John Archer “thrilled” to be recognised as 2024 Lifetime Achiever

In his 45-year career, John Archer has dedicated himself to the pursuit of insurance excellence through collaboration and innovation. His legacy as a leader in the industry’s claims space will be indelible.

“It is a great honour to be recognized by ANZIIF in this way,” says Archer, who continues to manage technical claims at IAG New Zealand.

Also extremely humble, his message to the industry is simple but powerful: “Learn from your mistakes and keep doing well the things that you are already doing well.”

Loyal to the deep south

Born in Invercargill and raised in Dunedin, Archer says that despite having left over 30 years ago, he remains a loyal Otago and Highlanders fan, and continues to have close ties with the city, supporting “all things connected with the deep south”. 

Archer’s journey in insurance began with State Insurance in Dunedin in 1978.

Having missed the cut for second-year medical school, he decided to take a gap year to get some “life experience” and tried his hand at various jobs including selling curtain fabric at Arthur Barnett’s and making taps for Methven’s. 

“Eventually I spotted a job at State Insurance which looked interesting, but I only intended to stay for six months until the start of the next university year,” he recalls.  

Colleagues like family

As history now shows, that six months has extended to a career of more than 45 years with NZI.  

“I was instantly attracted by the variety of the work, the friendly and supportive workplace and the shared interest in helping people,” he says.

“My work colleagues seemed more like family, and it was an easy decision to stay on.”

Asked who inspired him most, Archer says he has worked with so many great people over the years, that it would be unfair to single out any one person.

“I have drawn inspiration and influence from so many, including managers and colleagues as well as my own staff and external parties such as brokers, loss adjusters and lawyers,” he shares.

Encouraged by his father, Archer pursued professional qualifications as soon as possible, joining ANZIIF, earning his Senior Associate status and becoming a chartered insurance professional, a status he has maintained ever since.

“With ANZIIF’s support, I also took insurance papers at Massey University, which later counted towards my law degree at Victoria University of Wellington,” he says. 

A Defining Chapter

As with many in the industry, the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) was a career-defining moment for Archer. 

He says the experience highlighted the importance of adequate sums insured for customers and financially strong, sufficiently capitalised insurers with strong reinsurance programs.

“The CES also reinforced how vulnerable New Zealand is to natural disasters and the need for us to retain the trust and faith of our reinsurers to ensure that they continue to support us through similar natural disasters going forward,” he says.  

Archer led IAG’s commercial claims response, mainly for business that had placed insurance with brokers under the NZI banner, and later, the run-off claims for Lumley after NZI acquired it from Wesfarmers several years later. 

He asserts that the biggest learning from the CES, and since 30 June 2021, has been the importance of giving customers a single point of contact with their insurer for both their NHC claim and their over-cap property claim,” he says.

At the time of the CES, he says, it was a lot easier to settle claims for commercial customers, with “ground up” cover who could deal directly with their insurer in the first instance. 

“Commercial customers of the time could avoid the duplication of resources that occurred on many residential claims when customers had to deal with the then EQC first and their insurer.”  

Everyone on the same page

While resolving technical claims issues is what he spends most of his days doing, Archer points to closing out his team’s 15,000 commercial earthquake claims with few disputes and very little recourse to litigation as an achievement he is most proud of.

“A key part of our strategy was to work closely with brokers and ensure that we had early contact with our customers to form an understanding of their needs,” he says. 

“We assured them that everyone is looking for the same thing: a fair assessment of the damage and settlement as early as possible.”

Archer identifies climate change and affordability as the two biggest challenges facing insurers today.

“Of course, affordability is being impacted as a result of the increase in natural disasters,” he says.

 “The challenge for insurers is to control internal costs to the benefit of customers. They must also maintain a strong voice with local and national government to promote risk mitigation protocols in vulnerable communities.”

Building trust

To rebuild customer trust, Archer’s views reflect his start in the industry before transactions online became the norm and computers didn’t yet exist. 

“I loved having face-to-face contact with our customers,” he says. “In those days you learned everything at once, and when a customer came into the office you were the ‘expert’ in whatever they needed, whether it was to insure a house or to make a claim,” he says.

Nowadays, many transactions and customer interactions are more efficiently handled digitally. However, Archer argues, to build trust, there needs to be an avenue for customers to speak directly to someone who is handling their claim, and if necessary, processes must be available for a claim to be case managed.

He praises insurers generally doing this well by setting up customer care and specialist claims teams to provide expert assistance to vulnerable customers and resolve complex claims.

Archer says he is still enjoying what he does and is keen to pass on as much as he can to his team.

In the future, he has no doubt that his focus will increasingly shift towards family. 

“I have three beautiful grandchildren, two in Auckland and one in Germany, and they are likely to take more of my time and energy in the coming years,” he says.