Followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mike Emmett, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for joining Mark and I today. This morning I'll present an overview of our performance and outlook, and Mark will take you through the results in more detail, and then we'll open the line for Q&A.
AUB Group has enjoyed another strong trading period during the first half of 2022. We've provided a summary of the key aspects on slide two, which we'll cover in more detail during the presentation. Pleasingly, all components of the business are performing at or above expectation, with particularly strong results and momentum in the agencies division. Put simply, it's the disciplined execution of our growth and profit strategies that are driving this performance.
Throughout the investor presentation, we refer to continuing operations, meaning the underlying financial results adjusted to exclude JobKeeper receipts in the prior period and contributions from Altius, the last of the health and rehabilitation businesses sold in FY 2021. We highlight this measure because it provides a true like for like comparison to past performance.
Slide three shows a summary of the financial results from continuing operations for the first half of FY 2022. Underlying revenue for the group grew by 14.9% to AUD 327.2 million. The EBIT margin expanded further to 31.2% and underlying net profit after tax increased by 16.7% to AUD 30.6 million. While we'll speak more about earnings and dividends per share later in the presentation, you'll note that the interim dividend per share has been increased by 6.3% to AUD 0.17 per share.
Slide four uses a waterfall chart to describe the main changes between the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2022. As mentioned, the underlying net profit after tax for the first half of 2021 has been adjusted to exclude AUD 1.8 million of JobKeeper receipts and AUD 2 million of Altius profits. 1H 2022 underlying profit growth from continuing operations was the result of strong organic growth of 10.3% and an equivalent 10.3% profit growth from acquisitions. While the new technology spend for Project Lola in New Zealand, which will continue for the next 18 months, diluted the underlying growth rate by 3.8%.
Slide five summarizes the performance from continuing operations for each operating division for the first half of 2022, as compared with the first half of 2021. Australian broking profit of AUD 38.3 million grew by 16.6%, supported by revenue growth of 8.8% and a continued expansion in EBIT margin to 31.1%. BizCover continued its strong performance in the first half. Revenue grew 24.2%, EBIT margin expanded to 37% and the profit grew by 26.7%. With revenue growth in the first quarter slower than expected, the business did experience a strong second quarter.
The agencies division has been the stellar performer of the first half. Revenue growth of 58.2%, significant margin expansion of 520 basis points to 32.6%, and underlying profit growth of 82.9% was remarkable. While this was largely planned for and expected, the business has performed above expectation with strong momentum into the second half. Profits from New Zealand Broking shrank by 20.6% to NZD 3.5 million. This result was significantly impacted by the cost of Project Lola, the new technology replacement project currently underway in New Zealand. Excluding these costs, we are seeing positive momentum building in the business. With revenue growth of 4.7%, margin improvement to 31.5%, and profit growth of 8.9%.
As you will have heard me say previously, improving our results in New Zealand is a key strategic priority for FY 2023, and there is more upside potential than today's results reflect. Overall profit from the operating divisions grew by 20.9% or an even stronger 23.5% if you exclude the costs of Project Lola. These results are not an accident. I credit our teams and their unrelenting focus to execute on the strategic priorities listed on slide six. These priorities will look very familiar to you by now as apart from the priority to reinvigorate agencies, they're essentially unchanged from those we listed at the start of FY 2020 and are a primary reason for our performance improvement over the past few years.
Optimizing our network by merging businesses and portfolios for scale and specialization, while investing thoughtfully in complementary businesses that expand our scale or capability, have been key to our success in both broking and agencies, and have resulted in increased revenue and improved margins. Our focus on buying and building technology solutions that aid our networks to efficiently place business for clients while delivering high-quality advice and service, has paid significant dividends. Our technology journey is underway with more to come.
Investments in BizCover for direct SME customers, the rollout of ExpressCover to Austbrokers and Sentinel to Austagencies, the current development of Lola for NZb rokers, combined with our recent acquisition of IA Anywhere, a market-leading broker management solution, give us the building blocks for a world-class portfolio of insurance technology solutions. Lisa Woodley, a well-respected and highly experienced Broking Technology Executive, is leading the task of turning these building blocks into an integrated set of solutions for our network members.
Enhancing our partner proposition is key to our model and our success. We continue to build services that add value to our networks. These include complex and offshore risk placements, enhanced insurer commercial arrangements, premium funding offerings, risk and compliance support, technology infrastructure, learning management services, group insurance schemes, and technical insurance product support. These services are tremendously valuable and are offered exclusively to our networks. I'll now hand over to Mark to describe divisional performance in more detail.
Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everybody. On the following few slides, we cover each of the divisions in more detail, linking back to progress against the strategic priorities. Moving to slide seven, Australian Broking continues to perform well. Austbrokers' general insurance commissions are 12.4% higher than the first half of FY 2021, with approximately 8.1% resulting from premium rate increases. We observed premium rate increases across our GI portfolio of approximately 9% in the first half of FY 2022 compared with the first half of the prior year. The early rollout of the strategic priorities has built strong multi-year momentum. We continue to optimize the network, such as with the further merger of WRI into Comsure to continue the expansion of our motor dealership broking scale and expertise. Nexus Risk Services is becoming part of Insurance Advisernet.
Targeted bolt-on acquisitions have also assisted, such as Vaughan & Monaghan into Finsura, and Gibbscorp into SRG Group. The take-up of ExpressCover and other group services have further assisted top-line performance. Our recently launched non-equity network, The Insurance Alliance, is a new growth avenue for AUB. While we don't own equity in these firms, we provide value-added services for fees and now support six non-equity brokerages.
Slide eight describes the ongoing strong performance in BizCover. As shown, revenue and profit growth continued, growing by 27% and 28% respectively compared with the first half of FY 2021. The business delivers exceptional service to customers, with NPS scores consistently above 70. The range of opportunities for this business is excellent. The challenge now is not about identifying new opportunities, but rather how best to prioritize and sequence them.
BizCover has built a strong moat. Despite the impact of lockdowns over the past year, BizCover has continued to grow customer numbers at 25%-30%. BizCover's moat will be further strengthened by the investment over the past few years in its new technology platform, Blaze, that is ready for wider rollout. Blaze is already in production for specific customers and is the technology underpinning the launch of Business Insurance Made Easy, Bi-me, the new joint venture with Hollard and Discovery in South Africa. Blaze enables a much faster and cheaper path to launch products and add new insurers and offers a more powerful digital rating engine to support product pricing.
Slide nine describes the marked improvement in agencies during the first half of FY 2022. Our agency strategy is underpinned by three elements, scale, focus, and network penetration. During financial year 2021, we first spoke about our plans for agencies, describing our ambition to build an agency division with GWP in excess of AUD 1 billion and comprising three legs, namely general commercial, specialty, and strata. Our initial focus has been on general commercial, utilizing the investment in 360 Underwriting as the platform to build out this area. The investment in 360 Underwriting has been excellent. They're a talented and motivated senior team and are driving strong growth and profit outcomes.
Following our initial investment in December 2020, we've transitioned five existing Austagencies into 360 Underwriting, while 360 Underwriting themselves have launched a new landlords agency and acquired two new agencies, TLC Insurance in New Zealand and Anchorage Marine in Australia. More recently, we've focused on the specialty agencies, where we've launched new bloodstock and technology risk agencies.
In Strata, our short-term focus has been to consolidate our interests by selling one agency and ceasing another. Longer term, we need to add scale for this business to deliver the required returns. The result of all these actions has been to increase the gross written premium of AUB agencies to AUD 562 million for calendar year 2021, an increase of 62% over the prior year. We now have a portfolio of agencies that operate more effectively with consequential margin improvements. Over the same period, Austbrokers' share of Austagencies placement grew to 42% with an additional AUD 100 million of premium placed in calendar year 2021 through Austagencies.
Despite this significant improvement, we are confident of considerable further growth in agencies which will be achieved by further increased usage of Austagencies together with the utilization of existing and increased binder capacities. This, together with the ongoing opportunity to acquire agencies and to work with offshore brokers and Lloyd's syndicates, provides us with a promising growth opportunity.
Moving to slide 10. New Zealand broking results are mixed with key positive and negative components reflected on this waterfall chart. As foreshadowed, profits have continued to deteriorate in our largest broking business, BWRS. A multi-year remediation program is well underway under a new management team, with results in this business showing a slightly positive trend in recent months. As you can see from the waterfall, the other New Zealand broking businesses are performing strongly, while Project Lola costs had a significant impact on profit. We're investing a further NZD 7.8 million over the next 18 months in Lola. It's a key pillar in our strategy to improve growth and add value and efficiency in New Zealand.
