Matt Andrews

Managing Partner
Kennedys

Matt is Managing Partner of Kennedys in Australia and a member of Kennedys Global Strategy Board. He has more than 20 years’ experience in insurance and reinsurance law and litigation across multiple insurance lines, particularly financial lines, professional indemnity and complex multi-jurisdictional property, construction and mining claims. He has considerable experience advising on coverage issues and the interpretation of multi-line global master policies.

Hilary Bates

Chief Claims Officer – General Insurance
Zurich Financial Services Australia

Hilary Bates was appointed as Chief Claims Officer in August 2016. Hilary is responsible for leading Zurich’s Australian and New Zealand General Insurance Claims Operation, which is focused on delivering an outstanding claims service to our customers.
Prior to joining Zurich, Hilary held senior claims management roles at QBE, including Head of Long Tail Claims and Head of Strategy and Technical. She worked in the USA for seven years gaining valuable and varied experience across complex claims and senior claims management roles. Hilary started her career in private practice working within insurance, risk management and litigation practice groups.

Since joining Zurich, Hilary has driven revised operating models for Motor and Property Claims, improving customer service delivery with the outcome of a 135% improvement in TNPS scores over two years. This has included re-engineering business processes and solutions for administrative tasks, the implementation of robotics and automation, the upgrade to functionality of customer reporting, and the introduction of new vendor partners. Under Hilary's leadership, Zurich has launched the Priority Repair Service offering a straight through motor repair solution to insureds and third parties, and the Priority Settlement Service fast-tracking property damage claims under $30,000. Hilary is currently overseeing the build and implementation of a new claim system for Zurich Australia.

Hilary holds a Bachelor of Arts (Archaeology), Bachelor of Laws (Honours), and Master of Laws from the University of Sydney and is admitted to practice law in New South Wales.

With over 15 years working in the insurance industry, Hilary is passionate about claims and delivering on the promise to Zurich’s customers.

Erica Booker

Sales & Marketing Manager
Steamatic

Erica’s restoration career spans over the last 16 years having worked for national and regional companies in the Northeast of the United States before relocating to Melbourne, Australia and joining Steamatic in 2017.
She brings years of experience and a deep understanding of the clients' needs and the importance of disaster recovery plans and pre-mitigation conversations.

Before joining Steamatic, Erica worked for a global adjusting firm in the U.S. rounding out her knowledge base of global insurance policies and response protocols. Based in Melbourne, she leads the marketing strategy for our Global Major Projects Division, SGR, and the Australian domestic market.

Industry Certifications:

• IICRC Certification in Fire, Water, Mould, and Odour Control
• ICRA Certifications in Infection Control Risk Assessment
• NAPSLO Excess & Surplus Insurance Lines

Karim Derrick

Head of Research & Development
Kennedys

Karim leads Kennedys’ Research & Development team, which is responsible for developing and maintaining technologies that support the entire life cycle of an insurance claim, including the proprietary Kennedys Toolkit.  Karim has held product development and C-suite roles for a variety of EdTech businesses, managed development teams and worked with startups to secure VC and government funding. Karim has a particular interest in blockchain, machine learning, artificial intelligence and intelligent workflow and is a regular speaker at international conferences on related topics.

Susan Donaldson

Head of Claims
Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance

Susan Donaldson is Head of Claims for Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance. Based in Sydney, Susan is responsible for setting claims strategy and managing claims performance for BHSI in Australia. She is a member of the Australian Leadership Team and Global Claims Leadership Team.

Susan joined BHSI at its opening in Australia in March 2015 and has built an exceptional claims team across BHSI’s many and varied lines of business. Delivering on BHSI’s “claims is our product” message, the claims team provide a prompt and empathetic claims experience to BHSI’s customers.

Susan began her career as a legal practitioner with Moray & Agnew, prior to moving to claims management roles in specialty and liability lines with Chubb and Zurich. Susan is active in the insurance industry and regularly presents with the Australia Insurance Law Association and the Australia Professional Indemnity Group. She is also involved in mentoring programs for young professionals.

Aamer Fattah

Research and Innovation Specialist
Munich Re

Aamer is a Research & Innovation expert with Munich Re.

Initially qualified as a medical scientist, Aamer has over 14 years of experience in the insurance industry, including digital innovation, design thinking, insurance medicine and actuarial research and development. 

Aamer’s areas of expertise include social robotics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, digital health, mixed reality and other emerging technologies.

Aamer holds two medical science degrees from the University of Otago, a graduate business degree from the University of New South Wales, and is a graduate of the University of Oxford’s Fintech Programme.

In his free time, he works on levelling-up his programming skills in Python.

Katherine Gobbi

Chief Executive Officer
EMLife

Katherine is the founding CEO of EMLife, a Joint Venture subsidiary of the EML Group, established in 2016.   Katherine has over 16 years’ experience in the Insurance Industry and has held many Senior Leadership roles including working with Regulatory Bodies and more recently EML.

Katherine is a passionate Leader who has extensive experience in personal injury claims management.   Her passion for the Customer is matched only by her passion for her People and evidenced in the culture she has built within EMLife - based firmly on the foundations of Integrity, Customer Centricity, Innovation, Empowerment and Alignment to a higher purpose.  

James Hahm

Claims Executive
GenRe

James Hahm is a claims executive at General Reinsurance where he works across the entire spectrum of property and casualty classes in the Australia /New Zealand region.

