Managing risk in an uncertain world

Business Post

16-05-2025

These are uncertain times for business, amid global political and economic volatility, so finding partners that are reliable and that can take away some of that uncertainty is vital. These partners must be innovative, flexible, agile and passionate about finding the right solution for their clients.
'The world is getting increasingly complex, and our clients' needs are getting more complicated,' said Jonathan Brown, Chief Commercial Officer at Arachas Corporate Brokers. 'We're dealing with uncertainty in areas such as tariffs, and geopolitical instability to list a couple. These issues affect every part of business, for example, global supply chains, whereby the cost of rebuilding structures or repairing a motor vehicle could very well increase on the back of tariffs.'
Arachas is Ireland's largest nationwide insurance broker and part of The Ardonagh Group, one of the world's largest brokers with $18 billion premium under management and more than 12,000 people, spanning 250+ locations in more than 30 different territories. This puts Arachas into the best place to provide insurance and risk services to Irish companies and people across a broad range of sectors.
'Our growth was driven by M&A activity in recent years, underpinned by the purchase of Arachas by The Ardonagh Group,' said Brown. 'We have the strength of our global parent, bringing countless advantages to our customers, while being close to where our customers are transacting business, allowing us to understand their needs.
'At Arachas we provide top quality insurance and risk transfer advice to our large corporate clients but throughout our business, we maintain our original ethos of knowing our customers deeply and providing personalised service. We currently are a €600 million premium business, with over 700 staff across 14 different locations in Ireland.'
With such global expertise and a commitment to customer-centric service, Arachas is uniquely positioned to deal with complex insurance customers and their needs through a well-established corporate practice.
'In our corporate practice, we would be particularly well known for our expertise in the construction space,' said Brown. 'We have also a significant presence in several other sectors such as real estate, manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, professional services and food and beverage.
'A corporate buyer's needs are going to be substantially more complex. With our sectoral expertise, our job is to understand the challenges our clients face and being able to advise them around effective transfer of risk.
We currently are a €600 million premium business, with over 700 staff across 14 different locations in Ireland
These clients, says Brown, need a tailored approach designed around innovative thought.'Can we do something for them? Can we create a scheme? Can we solve the problem on their behalf? Some of our work that I'd be most proud of would be the schemes that we've created for pinch-point sectors (areas that, due to their nature, are challenging to insure) in the Irish insurance market over the last number of years, for groups such as the Irish Association for Adventure Tourism and the Irish Inflatable Hirers Federation, resolving real needs for customers that otherwise weren't able to access insurance products.
'Because Arachas is a broker, we can work with groups of companies and other bodies on initiatives, as we have the capacity to find and put together a solution no matter how complex the need is.'
Arachas has grown its employee base exponentially over the past few years across its 14 locations, continually acting on feedback from our staff, to make Arachas a great place to work. 'We have invested in learning and development programmes to ensure our people can continually grow and upskill, allowing us to stay innovative which is a vital part of Arachas' approach. This keeps us knowledgeable, relevant and positions us to provide added value and benefits to our clients.
'An example that comes to mind is around ever more common cyber-attacks. Our cyber experts work with our customers continuously to advise what product is best suited to address their needs; this requires expertise that we have in-house and that we are proud of.'
Arachas believes that giving back through community involvement and charitable giving are also important aspects to their human approach to corporate insurance. 'We support charities which are close to the hearts of our employees and clients, including Laura Lynn, Down Syndrome Ireland and Cancer Fund for Children.
Over the past few years, Arachas has supported Cancer Fund for Children, in conjunction with Ardonagh, raising €2 million to support vital resources for families and children battling cancer.
From June 7-15, Arachas is proud to sponsor the 26 Mountains 2 Mayo Challenge, where 20 business leaders with an Arachas relay team will scale the highest peak in every county across Ireland, for this worthy cause.