Slide 11 provides more detail on the cash flow and funding of the AUB corporate entity. Operating cash of AUD 30.5 million was generated, and the group's balance sheet remained strong. Dividends received were AUD 33.2 million. The prior corresponding period dividends received were higher due to a one-off completion dividend of AUD 10.3 million from the sale of Altius. The corporate expense cash outflow for the half was AUD 19.7 million versus AUD 11.1 million in the prior corresponding period, due mainly to increased corporate insurance costs. The first half cash flow includes the FY 2021 final dividend of AUD 29 million, which was AUD 4.4 million higher than in the prior corresponding period.
At the end of the first half, we had access to AUD 74.5 million of cash and debt. Our gearing ratio was 30.9% and leverage 2.14 to one, both well within covenant requirements of 40% and three to one respectively. Our ongoing cash generation and balance sheet strength position us strongly to continue funding organic growth initiatives and disciplined acquisitions in the second half of financial year 2022.
On slide 12, we present our shareholder returns. The group's underlying earnings per share from continuing operations grew by 16.2% in comparison to the first half of 2021, after excluding last year's non-recurring JobKeeper receipts and the Altius divestment, including JobKeeper receipts and the Altius income in the prior corresponding period sees underlying earnings per share growth increase 1.68% to AUD 0.4147. Further detailed financial and business information is included in the appendices to our presentation released this morning. Thank you. I look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming days and would now like to hand back to Mike.
Thanks, Mark. Having improved the underlying performance of our key businesses for several reporting periods, a fair question to ask is: Is there more margin potential in AUB? On slide 13, we've summarized our view of the target margins across our businesses, how these compare with the margins we achieved in the first half of 2022, and how we've improved since the first half of 2019. You'll note that we still see opportunity to improve margins across the enterprise with significant upside potential in agencies and New Zealand broking. Put simply, there is a lot more to go, and the key to achieving these goals is the continued progress with our strategic initiatives. Finally, turning to slide 14, the outlook for FY 2022. Today, we are increasing our guidance for FY 2022 underlying net profit after tax to be in the range of AUD 72 million-AUD 74 million.
Previously, this was AUD 70 million-AUD 73 million. For the second half, this translates into an underlying net profit after tax of AUD 41.4 million-AUD 43.4 million, representing growth in underlying net profit after tax from continuing operations of 20.7%-26.5%. On this slide, we've included two waterfall charts. On the left, we show the expected full year movement from FY 2021 to our outlook for FY 2022. While on the right, we break down the second half outlook compared with the second half of FY 2021. I'd now like to hand back to the Moderator to open the line for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Elizabeth Miliatis from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one, if I may, is just on the AUB broking margin and the network optimization that you've talked about previously. I noticed that the slide was missing in the deck this time around. Just wondering, how is that progressing? You know, at the FY 2021 presentation, I think there were 75 businesses that you had within the network. Where is that number now? And in terms of getting to that medium-term target, where does that number need to get to to get to that 35% margin target? Thank you.
Thanks, Elizabeth. I think, you know, specifically, we don't report on it. I guess it's almost a checkpoint in time, and if, you know, if we do it too frequently, it doesn't give you enough time. We've got multiple of those underway at the moment. You know, when we spoke about Austbrokers, we spoke about a couple of those, you know, WRI and Nexus in particular. Even on the acquisitions, you know, for example, our new approach of buying bolt-on acquisitions into existing network members. You know, for example, the Vaughan & Monaghan acquisition into Finsura and, you know, Gibbscorp into SRG. Those are examples where ordinarily the numbers would go up, but in fact, in this case, the numbers are staying the same or going down.
The only reason for not referencing, you know, an update on the 75 is just because we feel that that's, you know, probably better reported on an annual progress point of view. The second element of your question, which is how many of those do we need to get to our margin target of 35%+? I've intentionally been sketchy about giving a specific number in the past, and that's because we haven't modeled a particular number. What we are doing is we know that there'll be fewer rather than more.
What we really are doing is, you know, identifying the businesses where they will. You know, all the businesses in the network will benefit from those aggregations and consolidations. It really is on a case-by-case basis, we're moving forward, improving margin. Obviously, we've done, you know, a variety of modeling of different permutations, and we can see a path to you know, achieving those margin targets.
Yeah. Thank you. Then just continuing on those margin targets, I mean, just comparing where you are at the moment versus your targets. Obviously, the AUB broking and the BizCover businesses are fairly close to the targets, but the agencies in the New Zealand broking businesses are a fair way off. Just wondering, what are the levers that you need to pull to really get closer to those targets across both businesses?
Yeah.
Also, in terms of timeframe, is this a, you know, three-to-five -year target? Are they particularly aspirational or are they achievable?