He started his career in legal practice working for a corporate regulator before upgrading by working in insurance. Through his insurance career he has held roles in claims, underwriting and client management. He has a special interest in medical indemnity insurance having worked in both a claims and underwriting capacity in the area. A keen futurist and commentator he is always happy to tell people why driverless cars will not work.

Sheriff Hamza

Head of Claims – Life and Investments
Zurich Financial Services Australia

Sheriff has over 20 years’ experience in both Life and General insurance and held many assessing and management roles over this period.  Sheriff been the Head of Claims at Zurich since March 2018.  Prior to joining Zurich Sheriff was the Group Claims Manager at AIA where he led a team of over 140 people over 3 states supporting many large scale clients.

Sheriff has a passion for claims and ensuring the claims process is there to support the client when they need it most.

Cecilia Hidalgo

Claims Operations Manager (Australia & New Zealand)
Chubb Insurance

Cecilia is responsible for driving and managing the major support pillars for the Chubb A&NZ Claims team. Cecilia has 16 years’ experience in the insurance industry, 12 years in the Australian market and 4 years in the Latin American market. She has a strong background in the area of claims, projects, continuous process improvement/optimisation, systems, data analytics, and management.

Angus Kench

Vice President Claims – Casualty, Workers Compensation and Crisis Management Asia Pacific
Liberty International Underwriters

Angus joined LIU in January 2015 to oversee the casualty claims team across the Asia Pacific region working closely with underwriters, claims professionals and risk engineers to ensure optimum outcomes for the business. Since joining LIU he has taken on the management of additional claims portfolios including workers compensation and crisis management.

Angus has over 25 years of commercial and insurance experience including 18 years leading a casualty claims management, adjusting and investigation business. He has managed

casualty claims and litigation across a wide variety of industries including construction, industrial, retail, energy and mining sectors for insurers, corporates and government entities.

Prior to joining LIU Angus was General Manager of a large Australian loss adjusting business overseeing all professional claims staff across multi-lines.

His qualifications include Bachelor of Business, Executive Certificate in Insurance, ANZIIF (Fellow), CIP, FAIM. He is currently the National President of AILA (Australian Insurance Law Association).

Elio Patane

Head of Digital Services and Delivery
WorkCover QLD

Elio Patane is the Head of Digital Services and Delivery at WorkCover Queensland, and is responsible for the delivery of digital solutions both internally through its core applications and externally across multiple digital channels.

As WorkCover Queensland progresses along its customer experience journey, Elio is responsible for ensuring its digital solutions meet and exceed people’s expectations using a combination of agile software delivery practices and human-centred design principles. Using this approach culminated with the Digital Service and Delivery team being awarded the “Innovation in Injury and Disability Management”  at the 2018 Personal Injury Education Foundation (PIEF) awards for the re-design of their digital services.

Elio’s career spans over 25 years’ experience leading software development teams in Australia, Hong Kong, London and Brussels,  across various industries including insurance, digital marketing, mining and human resource management in both private and government sectors. He has a passion for Agile practices and developing high performing teams.

Daniel Sayegh

General Manager
EMLife

Daniel is the General Manager of EMLife, a joint venture subsidiary of the EML group. Daniel has over 10 years of operational management experience within the financial services and foodservice industries. During his six years with EML, Daniel has led various teams across both workers compensation and life insurance jurisdictions; Daniel currently oversees the operational, finance and people function of the business with EMLife teams placed within multiple host insurer clients.

Daniel is known for fostering collaborative customer relationships (exec and end user) with related solutions, an absolute commitment to empowered people first cultures, increasing business performance through alignment of business strategy and operational output and has a keen interest in linking neuroleadership within the workplace.

Outside of his day to day role, Daniel is a current board member for Kogarah Community Services (KCS), a not-for-profit community-based organization providing services in aged care, children’s services and the community.

Wayne Spence

Commercial Assessment Manager
Steamatic

Wayne’s restoration career commenced in 1980 as a Claims Officer at United Insurance, before becoming a trainee Loss Adjuster with Allan G Lewis & Associates.  In 1994 Wayne became a partner at Lewis Graham Loss Adjusters where he settled claims in excess of $5m.

Wayne began his career at Steamatic in 2004as a Commercial Assessment Manager He manages large loss commercial claims and also specialises in Document Recovery.

Notable Assignments

• Townsville Floods Feb 2019 Large Shopping Centre and multiple national retailers $1.2m
• North Queensland Cyclone Debbie March 2017 University flood in multiple locations $2m.

Industry Certifications 

• IICRC – Fire & Smoke, Odour Control, Water, Mould & Floor Care

Richard West

Global Head of Innovation
Kennedys

Richard leads Kennedys’ liability division in the UK where he acts for insurers, third-party administrators, and brokers and corporates with large deductibles, defending motor and casualty claims. He is also a member of Kennedys Global Strategy Board and the leader of Kennedys Innovations team. In this role he oversaw the development of the Kennedy Toolkit, including the award-winning online claims platform ‘KLAiM’ which has won numerous awards in Europe and will shortly be launched in Australia.

Nick Wiesener

Disaster Response, Resilience and Innovation Manager
Insurance Council of Australia

Nick helps to manage the insurance industry’s response to disasters, assisting impacted communities to recover as quickly as possible. He also promotes disaster mitigation and innovation.

Prior to joining the ICA in 2016, Nick was a lawyer specialising in corporate risk and insurance with Norton Rose Fulbright, he has also served in the Australian Army.