Suncorp’s Mim Haysom and Leo Australia’s Andy Fergusson on giving every Australian home a voice

Australian insurance giant Suncorp has teamed up with Leo Australia to launch Haven—a first-of-its-kind digital tool that gives every Australian home a voice to reveal its extreme weather risks and offer tips to improve resilience.

 

At the core of Haven is the ‘listen to your home’ tool, which lets any homeowner, regardless of whether they're a Suncorp customer or not, visit the Haven website, enter their address and receive a tailored video and resilience report highlighting their property’s unique vulnerabilities.

 

Developed over two years, Haven combines cutting-edge AI with real-time weather and property data to create an interactive experience that helps Australians prepare for worsening climate threats. Its launch coincides with new data showing that 2.7 million Australian homes face high risk from extreme weather events.

 

 

To spread the word, Suncorp has rolled out a wide-reaching campaign featuring Queensland rugby legend Jonathan Thurston, across TV, digital, social, and more, inviting Australians to discover what their homes are telling them.

 

Following the launch, Campaign spoke with Suncorp’s executive general manager of brand and marketing, Mim Haysom, and Leo Australia’s chief creative officer, Andy Fergusson, about the creativity, challenges, and impact behind this innovative project.

 

Does the Haven tool cover every house in Australia, including remote and underserved areas?

 

Mim Haysom:

Yes, it does. And you can access it whether you're a Suncorp customer or not. It's completely democratised.

 

What inspired the development of Haven, and how does it build on Suncorp's previous initiatives like One House and Resilience Road?

 

Mim Haysom:

For over five years, we’ve focused on helping customers prepare for severe weather, starting with storm season campaigns in Queensland. As risks grew, we launched our initiatives One House and Resilience Road to show how any home can become more resilient.

 

Our research revealed that many people in at-risk areas believed, "That doesn’t apply to me," reflecting a common Australian mindset of, "I’ll be all right, mate." However, events like Tropical Cyclone Alfred have shown this to be a misconception. We found that 2.7 million Australian homes face high risk from at least one extreme weather hazard. This insight inspired us to create Haven—a simple, engaging tool that helps people understand their home’s risks and learn how to improve resilience.

 

 

Amplifying the message is key. How are you letting people know about this tool?

 

Mim Haysom:

We’ve launched a fully integrated campaign, starting with a television commercial featuring Jonathan Thurston, a much-loved Queensland rugby player. There are multiple campaign elements: TV, out-of-home, digital, social, and influencer content showing people actually using Haven. The goal is to make people aware of the tool and drive them to the website.

 

 

What are the key outcomes you're hoping to achieve with Haven?

 

Mim Haysom:

Like earlier phases, it's about brand awareness, engagement, and helping customers see Suncorp as a brand that supports them and helps them be more resilient. We've also played a significant role in advocating with government for more resilient communities, and this work supports those conversations.

 

Ultimately, the best outcome is that our customers and communities are more prepared and resilient when weather events hit. The longer people are displaced from their homes, the greater the social, economic, and mental health impacts. Helping build more resilient communities means people are less affected when these events occur. The campaign’s success will be measured by how much it educates and empowers customers and communities.

 

The concept of giving every home a voice is a great one. Can you walk us through the creative process behind using AI and tailored video content? What challenges did you face?

 

Andy Fergusson:

It definitely wasn’t all smooth sailing—it was incredibly complicated! About two years ago, we started discussing how people in urban areas don’t think home resilience is relevant to them. We thought, if their homes could talk, they’d be crying out for help. That was the insight: we needed to make it personal and emotional, not just Suncorp as a big corporation telling people what to do.

 

We made a brand film and then thought, wouldn’t it be amazing if every home had a voice and could tell you its risks? We realised there’s all this amazing real estate data, insurance data, and peril risk data—could we combine it all? That’s why it took so long: we had to pull together 12 massive data sets and 10 different technologies. There were lots of legal and privacy conversations, and integrating different platforms was a huge task. We put a team together to test the idea, see if it resonated, and then scoped and started the work.

 

Was this the first time you used some of these creative technologies and AI in your campaigns?

 

Andy Fergusson:

Yes, there are so many different technologies at play here. AI is just one small component—the voice. What’s really driving this is data. We created templates for how the story plays out, and every chapter can be almost infinitely customised based on the home’s details, location, age, style, neighbourhood, and weather history.