Well, I suppose the last part of that, clearly, we believe they're achievable. You know, otherwise I'd be taking a challenging path of putting targets out there that I don't believe are achievable. We certainly believe they're achievable. We have used the phrase medium term. I think medium term is shorter than five years in terms of the achievability and the levers that we need to apply. You know, you rightly point out that agencies in New Zealand broking are the ones that have the biggest upside. I guess that's because intentionally, we phased it according to the scale of the business.
It's no accident that the 610 basis points we've achieved in Australian broking so far. It's because that's the largest part of our business and therefore on a dollar basis, the biggest size of the price. Although thirty-one point one to thirty-five percent on a percentage basis may sound. But you know, another 490 basis points is a material uplift in our underlying profits. Nonetheless, you know, remains an absolutely core focus for us. But notwithstanding, stepping back, I think in terms of the agencies, you know, previously we've spoken very explicitly about the fact that scale is a key part of achieving these margins in the agencies, and scale is all about the premium that we write. There are two components to this.
We've identified a target of, you know, AUD 1 billion premium spread across three substantial groups of agencies that are run as agency groups, not as discrete, separate little agencies. We've articulated general commercial 360 platform as a portfolio of agencies, they run as a single agency group and therefore able to drive efficiencies to get to that level of EBIT margin. Secondly, there's a piece around specialty. Thirdly, there's a piece around strata. Our first and primary focus was on 360, which we've made really good progress on the general commercial space, and that's really where we've seen a significant uplift.
Our secondary focus was then on the specialty area, which we've, you know, been focusing on in the recent past and over the, you know, the near future for the rest of FY 2022. Then strata is the third focus, and that's the one where, frankly, we started with the smallest scale, lowest margin of the three groupings of agencies. We intentionally looked at where we saw the biggest opportunity. We've made good progress. You'll see in the, you know, in the premium space that we, you know, we've significantly uplifted the premium. We do see it's a billion-dollar premium target that will help together with these, let's call them the three pillars of our agency strategy that will allow us to get to those margins.
You know, others in the market that have large agencies that have managed to unlock the efficiencies operate at 50%+ margins. That doesn't mean that because others have got 50%+ margin businesses, it's easy to do. Nonetheless, the secret is about, you know, scale and volume of premium and efficiency of process. The reason is because there's a volume efficiency you get. Frankly, there's also a scale influence you get, where the bigger scale you have, the better commercial terms you can arrange with the binder issuers and the insurers, and therefore you have, you know, better ability to, you know, generate net commission income into those businesses.
On the New Zealand broking piece . You know, it's really a combination of our existing businesses outside of BWRS and NZbrokers. If you simplify it, you'd say, sorry, not NZbrokers, Project Lola. If you simplify it, you'd say, if you take the benefits of what Lola will deliver when it's live, and if you do the combination of, you know, we're at 31.1%, we need BWRS firing. There's a remediation plan well underway, a new leadership team that, you know, very pleased with the progress they're making. It's really about that, the largest of our businesses progressing, and, you know, building momentum.
Secondly, our technology projects which drive efficiencies as well as, you know, improved commercial outcomes and better partnerships with the insurer panels, which is really along the lines of what we've done in Australia that's helped us improve our income earn rates on, you know, in partnership with the insurers.
Thank you. That's all really clear. Can I just ask one smaller question in terms of Project Lola costs? The guidance that you put out at the end of the year, in December, I believe. I just wanted to confirm the costs for Lola assumed within that, I believe, was NZD 1.5, if that's correct, and you've come in at NZD 2.2 for the half.
No, no. The costs were pretty much exactly. I think the NZD 1.5 was a year-on-year comparison.
Mm-hmm.
That was the increase above the cost that were already in FY 2021. But on absolute terms, you're right at the AUD 2.2.
Okay. Thank you.
No problem.
Thank you. The next question comes from Andrew Buncombe from Macquarie Group. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Tim had two calls on at once, so he sends his apologies. My first question.
All good. Good to have you. Thanks, Andrew.
Okay. My first question's on slide 11 in terms of the acquisition capacity. That slide is very, very helpful. Can you just comment on how many term sheets you currently have out in the market at the moment? Thanks.
How many term sheets we have out in the market at the moment? That's an interesting question. Actually, a tricky one to answer, Andrew, and the reason is because, you know, what we rarely do, and I've probably mildly inappropriately likened it to. You know, we see acquisitions as, you know, a marriage for life. What we're really doing is at any point in time, we're exploring. I've referenced before, we've got a long list of roughly 300 potential targets, and at any point in time, we're in discussions with, you know, probably 24 of those.
