SEQ owners need to stay vigilant: corruption in strata insurance remains a major problem

A damning regulatory review released in late June 2026 confirmed that corruption, unmanaged conflicts of interest and strata insurance commissions remain a major industry-wide problem, and owners are the ones paying for it.

The Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee reviewed seven brokerages working with more than 1,000 strata manager representatives. Each of the seven was found to be in breach of the industry’s own Code of Practice. The IBCCC issued nine formal breach determinations across the seven brokers and referred two of them to ASIC. In one case, a strata management company wholly owned the broker through which it placed business and shared in its profits. The broker didn’t even recognise this as a conflict of interest. Read the:

• coverage here: Damning strata investigation: All seven broker firms breaching the Code
• the full report here: Strengthening transparency and trust in broker-agent arrangements

Hidden commissions and unmanaged conflicts are not new to strata. ABC’s Four Corners program “The Strata Trap” broke this story back in 2024 when more than 2,000 owners came forward with their own stories of secret deals between strata managers, brokers and insurers. In one case that stood out, a strata manager’s related insurance entity was charging fees of up to 110% of the base premium against a typical strata insurance commission of around 20%. The report highlights that, two years on, the same conflicts are still here.

The core problem is simple: you pay a commission to your strata manager through your premium. That means the person choosing your insurance profits when your costs go up.

Where Tower stands

Tower does not accept insurance commissions. For years, we’ve fully rebated any insurance commission to owners. In 2025, we went further and restructured our brokerage arrangements. We’ve now placed our schemes’ insurance through Strata Insurance Solutions, a broker operating on a fee-for-service model that pays no commissions or referral fees, so no insurance commissions are paid to Tower.

Here’s how we structure it for the schemes we manage, under one of three options agreed by the committee in advance:

• Owners organise: your committee arranges insurance directly. Tower charges nothing unless asked to assist.
• Renewal plus: a fixed fee to arrange your renewal, with claims work billed hourly.
• Fixed fee: a capped annual per-lot fee covering placement and claims handling.

You can see the full breakdown of our flexible insurance options on our insurance information page.

Why we’re telling you this

We don’t think strata insurance commission-free management should be rare. We think it should be the standard every strata scheme in Australia can expect. Right now in Queensland, most owners don’t even know it’s an option.

If your scheme isn’t currently working this way, we’d like to show you what a transparent, fee-for-service arrangement actually looks like. No obligation, just an honest comparison.