 

From a technical point of view, the way we’ve integrated into Google Maps, showing storm rendering over Google Maps 3D tiles, uses NASA mapping technology and is very cutting edge. We pushed the technology to its limits to make the experience engaging and personalised, not just a dry document people might ignore.

 

 

How will you measure the success of Haven? Is it just about awareness, or also about behavioural change?

 

Mim Haysom:

There are standard metrics like awareness, consideration, and brand perception. But it’s also about the impact in helping people make their homes more resilient.

 

Since it’s online, we can easily measure engagement: how many people visit the site, use the tool, see it through, and download the report. We’re also tracking social sentiment and media coverage. Most importantly, we want to raise awareness of resilience and exposure to natural hazards—not just Suncorp as a brand. We’re doing a lot of social listening to see if we’re getting traction on the conversation we want to have.

 

Have you had any initial response or feedback from homeowners using the tool yet?

 

Mim Haysom:

It’s only been live and publicly available for four days. We did some earlier tests with our own staff, and Suncorp has thousands of customers, so when we tested it with them, and they’re pretty tough critics, the feedback was great.

 

Andy Fergusson:

Yeah, when your own teams try it, they’ll tell you if it’s any good or not. So far, people are really surprised at how well it works. They’re saying, "This is great. It’s engaging, it’s fun." The feedback so far has been really positive.

 

You mentioned it’s a big campaign with a lot of assets. Out of all the campaign elements, do you have a favourite?

 

Andy Fergusson:

For me, what’s interesting is that Suncorp’s big projects centre around a big idea that’s media-agnostic. Haven is that big idea. Our films are hardworking because the goal is to get people to the website and try it. We have a lot of 15-second spots and influencer content, but ultimately, they’re simple and focused on the message: every home has a voice, find out about yours. That’s our approach—centring on the idea and spreading it through every channel.

 

Mim Haysom:

The TV ads play a really functional role—they make people aware and drive them to the main event. I was thinking about whether I have a favourite, and honestly, I think they’re all charming, given the heavy lifting they do. From a consumer perspective, having Jonathan Thurston in the launch ad is probably the crowd favourite. He’s so loved in Queensland, and we have a bit of fun with him—calling him a "former" rugby great and he responds, "Who are you calling former?" There’s charm and warmth, which helps soften what’s a serious message and brings the right tone.

 

 

How do you see the Haven project evolving over time? Are there plans to expand its features or address new challenges or audiences?

 

Mim Haysom:

We first want to see how people engage with it and what we can learn. Resilience is core to our DNA, and this isn’t a one-off campaign—it’s something we’ve been working on holistically for six years. We’ll continue on that journey and work out our next great idea. In fact, we have a meeting about that this afternoon. But first, we want to see how Haven lands with customers and what else we can do to improve the experience and add more value.

 

With previous campaigns like One House and Resilience Road receiving industry recognition and awards, do you feel pressure to live up to past successes?

 

Mim Haysom:

From my perspective, I don’t think about whether something will win an award—that’s not my job. My job is to create work that resonates with customers and brings our organisation’s purpose to life in an impactful way. I do feel pressure to continue driving the resilience conversation and make sure our work delivers on that, but not about awards.

 

Andy Fergusson:

I think we’re pretty aligned on what great creativity can drive. One of the most rewarding things is hearing from people in the industry, or even at other insurance companies, saying, "We presented your work as a case study for how we should act." That means more than just winning awards. Especially in insurance, which isn’t the flashiest category, strong brand building is crucial. Doing innovative work in this space is really rewarding.

 

Does this work encourage greater investment in resilience, including government support? Have you seen that with previous initiatives?

 

Mim Haysom:

Absolutely. It’s something we’re really proud of. We work hard on advocacy with government around resilience and building more resilient communities. When marketing-led initiatives like this get picked up and talked about, it gives us a platform. Over the last few years, the government has committed an additional $2.6 billion in resilience funding through the Commonwealth Disaster Ready Fund. There’s also the $1.6 billion Resilient Homes Fund. I believe we’ve played a big role in driving that, along with the insurance industry and the ICA.

 

Our advocacy contributed to the approval of another $174.7 million for resilience infrastructure in Bundaberg, one of Queensland’s most flood-prone towns, saving locals over $1,000 on each of their insurance premiums. Builder data also shows an 18% year-on-year rise in requests for resilience features. When we started, only 3 cents in every dollar was spent on prevention and resilience; now it’s up to 8 cents. It’s a small step, but it’s progress—and we’re proud to be part of that.