Touted as one of Australia’s fastest-growing international brokers, Honan Insurance Group boasts a 20 per cent year-on-year growth. It is a young and diverse team — in the Australian market, the average age of Honan people is 29, and 60 per cent of them are women — which CEO Andrew Fluitsma sees as a major advantage.

‘We have a truly authentic brand voice,’ says Fluitsma, one of the oldest people at the company, having recently turned 40. ‘We simplify what we do in a complex market.’

A taste for acquisition

Fluitsma confirms the company’s previously organic strategy has transitioned to one of acquisition, with the backing of US multi-billion-dollar private equity business TA Associates. Most recently, Honan acquired Modern Risk Solutions, a market-leading insurance and risk advisory specialist in the rapidly growing sectors of emerging tech, start-ups and life sciences.

Fluitsma is passionate about creating a ‘fresh, simple’ business with an energetic voice characterised by a high level of performance in the market.

‘I aim for the organisation to be delivering complex insurance solutions to sophisticated businesses and to be doing it with a lot of energy,’ he says. ‘We want to break away from some of the traditional norms that have defined insurance in the past. 

‘I’d love to double the size of this business, and I think we now have the kind of footprint that will enable us to do that.’

All in the family

Fluitsma, who grew up in the Yarra Valley region of south-east Victoria, studied finance and accounting at Deakin University. He was planning to become an accountant, but, fortuitously, his father, a successful loss adjustor who had worked with the likes of McLarens and Cunningham Lindsey (now Sedgwick), convinced him that broking was a much better choice.

After completing some vacation work at accounting firms, Fluitsma agreed that broking would offer an appealing combination of disciplines such as numerical and macroeconomic acumen plus the human interaction he most enjoyed.

In 2003, Fluitsma joined Marsh as a graduate in Melbourne, learning the ropes as he rotated through the larger, more complex ASX risk-managed accounts. He later spent five years at Aon managing a range of client portfolios and working with world-class experts in areas such as risk profiling, accounting, alternate risk financing and facultative reinsurance. 

His decade-long journey at Honan began in 2009 as a foundation employee overseeing the growth of the company’s Sydney business, before moving back to Melbourne to take on various leadership roles. He was appointed CEO in 2018.

‘I am incredibly proud to lead the company as we begin to define ourselves as the largest and best privately held insurance advisory firm in Asia Pacific,’ says Fluitsma.

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