Term sheets, we don't really. It's not a. I mean, a term sheet is almost right near the end of the process. Y ou know, I think what's probably more relevant to people is that, you know, we do have a portfolio of acquisition potentials that we are working through. We do take a length of time on acquisitions, right? We're quite conservative about acquisitions. We're very thoughtful. We like them to complement our strategy. We like to believe that we're not investing in something in isolation, but that we can actually improve the margin of that business, that we can enhance the revenue, et cetera, et cetera.
We spend a lot of time working with the existing shareholders to identify a fit where they fit into our business, you know, how we're going to jointly improve, you know, the performance of the business, et cetera. I'm steering clear of a very simple answer to your question, Andrew. I think the message should be, at any point in time, we do have, you know, a couple of dozen, very interesting, discussions and, you know, engagements we have on exploring ways in which, you know, what do the synergies look like, what are the value propositions for both parties, et cetera.
Yeah, I understand. Thank you. The next question was just in relation to slide nine. It makes a comment that you've consolidated a number of your strata agencies into, I assume, Longitude. My question is, can you just remind us, when the arrangement with the current insurer expires on Longitude and how renegotiations are progressing on that one? Thank you.
Firstly, just to clarify, we had three agencies. We have consolidated into one, but really what we've done is we sold one of them because we felt that, you know, it was in conflict. The two businesses were potentially in conflict. We sold one, and we closed down the one and transferred the portfolio into existing businesses. In some cases, into one of our strata brokerages, and in other cases, into Longitude, where we felt that the product coverage is matched and therefore could, you know, meet the definition of a renewal cover. That's how we got to the one. That's first point. Secondly, we have renewed our binder for Longitude, and it runs now for, you know, three years. That was renewed at the end of the calendar year.
Got it. The final one again on slide nine. Down the bottom left-hand side, that chart that shows that 42% of the agency's GWP is coming from the AUB network.
Yep.
Do you think that mix is sustainable compared to your overall market share? Thanks.
We do actually. If anything, we think it can grow. Certainly, the key thing we're wanting to see is the growth of the overall premium, but then we actually see the opportunity for that 42 to go up as well.
That's it from me. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Doron Kur from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, all. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a few on the guidance, please. The first one is, it looks like a lot of the uptick in the guidance is actually from acquisition growth. Just if you look at the numbers you put out in FY 2021 versus what we have now. Is it a fair way to look at it? 'Cause you have commented a lot on the continuing positive tailwinds in the business. So, it sounds like you're talking more to organic growth, but just the delta in the guidance before now looks like it's about AUD 2 million or more coming from acquisition growth.
Doron, it's actually a mixture. I think the first point I'd make is some of the outperformance of agencies in the first half and the anticipated outperformance in the second half is coming from the 360 acquisition. That's been an excellent acquisition. I don't mind admitting that, you know, has exceeded our expectations in our acquisition case, which is very pleasing. We attribute that improvement to them. What is slightly tricky to measure is, of course, we bought 10 agencies with 360 . We've vended in five of our existing agencies.
Actually, when I say vended in, that you can't point to them discreetly, right? In some cases, we've merged agencies, we've consolidated, we've looked at ways in which we can change our internal, you know, costs so that we, you know, we're stripping out costs that we've been able to, you know, sort of surface that have, you know, not stranded, but effectively have surfaced by virtue of moving those and consolidating the platform.
So we've taken a fairly simplistic view of it, of just attributing it to 360, even though technically some of those are actually organic improvements that we've had, either by virtue of improvements in the margin from those businesses we've bedded in, or because we've been able to scale up differently and have different, you know, client penetration opportunities because of the merged scale of the businesses. So, I guess it's actually from both, but it is largely attributed to agencies.
I think, you know, if you wanted me to characterize what I see as the first half, I'd say. This is not meaning I'm not pleased with the progress we've made, but I would say that the progress we've made in Australian and New Zealand broking and BizCover is pretty much exactly spot on what I would have predicted. Austagencies has exceeded our expectation. Even though we had quite big expectations, they've nonetheless outperformed those. It's been that sort of blurred combination of the acquisition together with how we've enabled organic improvements and growth as a result of the acquisition.
