Paul Michaelsen has spent more than three decades learning, in very practical terms, what it means to put a client first. That ethos shapes everything about HBMI, the business he founded in 2017 after 25 years inside the banking sector.
Paul started as a bank teller in Hastings in 1992 and spent the next 25 years working his way through the banking sector, driven always by the same conviction: that looking after the customer has to come first.
In 1999 he left Hawke’s Bay to work in Whitianga before joining the business banking team at National Bank in 2001 in Hamilton then Tauranga. He then returned home to Hawke’s Bay in 2006.
By the time he left banking in 2017 as a senior business manager in Hastings, Paul had grown a significant client book. That track record gave him something more valuable than a strong CV.
Working in banking and in particular business banking has allowed Paul to gain a broad knowledge of the accounting, finance and legal worlds and how they interact with each other.
“The benefit of this is the ability to understand a persons or a business’s goals which can be very different and match their needs to the right financial products, loan structures along with considering other aspects such as asset protection,” he says.
HBMI is based in Havelock North and has an office in Nelson having purchased a mortgage and risk insurance business there. Clients are based anywhere between Auckland and Invercargill. Referrals drive growth while some clients are now on their third cycle with HBMI. That kind of loyalty tells you more about a business than any brochure.
HBMI operates as a member of the New Zealand Financial Services Group (NZFSG), providing access to robust systems, compliance frameworks and a wide lender and insurer network, giving clients confidence that the advice they receive meets the highest professional standards.
Clients range from those buying their first home, subsequent homes, baches, investment properties and those in business.
Advice, not just access
HBMI provides mortgage and lending advice alongside risk insurance, covering life, income protection, trauma, and health cover.
The business holds agencies with more than 20 lenders and the major insurers; regarding lending Paul’s preference is clear: he favours the major banks for the quality of their systems and products, and he’s not in the habit of switching clients for the sake of it.
People seeking lending or insurance products should seek advice from an experienced adviser who can look at the full picture and provide the appropriate level of advice needed.
Paul is an advocate for clients to use advisers rather than deal direct with bank staff. “Bank staff have moved away from providing advice. If you sit in front of a bank staff member, you will often be provided general product information, not advice specific to your goals and aspirations.”
“We’ll always look at what their current bank is providing first. If that still suits, we keep going down that path. If another bank is offering a better deal with enticements such as cash contributions, we may consider a move, but it has to be in the client’s best interest. Care is needed with enticements such as cash contributions, because by the time you pay legal fees, costs to leave your current bank and the time you invest in moving, you have to ask: is it worth it?”
A good example of what that advice looks like in practice: “When we work with business owners we not only address their finance requirements, we also work with their accountants and solicitors to look at ownership of their properties to ensure they are protected as best as possible should the business run into financial issues.”
For first home buyers in particular, KiwiSaver has been a game changer.
“KiwiSaver has been the saviour for a lot of people,” Paul says. “There’s been a lot of people who would never have had a deposit without it. A little bit coming out of your pay when you’re renting is not that much, but it builds up into something significant over time.”
Almost all of HBMI’s first home buyer clients are using KiwiSaver as part of their purchase, and Paul helps them connect those dots.
Why it matters
Paul shares a story that gets to the heart of why he does this work. A young family came to him to arrange insurance for their infant daughter. Not long after the policy was in place, the parents called with devastating news: their little girl had been diagnosed with cancer.
“Working with insurers resulted in their claim being paid very quickly which allowed her mum to take leave from a high-paying job to care for her daughter, knowing they had financial security,” Paul says.
“That’s why I do what I do. Clients come first. We always look after them like gold.”
A life in the fast lane (sort of)
Away from the office, Paul is unabashedly a car person. For ten years he was deeply embedded in New Zealand motorsport, progressing from assistant clerk of the course to deputy clerk of the course with Targa New Zealand, while also working across rally championships, jet sprints, and national events at tracks like Manfeild.
At his peak he was clocking over 35,000 kilometres a year on weekends alone. Impressive, or slightly alarming, depending on your perspective.
When his son Ryan arrived, he stepped back from the travel. But the passion for vehicles found a natural new outlet. Since 2013, Paul has served on the Automobile Association’s District Council for the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne region, chairing it for five years. In 2023 he was appointed as a Director of the Automobile Association.
He is vocal about the underfunding of infrastructure and road maintenance left by previous governments, and supportive of recent changes to driver licensing he believes will help young people progress through the driver licensing system.
“I’ve always been a vehicle mad person,” he says with a grin. But beyond the passion, Paul is clear that the AA role is fundamentally about giving back to the community.
Community at the core
Paul is a member of the Rotary Club of Hastings Karamu and has taken on a range of roles over the years, including director, club treasurer and president.
His governance contribution extends to chairing the club’s Trust. He’ll share more about what Rotary means to him in our feature on the club elsewhere in this issue.
Hawke’s Bay born and bred, Paul has made a deliberate choice to build his business here and at the same time give back to the community.
That’s not accidental. It’s what happens when someone actually means it when they talk about giving back.
