British giant Howden says 70pc of Australian business underinsured
While the company has operated in Australia since 2021, starting local operations soon after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the insurer has gained more recognition recently as the front-of-jersey sponsor of the British and Irish Lions as they toured the country.

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Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Workers are following the flexible jobs
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The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
Workers are following the flexible jobs
'I don't like getting in the car and driving into an office five days a week, so I looked for roles that were more flexible,' she says. Before accepting her current role, she had conversations with a competing firm, but quickly decided the role wasn't for her. 'It was clear from the conversations I was having with that workplace that there was not going to be a lot of flexibility to work from home,' she says. She accepted her current role two years ago because she felt her needs would be met and hasn't looked back. She works in the office three days a week and from home two days but can switch the days around. She can even work an extra day from home if that suits her without having to ask permission. Loading 'We just communicate within our own team at the end of each week what works best for us the following week based on our own schedules,' she says. Back to work Liz and Ruben are part of a growing number of workers opting out of workplaces with rigid rules on where they need to work in favour of roles that openly promote work from home days. Ruben says she designed a life that works for her. 'Work is a big part of your life and there's no point being miserable.' Loading However, large Australian companies are continuing to mandate hard and fast work from the office arrangements, creating tensions in the workplace. Nearly 39,000 staff members at National Australia Bank were asked to increase the number of days they spend in the office each week. The bank is one of a growing number of businesses moving away from the work from home model. Other companies pushing for staff to get back to the office five days a week include Amazon, Dell, CommBank and the NSW government. Meanwhile, Sydney father Paul Collins took his employer to the Fair Work Commission seeking a continuation of the flexible working arrangements he had been enjoying since the COVID-19 pandemic. Collins, who works for global software company Intersystems Australia, wanted to continue working from home on Wednesdays and Thursdays to care for his children and because he needed 'work-life balance'. His workplace refused his request under a new ruling requiring all staff to return to the office full-time. But his request was overruled by Fair Work, which said the application he had lodged because of his preference to continue working from home did not relate to his parental responsibilities. Workers are required to show they have a good enough reason to request to work from home, while Fair Work Deputy President Lyndall Dean found a 'preference' to continue working from home wasn't enough. In Victoria, the state government is seeking to legislate a right to work from home. But Ruben says it's always worth asking the boss for more flexibility.

The Age
11 hours ago
- The Age
The system for selling property is broken
AI, something's not right Apropos Waleed Aly's article on AI (8/8), yesterday I asked Google for train times from East Malvern to the city and got an AI Overview saying East Malvern is on the Frankston line and takes about 15minutes to travel to the city. Another attempt gave ″you can take a Glen Waverley line train to Caulfield then transfer to a Frankston line train to Flinders Street″. One answer included a link to Rome2Rio which also contains this wrong information. I was asked to rate the first answer and I said it was wrong, so I was then requested to give the correct answer for the purpose of training AI! Does PTV or Metro Trains know prospective passengers are being given wrong information? It's also not my job to train AI. This is preposterous. Don Jordan, Mt Waverley Legislation not needed Surely, mandating working from home with legislation is cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer. Forward-looking employers are already facilitating working from home arrangements. Those who don't, will be judged by the jobs market as inflexible, and will miss out on recruiting the best talent. Legislating work from home is already redundant. Matthew Hamilton, Kew WFH just a useful tool Working from home is not a hill to die on. Before the arguments get too polarised and confrontational, politically, socially or economically, we need to recognise that it's merely a useful tool that can offer greater flexibility to some people and some workplaces, not all. We all look at work-life balance from different angles, and find the best option in any situation needs to be a matter of sensible negotiation not a battleground. The COVID years provided a glimpse of options we hadn't previously had to try; it would be a pity if this led to insistence on legislated rights that undermine the potential benefits of newfound flexibility. Jenifer Nicholls, Windsor Meaningless roundtable Despite continued calls for change, if Anthony Albanese insists there will be no major overhaul of the tax system, just what is the point of the economic reform roundtable? Annie Wilson, Inverloch Learn from history Benjamin Netanyahu is deluding himself in believing that he can defeat Hamas. The full force of the American military battled the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army for 10 years and was defeated. The same will happen in Gaza no matter how much destruction and killing the Israeli Defence Force wreak there. Reg Murray, Glen Iris How high the toll? Gaza. How many more will die? Malcolm McDonald, Burwood A military occupation So it's now official Israeli policy to turn Gaza into a demilitarised zone, except for the Israeli military, of course. David Robertson, Wheatsheaf This is not freedom Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to free the population of Gaza. More likely he'll free Gaza of its population. Richard Wilson, Croydon PM, do something Israel has said the quiet part out loud. It plans to conquer Gaza, fence it in, and decide who can live there and who cannot (″ Israel set on conquering ″ 10/8). After months of bombing, starving, and killing, they call this 'security'. And our government? It nods along with concern written on its face, but its hands stay firmly in its pockets. No sanctions. No arms embargo. Not even the courage to recognise Palestine without strings attached. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong – you know exactly what is happening. You know the siege, the starvation, the expulsions, the massacres, are part of the same story that began in 1948. You know this is the erasure of a people. So what's stopping you? Fear of upsetting Washington? I don't want to hear another word of sympathy from leaders who will not act. Sympathy doesn't feed the starving. It doesn't rebuild the ruins. It doesn't save a single child in Gaza tonight. Lila Malagi, Flinders Premier, do something Thirty years ago, Jeff Kennett sold off government assets to pay down the massive public debt incurred by the Cain and Kirner administrations. We were the rustbucket state going nowhere, largely because the (then) powerful transport unions, supposedly 'supporters″ of Labor, regularly shut down the transport networks. Since then Labor has enthusiastically followed Kennett's playbook, selling off the last remaining government-owned assets. Now Victoria is once again mired in debt but with no 'silver' left to flog to pay it off. Instead of moaning about what the Liberals did a political eon ago, the premier should focus her attention on how she is going to fix the state's dreadful finances. Perhaps she could start by selling off the reconstituted SEC, but would anyone buy it? Greg Hardy, Upper Ferntree Gully A timid country You have to wonder why Anthony Albanese is organising a talkfest about policy when he is spending most of his time ruling policy options out. No increase to GST; no tackling of negative gearing (even for investors with multiple properties); no reforms to capital gains taxes or dividend imputation policies; and importantly no consideration of a carbon tax – the most effective and efficient tool in the fight against climate change. Above all else multinationals continue to exploit our natural resources while paying minimal or no tax. Australia was once a model for reforms – particularly in democratic initiatives – now we are a timid country run by timid people. Noel Turnbull, Port Melbourne