Great. Thank you. That's very helpful. Just next question is, and the answer might actually be the same, but just to get a bit more color there. If you look at organic growth as you've disclosed today versus PCP, it looks about 10% versus the first half, and looking at 20% organic growth in the second half. Also, rates came in higher than you originally anticipated. Just any more color on the uptick in growth in the next half, if there's any further to talk to there? 'Cause also I noticed the first half results was a bit lower than what the market expected. Was there something that maybe the market missed there in the first half, second half split?
Yeah, I think. Well, I think I'll answer the second question. I think. You know, we always expect the first half to be 29.5%-30.5%. In fact, we actually thought, you know, our original forecast was just below 30%. So, in developing our original forecast, it was broadly a, you know, a 30 or so assumption for the first half. So, we've actually come in ahead of what we thought for the first half. Obviously, it's difficult to talk about what the market decided around the seasonality. Obviously, it's a, you know, it's a difficult judgment. I think what we've got is a difference in our growth profile, partly because of agencies, right?
So, you know, because agencies are now... We almost had this phenomenon where post acquiring BizCover, we actually had a reduction in the seasonality because BizCover is less seasonal than the rest of the business. As agencies have significantly grown, they've become a bigger portion of our profit, and they are more seasonal, and therefore the seasonality has swung back the other way, back to a sort of, I don't know, low- 40s%, high- 50s% sort of split between H1 and H2. In parallel, we've obviously got the momentum where, you know, we're actually building the momentum in agencies, which means that not only will the second half of this year follow, you know, a classic seasonality profile, it'll actually be disproportionately bigger in the second half because we're growing faster in agencies, and so we've got that momentum going into the second half.
Thank you. That's very clear. Yes, that's a lot of it, yeah, through agencies. Great. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thanks, Doron Kur.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Hudson from MST. Please go ahead.
Morning, gents. Just a couple of quick questions. In relation to the NZD 7.8 million of remaining spend on Lola, Mark, can you give us a sense of what will be spent in the second half 2021, I mean 2022 and then FY 2023?
Sure. Hi, Scott. Second half of 2022, we'll spend approximately AUD two and a half million, then similar numbers in-
Okay.
Similar numbers into 2023, AUD 2.5 million in H1 2023, and about AUD 2 million in the second half of 2023.
Yeah. I guess in relation to the margin expectation in New Zealand, how much of that is driven by, I guess, efficiency benefits off the back of the Lola investment?
Yeah, it's a combination. Lola gives us two things. One is it gives us efficiency, but it also gives us, you know, some increased income as a result of, you know, pretty much the same philosophy we've adopted in Australia on the back of ExpressCover, which is, you know, the discussions we've had with insurers are direct interfaces into their systems, improving the efficiency for them and for us is good for both parties. We've really worked on what's the value of the frictional cost that we've removed from both processes, and then let's share in those benefits, which I guess crassly translates into we're going to get more income from businesses placed on the system.
We've agreed those arrangements with most of the insurers, and now we just need to make sure we roll out the system, and as a consequence, business placed on the system will earn increased income with, you know, in a more efficient way for us.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Are you seeing rates starting to rise in New Zealand?
We are actually. It's harder for us to measure rates in New Zealand, and they're a bit, to be honest, you know, a bit more volatile than we see in Australia. March will really be the month where we can draw a real conclusion about the rate, the forward-looking view of rates. What we can say is that the first half, we saw about 2.5% rates in New Zealand, and we actually thought we'd only see 1%-1.5%.
Okay. Just in your comments around, obviously, the guidance now capturing 7%-9% increase in rates versus, I guess, previous expectations of 5%-6%, is there any class that's particularly driving that or is it a broad-based?
It's obviously on the general insurance piece, 'cause obviously in you know, we do have a chunk of personal lines, and we obviously have mid-market business where we earn fee but not commission. That's obviously independent of premium. But in the SME general insurance I should emphasize actually, which is something that we're pleased about and proud of not, you know, not sort of disappointed, which is in the BizCover micro-SME piece, the rate t hey've managed for their clients, for our clients, to maintain rates at very low rate increases for a long period of time. I think their rate impact on BizCover clients in the micro-SME space is about 1% across the board, across all portfolios.
That's excellent because obviously what they're trying to do is be a platform that supports, you know, small to micro-SME and SME customers and actually help them manage their insurance costs. From that point of view, rate is not a factor in BizCover. It's not a factor in our medium market and large corporate, but it is clearly a factor in our classic SME through brokers. And what we've seen is that on the GI piece, rates have gone up by about 9%, about 8.1% of that flowed through to us. You might recall previously I've spoken about just because the rates go up, our brokers are sensitive to the situation for clients and so we offset a bit of that by giving up some of our commission.
