Our commitment to service and transparency for our Members remains unwavering. We are excited to share a snapshot of Unimutual’s performance for the first half of the 2024/25 protection year. The Unimutual team sincerely thanks our Members for their ongoing support and engagement throughout the year.
Our Mutual model exists for one reason – to serve our Members. Unlike commercial insurers focused on generating profits for shareholders, our sole purpose is to provide fair, stable and sustainable protection tailored to the higher education and research sectors. In response to our Members’ request for greater transparency, Unimutual partnered with leading insurance consultant, Finity Consulting, to conduct an independent market comparison. This study analysed our contribution trends over the past decade against broader insurance market movements, covering both soft and hard market conditions.
Over the past decade, Unimutual has delivered better pricing performance for our portfolio, compared to the broader insurance market. Our Members have benefited from a stable and resilient pricing model that has shielded them from some of the volatility typically seen in commercial property insurance. This long-term advantage reflects our unwavering commitment to economic pricing and sustainable value. By leveraging a geographically diversified portfolio and deep sector-specific expertise, we are able to assess and price risk more accurately. This ensures that Members benefit from our collective strength, shared protection, and a pricing approach tailored to their unique risk profile.
Unimutual’s pricing approach is designed to deliver meaningful benefits to Members by ensuring a degree of stability in contributions across market cycles. This helps institutions manage their budgets with greater confidence, even during periods of volatility. Members also benefit from the continued availability of tailored protection, specifically designed for the unique needs of higher education and research institutions. Transparent pricing practices foster trust and clarity, while enduring savings and sustainable pricing reinforce Unimutual’s commitment to long-term value. Your ongoing trust enables us to uphold these principles and remain dedicated to delivering lasting value in both risk protection and prevention.
The 2024/25 protection year renewal was successfully completed on 1 November 2024, having earlier renewed our reinsurance programs, effective 1 October 2024. Once again, each of the reinsurers on our 2024/25 program has a financial credit rating by S&P Global of A- or better (or A.M. Best equivalent). This ensures that Unimutual has strong financial stability partners, reliable claims payment and reduced counterparty risk.
For the 2024/25 renewal exercise, we hosted individual Member meetings, tailored presentations and provided enhanced transparency in our documentation. We also introduced a more streamlined and efficient renewal documentation process, ensuring Members had access to relevant renewal documentation and confirmation of protections in significantly reduced timeframes compared to prior years. Results from our Member survey indicated that 97 per cent of respondents found the renewal process to be good/excellent, which is up from 94 per cent in 2023/24.
Despite ongoing challenges in the global insurance and reinsurance markets, including significant weather events, the Unimutual team and our Members showcased remarkable diligence. By submitting timely and accurate data and maintaining strong risk management profiles, we successfully secured reinsurance renewal. This achievement provided the necessary capacity at competitive rates, ultimately benefiting our Members and highlighting our resilience in the face of such challenges.
Unimutual’s 2025 Conference was held from Wednesday 19 March to Friday 21 March at the Pullman Hotel in Adelaide. This year’s theme, ‘Leading Through Challenging Times’, inspired attendees with a wealth of insights on essential leadership skills and experiences for thriving amidst uncertainty. We heard from an outstanding lineup of speakers, dedicated sessions were held for Member education, and we celebrated a record number of attendees – welcoming 135 delegates from more than 70 organisations across the higher education and research sectors. Our Annual Conference provided a vibrant and uplifting platform for networking and collaboration, fostering a sense of community and shared purpose.
The Unimutual Excellence Awards, now in their second year, celebrate outstanding achievements by our Members in Risk Prevention, Risk Protection and Claims Management. This year we received a considerable number of nominations, showcasing the exemplary efforts within our Member organisations in these critical areas. Congratulations to all the recipients, who were recognised at our Annual Conference in Adelaide.
To further improve the overall Member experience and ensure easier access to critical information on risk prevention and protection, Unimutual launched a newly designed and improved website in March 2025. This upgraded platform retains the core functionality of the original website and introduces a more intuitive structure and streamlined navigation to make key resources easier to find and use.
In addition to improved usability, the website features updated content and a more user-friendly interface, designed with Member feedback in mind. These enhancements aim to provide greater value by supporting informed decision-making, improving
engagement and enabling users to better connect with the wealth of resources available.
To assist Members in their understanding of a variety of topics, including Unimutual’s protection offerings, we have elevated our ‘You asked, we listened’ fact sheet series (which can be found here), with new content, including:
We have also been progressively refreshing and updating existing Risk Management checklists, guidelines and emerging risk reports, which are available on our website for Members to access here. These include:
In an environment of rising expectations around speed and documentation quality, we successfully implemented a project to automate the generation of renewal documentation for the 2024/25 renewal. This significantly reduced the reliance on individual
staff, minimised the risk of error and delivered the 2024/25 renewal documentation directly to Members from the Resure hub, improving its availability.
