Suncorp Insurance – Haven (Case Study)

Recognition: Cannes Lions 2026 – Grand Prix/ Titanium

In this Suncorp Insurance – Haven (Case Study), discover how a brand escaped insurance price wars by letting 11 million homes “speak” about their own climate risks. Here is the strategy behind the world-first data platform that overcame consumer apathy, unlocked $2.6B in funding, and won 4 Cannes Lions.

Background

Australia stands at the frontline of escalating climate volatility and severe natural disasters. Over the past two decades, the nation has experienced a higher frequency of cyclones than in the entire preceding century, accompanied by a 30% surge in severe flooding events and bushfire seasons that ignite earlier and burn considerably longer. Industry projections indicate that by 2035, roughly one in ten Australian properties could become entirely uninsurable – despite historical data showing that 90% of insurance claims involve damage that could have been prevented.

For the insurance sector, a major perceptual hurdle remained: consumers largely viewed insurers as part of the problem rather than a proactive solution. As a premium provider facing intense pressure from aggregator comparison sites – which reduce complex insurance offerings into purely transactional price wars – Suncorp Insurance had already invested five years into shifting category focus from post-disaster “Recovery” to proactive “Resilience.” Through acclaimed brand initiatives like One House to Save Many and Resilience Rd, the brand laid a strong foundation. However, one critical behavioral barrier remained unbroken: public apathy. Although 81% of Australians had directly experienced extreme weather, a mere 17% had established a concrete plan to safeguard their properties, dismissing climate readiness as overly complex, overwhelming, or someone else’s responsibility.

Idea

To shatter homeowner complacency, Suncorp Insurance decided to give every Australian home a voice of its own. The result was Haven, a pioneering, data-powered digital experience that delivers a tailored climate risk assessment for each of Australia’s 11 million residential properties – narrated directly from the perspective of the house itself.

By simply entering a street address, homeowners unlock a personalized dialogue where their property articulates the exact environmental perils it faces – ranging from cyclones and severe storms to floods and bushfires – paired with actionable, step-by-step mitigation guidance. Beyond its creative storytelling, Haven marked an industry milestone: for the first time, a major insurance provider unlocked its proprietary risk data and actuarial insights for the public good, empowering every Australian homeowner rather than restricting access to existing policyholders.

Haven, a pioneering, data-powered digital experience that delivers a tailored climate risk assessment for each of Australia’s 11 million residential properties

Strategy

Extensive qualitative and quantitative research conducted alongside climate scientists, architects, public policy experts, and everyday homeowners revealed three core friction points obstructing climate readiness:

The Consumer Barrier: A pervasive optimism bias (“it won’t happen to me”) persisted across the market, evidenced by the stark gap between extreme weather exposure (81%) and active household preparation (17%), even though 90% of claim damages are preventable.
The Cultural Barrier: Residential architecture and homeowner mindsets remained anchored in outdated standards, failing to adapt even after states like Queensland endured 80 major weather events and $16.1 billion in recovery expenses within a single decade.
The Category Barrier: Across the broader landscape, 92% of disaster-related funding was funneled into post-event recovery rather than preventative readiness, inadvertently conditioning Australians to react only after catastrophe struck.

The core strategic breakthrough of the Suncorp Insurance Haven campaign was transforming an abstract, macro-level climate crisis into an immediate, hyper-local priority. By leveraging granular, address-specific risk data to illustrate the exact vulnerabilities of a user’s own property – alongside practical ways to address them – Suncorp made home resilience impossible to ignore.

Execution

Developed over a rigorous two-year production cycle, the Haven platform synthesizes 12 distinct datasets and real-time APIs – integrating natural-peril risk modeling, climate science, geospatial mapping, live weather feeds, and property attributes. Collaborating with leading technology and data partners including Google, CoreLogic, and WillyWeather, Suncorp engineered a cinematic, tailored digital journey accessible seamlessly across mobile and desktop devices. The platform drills down to the user’s specific street and neighborhood, generates a comprehensive downloadable action plan, and directly connects homeowners with vetted local tradespeople to execute the upgrades.

To scale awareness and drive adoption, Suncorp deployed an integrated, omnichannel marketing rollout spanning broadcast TV, out-of-home (OOH), digital, social media, and public relations. Touchpoints were strategically embedded into high-intent environments, including a content integration within a popular home-renovation television series and targeted point-of-sale advertising inside Bunnings Warehouse stores, guiding shoppers directly toward resilient building materials featured on Haven. To ensure financial accessibility, Suncorp complemented the digital tool by funding community resilience grants in partnership with the Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal (FRRR).

Results

The Suncorp Insurance – Haven campaign delivered extraordinary commercial, behavioral, and cultural results:

Digital Engagement & Earned Media: The platform attracted 323,186 unique visits – outperforming initial KPIs by 223% – with an average session duration approaching three minutes, while generating 139 earned media placements.
Behavioral Shift & Brand Equity: Nearly 79% of platform users reported an intention to implement resilience upgrades on their properties. Suncorp’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) nearly doubled from 5.4 to 10.2, and consumers exposed to the campaign were 21% more likely to request a Suncorp insurance quote – roughly double the conversion lift of nearly every market competitor.
Commercial Growth & ROI: Suncorp’s home insurance market share expanded from 13.4% to 15.8%. Viewed across the broader 2019 – 2025 resilience brand platform, Suncorp ascended from #2 to #1 in the Australian home insurance market, boosted marketing ROI by 238%, and generated $402 million in customer lifetime value (CLV). Furthermore, following sustained advocacy and lobbying by Suncorp, the Australian government pledged an additional $2.6 billion toward national disaster resilience funding.
Global Industry Recognition: At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Haven secured Suncorp’s fourth Lion of the festival, building on prior wins across the Creative Data, Direct, and Brand Experience & Activation categories. Titanium Jury President Chaka Sobhani praised the initiative as a “truly brilliant piece of work,” commending Suncorp for elevating disaster resilience into a core business strategy rather than treating it as a superficial marketing campaign.