Coastsure Insurance Brokers wins Ausure Award of Excellence for 2021
David Beard, Managing Director of Coastsure Insurance Brokers, Nerang, QLD, and Authorised Representative of Ausure Insurance Brokers, responds to winning this highly prized award.
“To be honest, the announcement that Coastsure was the Ausure Award of Excellence winner for 2021 came as a complete surprise to the whole team, gathered as we were around the boardroom table watching the presentation at the Ausure Virtual Catch-up. A wonderful surprise of course. We are extremely grateful to the Ausure Insurance Brokers selection team for this recognition.
Firstly, a big congratulations to the other two finalists: Ausure Unified and Abico Insurance Brokers.
As Ausure’s GM Graeme Lilley said at the Ausure Awards virtual ceremony, the committee had quite a difficult task to have to make a choice between equals. So again, the Coastsure team are very grateful for the honour to be this year’s recipients.
Coastsure started as a Suncorp Agency over twenty years ago, transitioning to an Ausure licensed brokerage in 2009. Since then, most of the original Directors have retired and we’ve been fortunate enough to be joined by some amazing people. They are team players who try every day to model the Coastsure values and who have taken the business to new levels of professionalism in client services and operations.
I guess our main focus, especially over these last few years, has been to progressively improve both our internal systems and client communications, working to make the placement, service, and renewal processes as clear and convenient for the client as possible, and with an eye on necessary compliance at each step. The aim always is to generate maximum value for our clients, our suppliers, our staff, and the business. Not sexy work by any stretch, but it’s made all the difference in how we feel about what we do.
The other focus has been on supporting our staff with opportunities for professional and personal growth, to acquire new knowledge and skills which we sponsor each year as part of their performance benchmarks. They also nominate a community (giving back) goal each year and are given time off to complete. People have done some amazing things in that space.
So that’s been the major difference for us internally in recent years, and despite the scarce pool of candidates, we’ve been fortunate enough to attract the right people who share our values of fairness and caring, integrity, courage and ownership.
Over the years we’ve found that you can teach knowledge and skills, but attitude is something you must hire for in the first instance, and the rest seems to take care of itself. A lot of business leaders will tell you, one of the great secrets of success is to hire the right people and support them with resources and clear goals, and then get out of their way. We’ve certainly found that to be true.
Lastly, the Ausure Head office support has been critical to our development since we made the smart decision to join them more than ten years ago. The values they exhibited back then, (since we first met with Wayne Brown), have never changed, but the enormous resources & strategic alliances they have developed together with the support team at every level and department, has allowed us to provide an ever-increasing level of services and professionalism. They just continue to level up every year and we couldn’t do what we do for our clients without them”, reflects Beard.
Ausure GM Graeme Lilley says, “Congratulations to David Beard and Rolf Van Dulst and the entire Coastsure team on the Gold Coast for an exceptional year.”
“Coastsure has concentrated on improving the business operationally, professionally and financially over the past 18 months.”
Congratulations on your well-deserved win and the immense improvements you have implemented to make you worthy winners of this prestigious award.”
WINNERS OF THE AUSURE AWARD OF EXCELLENCE 2021
Winner: Coastsure Insurance Brokers, Nerang, QLD
Finalists: ABICO Insurance Brokers, Wollongong, NSW and Ausure Unified Insurance Brokers, Toowoomba, Gatton, Warwick & Beaudesert, QLD
This award is often referred to internally as the Jim Mcilveen Award of Excellence. This honours insurance veteran Jim Mcilveen, the man who inspired Ausure Founder Wayne Brown to “Have a Go” and who is credited as being a guiding influence on Wayne and the Ausure culture during the early formation of Ausure. The Award of Excellence highlights the family values of loyalty, integrity and caring (helpfulness) and professionalism which were vital for a business to succeed. These values have been at the forefront of what Ausure is about for the past 25 years.
The list of professional criteria on which a branch is assessed is a long one. Besides the above factors, it includes excellence in client service, steady business growth, personal development and training, communication, compliance and overall professionalism.
