Today I love insurance. There isn’t much you can do in life without it. Buy a house, own a car, build a bridge, sail a ship, sell products or your knowledge, employ a person – all require you, in some form or other to have insurance. My father was in insurance for 40 odd years retiring when I left Uni during a UK recession in 1987 there were no jobs around. I wasn’t smart enough to be a brain surgeon and I applied to many places likely to employ a graduate of Maritime Law and Commerce and ended up with interviews with Commercial Union and Royal Insurance to work in their marine underwriting offices. The Royal offered me a job and my career has never looked back. I worked in Birmingham (the industrial heart producing much cargo) of the UK, London (the Insurance capital of the world) and then after a few years there packed my bags for a place many of you will recognise the name of for two things; tailless cats and motorbikes – the Isle of Man. I was 7yrs there working on for insurance company owned by a large multinational oil and gas company. It was fascinating and even managed to travel to see Offshore platforms in the North Sea, LNG plants in Tunisia and Egypt (with a quick tour of the Pyramids of course!).  

In 2000 we moved to Perth and I started out with a local broker as an assistant to the assistant. My experience gained since 1987 meant very little here then. A few years later I moved to a company where I met Gail called JLT. I looked after some huge accounts like Austal, AHG, John Hughes and others. When I left JLT I moved to a company called Aon (the same company I worked for in the Isle of Man) where I was 13yrs including 4yrs in Papua New Guinea. In 2018 I felt I’d had enough of Corporate life and decided to set up on my own. What I have loved about being with Insurance Advisernet is whilst we are self-employed, over 200 of us work collegiately all with the end goal of working for our clients and not some faceless shareholders.