In the first half of this year, our Risk Services team completed comprehensive risk surveys at nine Member institutions across the country. A further 16 surveys are scheduled for the second half of the year. Guidance material has been developed in collaboration with the Tertiary Education Facilities Management Association (TEFMA) for the management of Lithium-ion batteries, and an ESG emissions calculator is currently in development.
Earlier this year, we welcomed Glenn Mowbray, who joins Unimutual as a Senior Risk Consultant, to increase our bandwidth for conducting comprehensive risk surveys and advancing our risk consulting capabilities. This investment ensures we can provide a greater range of innovative services, better target emerging risks and focus more heavily on sector-specific needs, while delivering greater value and peace of mind to our Members.
In November 2024, we asked our Members to share feedback on their experience with Unimutual through our annual Member Experience Survey. The results highlighted how much our Members value our products and services, including an NPS score of +54.3, 97 per cent satisfaction and 97 per cent trust in our service offering among our Members. The survey feedback also contributed to the design and development of the Member Dashboards, which have been well received by Members.
As part of our commitment to evolving and enhancing Member engagement, Unimutual’s Technical Committee has been renamed the Member Reference Group. This group plays a crucial role in providing direct access to our management team, offering feedback for continuous improvement, and contributing to strategic initiatives. The new name demonstrates that Members do not need a technical insurance background to participate. More than ever, we want Members to be at the heart of our strategic planning. We have expanded this group to ensure even broader representation within the Mutual and stronger collaboration. Following each group meeting, a report is produced highlighting the discussion points and is made available via the Member portal on our website.
In 2024, Unimutual partnered with the Risk Management Institute of Australasia (RMIA) to provide free Member access to the latest risk management strategies, tools and training resources. This initiative aims to provide further support to Members to mitigate emerging risks and strengthen their frameworks for making informed, proactive decisions. We are pleased to report that 75 individuals from across our Membership have joined the RMIA, taking up the opportunity to have complementary access to a large suite of risk management tools, training and resources to support their roles in risk management and prevention.
There have been several weather and natural catastrophe events during the first half of the year and Unimutual is proud to have been able to stand beside our Members and support them in their times of need. Despite these events, our claims portfolio is trending within tolerance. In addition, our first half year result includes an expense profile in line with budget and investment income and broadly in line with budget. As a result, we are forecasting a budget surplus for the full financial year. The uniqueness of our operating model allows Unimutual to retain surpluses for the future benefit of Members. This helps to strengthen the resilience of the Mutual and smooth the peaks and troughs of the insurance cycle.
Renewing our reinsurance programs, effective 1 October 2025, remains a central focus as we prepare for a smooth and seamless 2025/26 protection renewal. This renewal is critical to ensuring Unimutual continues to provide Members with the protection they need. By securing reinsurance early, we aim to maintain pricing stability and ensure continuity of tailored protection for higher education and research institutions, even amid global market challenges.
As part of this process, we will once again host individual Member meetings, designed to address the specific circumstances and needs of each Member. These meetings provide a valuable opportunity to engage directly, share insights and ensure that each Member receives clear, relevant information about their protections. Tailored presentations and open dialogue help foster transparency and trust, while also allowing us to respond to feedback and refine our approach. This personalised engagement is a cornerstone of our renewal strategy, ensuring Members feel supported and informed throughout the process.
By continuing to prioritise early planning, strong partnerships and Member-centric communication, we aim to deliver a renewal experience that is efficient, responsive, and aligned with our commitment to long-term value and protection.
Unimutual has several key projects underway for the 2024/25 financial year to further strengthen the value proposition and resilience of the Mutual.
Officially launched at our Annual Conference in March 2025, following design and testing consultation with Members, we have rolled out a new Member Dashboard and reporting portal, which has been an exciting and positive addition to our service offering. With data updated daily, the platform represents a significant step change in how our Members can access current, historical and benchmark data across the Unimutual portfolio, along with information related to their protection and risk management programs.
Cyber security threats are a significant risk to businesses globally. Unimutual has adopted a proactive approach to safeguard our data, digital assets and brand reputation by progressively strengthening our IT security controls. In the first half of this year, Unimutual engaged the services of a specialist Australian cyber security firm. This appointment adds key capabilities to our cyber security program, such as threat intelligence, incident response, forensic investigations and continuous monitoring.
In addition, we have been progressively deploying a program of work to bolster our overall cyber security posture, working to achieving an Australian Signals Directorate Essential Eight cyber security maturity level 2 and aligning with ISO 27001 standards. This program of work is ongoing and we look forward to providing a further update on progress at the end of the year.
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