That means the effective commission rate impact has been about 8.1%, but our total GI commission went up by 12.4%. There's about another 50% or so that is coming from effectively market share growth or, you know, other growth. Sorry, you asked about risk class. It's really on the financial lines. The financial lines continue to be the ones that are, you know, there's a lot of, you know, demand on the rate, and still, it feels like much more to go. I mean, Cyber, you know, frankly, I worry that Cyber is becoming a class that's uninsurable, a risk that's uninsurable because the rates can't carry on spiraling like they are.
Sorry, you're gonna say looking forward, you-
Looking forward, we've said 7%-9%. Previously, we've said, you know, 5%-7%. The 7%-9% is probably a bit more bullish than you know. If you'd asked me in November, I'd have said 5.5%-7.5% if I were to take a pick or maybe 6%-8%. We were surprised by the impetus. Now, the problem for us is that December is an odd month, so we're really trying to work out from November, how do we extrapolate. I'll probably be more comfortable post-March having a more certain view. What we've said at the moment is 7%-9% feels like the range based on the momentum coming out of the first half.
How much of that do you think is inflation driven versus, I guess, risk driven insurance?
Yeah. I think it's still risk driven, but I think inflation is gonna start ticking up. Obviously, the supply chain challenges means that you know, any property and casualty related piece where the rates have actually been relatively low over the last couple of years in terms of the rises, I think those are gonna start accelerating. I think you're gonna find risk increases from financial lines is gonna slow down slightly. [Ex] Cyber, which I don't think anyone's quite worked out how to price for risk yet, I think is the fact, and the insurers will be offended at me saying that, but I think that I think they're all guessing at risk rather than valid you know, being certain about it. I think separately on the property and casualty, I think the inflation, particularly claims inflation, is going to start raising those premiums.
Just last one, maybe a longer view question on the rate environment. Obviously, bond yields rising and expectation of increasing or rising interest rates, how do you think that plays into the rate environment over the next 24-36 months?
Ironically, I think I said in August that we'd be sitting in August a year's time, and I'd be saying the rate had been 5%-6%, and my forecast for the next 12 months would be 5%-6%. It turns out I was wrong on this year's 5%-6%. I'm pretty sure I'm right about it'll be at least 5%-6% for the 12 months beyond that. It's much harder to predict beyond that, Scott, and the reason is because there's so many macroeconomic, you know, sort of unusual event
s. You know, Russia marching into bits of Ukraine this morning suddenly, you know, changed things. Now I know some of that's anticipated, but, you know, you'll have some massive terrible event. There'll be some climate related issue. You know, there's so many things that can impact it in the medium to long term, but certainly I'm pretty confident about at least 5%-6% in FY 2023.
That's great. Maybe just one last one for Mark. Mark, in terms of the New Zealand investments, my understanding is there was a SaaS adjustment or accounting adjustment in FY 2021. Was that also a headwind in FY 2022, or is that the Project Lola?
That's the same. Yeah.
One and the same thing.
It's the same thing.
Same thing.
Yep.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The next question is from Nathan Zaia from Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, gents. I just had a question around BizCover and expense growth. Is it possible to get some sort of breakdown as to how much of the growth is investments in the platform getting ready to expand into other markets versus cost to attract customers?
I can give you, sort of, you know, sort of verbal description of things rather than numbers necessarily, Nathan. I think, you know, we're not comfortable to share that, especially given that it's a, you know, an associate. A chunk of the first half cost increases over first half 2021 related to sales and marketing cost. The IT investment cost, you know, the platform, has really been a consistent cost over the last 2.5 years. They've been building Blaze and continue to build Blaze. It's effectively a replatform, but they've done it in a very considered, you know, frankly, I think quite sensible fashion, which is they've built components of it, but they've identified a budget envelope, and that's defined the pace and the level of spend they've incurred each month and each quarter.
They've been running to that. I guess the numbers that you've seen for the last couple of years have all had a component of Blaze cost in them. Some of those costs are being capitalized, and some are being amortized. It is a replatform cost, so ultimately it would be to replace their existing platform, which, you know, has been in place for some time. They're rolling it out so, for example, Blaze is now launched in. Well, it's the technology being used for the joint venture in South Africa, and that's a brilliant way of testing the full functionality because it's doing everything you need to do, but in a, you know, sort of a contained pilot geography, and then they'll launch it for, you know, some of the white label partners to use.
