For most small broker and AR businesses, the first non-broker hire is the most significant structural decision they’ll make after going out on their own. It changes the fixed cost base, the risk profile, and – if done well – how the principal spends their time from that point forward.
Most brokers get to this point the same way. The book has grown to a size where the work no longer fits into the available hours. Quotes are backing up. Simple document requests sit in the inbox longer than they should. Renewal reviews get compressed because there’s always something more urgent in front of them. The principal is spending the majority of their week on tasks that don’t require a broker’s judgement, and the work that does – advice, negotiation, relationship management – gets whatever time is left.
That’s the trigger. Not a specific revenue number or headcount target. Just the consistent experience of the business constraining itself because there aren’t enough hours to run it properly.
The Three Options and Their Trade-offs
There are three realistic paths for a first non-broker resource: an in-house admin or assistant, a junior broker or broker assistant, or outsourced support. Each solves a different version of the capacity problem.
An in-house admin or assistant is the most common first hire and usually the right one for brokers whose primary constraint is processing and workflow rather than technical capacity. The role covers inbound calls, scheduling, data entry, document preparation, CRM upkeep, follow-ups with clients and insurers, and basic claims lodgement support. Research on assistant roles in insurance businesses consistently points to significant time savings for the principal broker – often measured in hours per day – with corresponding improvements in client response times and service consistency.
The downsides are structural. A full-time employee brings fixed salary costs plus superannuation and leave entitlements, which can be difficult to carry if revenue is uneven. There’s also a management overhead that many solo brokers underestimate: recruiting, training, supervising, and performance-managing a staff member takes time and capability that may not currently be sitting in the business.
A junior broker or broker assistant makes sense when the constraint isn’t just admin volume but technical capacity – when there are more client relationships and simpler risks than the principal can service properly. ANZIIF’s guidance on entry-level broking roles describes broker assistant positions as combining admin and early technical tasks, with the expectation that the role develops toward independent client management over time. That trajectory is the main advantage: you’re not just buying capacity today, you’re building capability for the next phase of the business.
The cost is time and investment upfront. Tier 1 qualification requirements, compliance supervision, and the reality that a junior broker may add to the principal’s workload before they reduce it – through training demands alone – mean the payoff is measured in years, not months. Hays’ guidance on insurance broker roles in Australia makes clear that industry experience and technical competence are near-mandatory expectations even at junior levels, which limits how quickly an unqualified hire can contribute.
Outsourced or offshore support converts fixed salary costs into a variable service arrangement, often at significantly lower total cost, with the added benefit of being scalable around renewal peaks and catastrophe periods rather than carrying full-time cost year-round. The trade-off can be management complexity: the need for documented processes, and strict governance to ensure outsourced staff operate within the boundaries of what’s permitted under your licence – providing regulated advice is not one of them.
The Hiring Mistake Most Brokers Make
The most common error isn’t choosing the wrong option. It’s hiring too late and under pressure, which usually produces a poorly defined role.
A broker who waits until they’re genuinely overwhelmed tends to hire reactively – grabbing whoever is available and loading them up with a mix of admin, broking tasks, client contact, and whatever else is piling up. The result is a “Frankenstein job” that’s difficult to train for, difficult to supervise, and difficult to hold to any measurable standard. The practical risk here is that the line between admin tasks and regulated advice activity needs to be clear before a non-broker is touching client files, not worked out afterwards.
The better approach is to define the role before the hire. Map the tasks currently consuming the principal’s time. Separate them into what genuinely requires broker judgement and what doesn’t. Build a position description around the second category, with clear KPIs, a documented first-90-days plan, and defined boundaries around what the role can and can’t do without broker sign-off.
That process is harder to do well in isolation – partly because it requires an honest assessment of how the business actually operates, and partly because most solo brokers haven’t hired before and don’t have a reference point for what good looks like.
Where Network Support Makes a Difference
A good AR network has seen this decision made well and made badly across multiple member businesses. That experience is directly applicable: which role type suits which stage of growth, what a well-structured position description looks like for a general insurance context, how to set up workflows so a new hire can be productive quickly, and which outsourcing arrangements have worked for other members in similar situations.
Better Broker Network members work through hiring and capacity decisions with founders who’ve built and staffed their own brokerages – not as a theoretical exercise, but as a practical conversation grounded in how their specific book is structured and where the actual bottlenecks are. The network’s business mentoring covers resource planning and capacity decisions as core topics, alongside the financial and portfolio questions that typically come up at the same growth stage. If your first non-broker hire is a decision you’re approaching without anyone to pressure-test it with, find out what Better Broker Network membership looks like.