over time you start to fall slowly more in love with that industry if you get outcomes and people are engaged."
The stories matter. “Over time, you build up the stories of how you’ve helped people, so it actually means something. That's hard to convey when you've got new people starting, but that's part of the why of what we do."
The journey hasn't been without resistance. "When we started the business, my dad told me it was a terrible idea. But he’s come around. And I guess I’ve also come to understand what it is that he loves about this industry.”
Ethan Gerrard is co-founder of Gerrard's Insurance Brokers in Christchurch, which he started at age 22 and has since grown to 10 staff with ambitious expansion plans. He was recently named one of Insurance Business Magazine's Rising Stars of 2025 for Australia, New Zealand and Asia. When not working 100-hour weeks, Ethan runs ultra-marathons and builds production studios for creating insurance content that might actually be interesting.