It's very good at the highly automated piece. It's cheaper and quicker to add insurers to configure new products and for the full self-service piece around, you know, some of those clever pieces that, you know, the technology platforms have got now are in the direct space, which is, you know, they're quite dynamic about how they respond to your individual needs and how they price it, et cetera. It's, you know, they've really focused on how to build that out.
I think in terms of the costs that you would see and anticipate, more relate to. In the first quarter, you know, sort of call this out. In the first quarter, we saw lockdowns impacting the, you know, the new business lines in BizCover or new business opportunities. They dialed up their sales and marketing spend, and it, you know, its typical direct online marketing, SEO, SEM type spend. They didn't actually see a direct uptick in new business leads as a consequence, and they dialed it back again. You know, they like many of these direct businesses, you know, they're very good at that, you know, dial up to see if you can tick up the revenue line that's actually not effective. You know, your cost of acquisition is going up, they dial it back down again. It's a very dynamic business from that point of view.
Okay. No, thanks for that. The other thing I wanted to ask, how are you thinking about potential upside from the Insurance Alliance? I know you mentioned earlier, you know, 300 odd targets that are always on a list. Like, is this the, or is that the initial sort of group that you would target to join the alliance so then maybe it's easier to convert to an acquisition from then, or what's the sort of strategy there?
I think it's a bit of all of the above, right? I mean, at the most basic, we've got valuable services that we offer. Some of those services, we are very careful and, you know, we offer them exclusively to the Austbrokers members. So that's, you know, you need to be part of the family to benefit from things for the family. But then there are a bunch of services where, frankly, we deliver them well and cost effectively because of our scale. They're not really a competitive advantage, and so why wouldn't we want to share them with others? They get the benefit of our scale, and therefore the cost efficiency, and we get the benefit of added scale to then, you know, effectively reduce the cost to deliver those services for the Austbrokers network.
At the most basic, it's really, you know, that synergism effectively. That's the logic of it at one level. The second level is clearly, you know, it's an easier point of entry for someone who may be wanting to become a member of Austbrokers. They're not quite ready yet to take the next step of us becoming an equity holder. That's the key. You can't become an Austbrokers without selling equity, right? This is a useful way of them getting a feel for the benefits of the Austbrokers products and wordings. Part of our network, you start getting the benefit of it. You're not fully in the family. You're sort of a second cousin, I guess. You've got the opportunity of joining us for Christmas dinner or not.
From that point of view, you know, it's a useful mechanism. Even if all it does is helps us defray the costs of services for our network, that's a good outcome. You know, we certainly see there being a gap in the market of people and businesses who would like to take advantage of our scale but aren't yet ready. Actually, you know, we'd like to think that a number of them would then be interested. Whether it's in a year's time or five years' time, they will be interested in becoming, you know, equity members.
What are the types of things that remain exclusive to brokers that are within the network?
Well, the first is our PI program. The second is some of the products where we have, I guess, what we genuinely believe are market-leading features to them. We have some products that are exclusive to us, and we genuinely believe that they are the best products with the best coverages in the marketplace. We want our brokers to win business because they have access to a better product, not just because they're the better brokers. 'Cause if you've got the best broker with the best product, guess what? You're gonna deliver the best service to the client. Those things we've limited only to the Austbrokers members.
Obviously, there's a piece around some of the services that we provide, you know, some of the risk and compliance and, et cetera, things that we do which are tightly integrated to our risk governance framework, et cetera. Those are, you know, exclusive to our members. Some of the commercials are different. You know, our network members are charged costs. We don't try and make money out of our network. You know, we're effectively trying to minimize their costs so that we as shareholders, along with, you know, the other shareholders, will benefit from those efficiencies. Whereas obviously with The Insurance Alliance, it's a commercial charge.
Okay. Thanks for that.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We will pause momentarily to allow questions to register. There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand back to Mr. Emmett for closing remarks.
Thanks very much, Noah, and thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. We continue to make substantial progress on the strategic initiatives, and hopefully, you can see the tangible benefits flowing through to the revenue, to the margin, and to our profits. Much remains to be done. We've got a significant opportunity ahead of us. We're still in the early stages of our journey to build out the agencies and to transform New Zealand broking. The benefits from leveraging the scale we have to optimize our insurance placements locally and abroad are substantial and largely untapped, and I've spoken about this previously. At the same time, the opportunities presented by our technology assets are likely to drive long-term performance improvements. I look forward to meeting many of you over the coming days to discuss our progress. Thank you so much again for joining the call.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.