Delta Spotlight - Melissa Downman

While a career start working as a property manager in a family business worked for some time, Melissa Downman felt something of a different pull and went to a recruiter in search of a more suitable direction. With an aptitude for numbers, insurance beckoned – and from 2006 to present, she hasn’t looked back.

Underwriting has lasting appeal as it is a numbers game, while Melissa relishes the people aspect of the business. She values relationships with clients, brokers, and colleagues alike, and delights in understanding the challenges, goals, and requirements of individual organisations – then translating these metrics into the most suitable insurance policies. It’s about sound and mutual value creation for customer and company, Melissa stresses.

But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of a career in which she has risen from underwriting assistant to senior underwriter (while also serving as a junior board member and Underwriting Assistant Program Manager across Australia and New Zealand) is that seventeen years into her association with a major multinational underwriter, only the draw of Delta Insurance could entice a change of employer. “That was thanks to Steve Carey, who I’d long worked with. When he joined Delta, I was devastated but immediately keen to follow. And now, that’s happened…” she smiles.

Coming on board heading Management Liability, Melissa is keen to make her mark in what she sees to be a major opportunity in the Brisbane-and-surrounds areas of Queensland. While most of her career has focused on underwriting in financial lines targeting ASX-listed clients, she says there is an enormous SME (small to medium sized enterprise) customer base requiring packaged product elements from the Delta Insurance product set.

She’ll put her corporate experience to good use, along with a cheerful demeanour and proven capability of delivering consistent value.

Outside of the office, Melissa is a busy mother to three girls making for a busy household, with a daily run providing space for reflection and as a compulsive reader, a book is never far from her reach. She’s also a big fan of hitting the slopes, and notes that any Delta Insurance activity in the South Island of New Zealand has her close attention.