
Commissions & Fees Explained
Why do brokers charge fees on top of commission?
If I was in your shoes I’d be asking the same question, why do we need to charge admin fees if we’re already paid commission from the insurers?
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In a nutshell, commission is a percentage of the premium, whereas administration fees are fixed and provide guaranteed revenue for us - remember we're not a massive insurance company, we're a small local business just like many of our clients.
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If we're arranging a smaller value policy of around $300 before government charges, the commission might only be $30-60 so in that case we will need to charge a higher admin fee.
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For larger domestic policies we might choose not to charge an admin fee if the commission income is high enough. ​The benefit of being a small business is that we can be flexible and client focused in our renumeration rather than profit driven.


The good news is that using an insurance broker won't necessarily cost you more!
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In a report prepared by Deloitte for the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) they found Insurance Broking provides many economic benefits, including:
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Encouraging greater competition in insurance, with the average NIBA broker offering products across 10 different insurers
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Reducing underinsurance, with 45 per cent of new broker clients being underinsured prior to engaging a broker
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Using their experience to provide advice and save clients’ and insurers’ time, regarding risk assessment, policy selection or claims.
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And in more than half of the cases studied the clients paid the same or less as they were before using an insurance broker!
If you’re interested in more of the detail jump over here:
> The Economic Value of Insurance Broking
Informed Consent Changes
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From 9 July 2025, insurance brokers that provide personal advice to retail clients in relation to general insurance or life risk products must obtain the client's informed consent before receiving a commission in relation to those products.
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This means that before we can arrange cover for you, we need to obtain your informed consent to receive commission on policies such as Home, Landlords and Car Insurance. ​
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Some products will remain a combination of commission and fees, and other products will remain commission only in line with our practice of being client focused rather than profit driven. In these instances we may require your Informed Consent before we can arrange cover for you.
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If you do not wish to provide consent when requested, we can make arrangements to remove the commission and charge the same value as an equivalent upfront fee, or you can decline our services.
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