“Our mission is to make the world quantifiably safer.” The mission statement at the centre of the Flock offers a snapshot of the strategic direction the UK-based insurtech is travelling as it looks to leverage its hundreds of millions of miles of driving data, ‘to help thousands more drivers become safer’.
Discussing the firm’s ambition to help redefine fleet insurance, and how this ties into its newly announced strategic partnership with NIG, Flock CEO Ed Leon Klinger (pictured) looked back on the early roots of the collaboration. It was Flock’s recognition of NIG’s market-leading capabilities when it comes to finding solutions to support and integrate innovative new insurance solutions that led them to first come together, he said, and, from there, the partnership has flourished under a ‘land and expand’ philosophy.
“Our philosophy at Flock is to start partnerships by focusing on a very specific problem, and on solving that one problem as a partnership,” he said. “And when that one problem is solved, it opens up the door for further conversations and future partnerships to the benefit of both parties – and all the customers and partners across that value chain.”
The collaboration will see Flock and NIG collaborate on a digital, data-driven approach to motor fleet insurance, he said, and the partnership looks to expand risk coverage capabilities across various commercial motor segments. Flock is taking an open-minded view on which segments are primed for this expansion, and is looking to a variety of opportunities in the self-drive hire and flexible leasing (or subscription) space.
“We’re looking at salary sacrifice and we’re looking at electric vehicles,” he said. “And we’re also looking at large fleets generally. We’re looking at fleets that are actively investing in or curious about investing in safety. That’s where our proposition really comes into its own because we have a connected insurance proposition whereby we work with our fleet customers to connect vehicles using telematics. Flock ingests and uses that data for a variety of purposes.
“One of the main free services we offer is that we use that data to help our customers understand the risks that they’re undertaking. We actively sit down with our fleet customers on a regular basis, to talk them through the key areas where they could reduce risk. We use our data to identify high-risk drivers, high-risk routes and to pinpoint specific segments of specific journeys where they are at greatest risk.”
By working with clients to comb through this data and identify areas of concern, Flock will be able to support them in reducing that risk over time – which is further incentivised by the rebates for safer driving that this partnership with NIG will promote. It goes back to the very heart of Flock’s proposition and its mission to make the world quantifiably safer, he said, and that mission is reflected in the key metrics that the insurtech uses as indicators of its success.
“As a business, we’re thinking a lot about how we can reduce our customers’ claims frequency and how we can actually help them to reduce the number of crashes that they have per 1,000 miles or per day,” he said. “We’re also very interested in building a successful commercial partnership. So, we’re looking at all of the traditional commercial metrics that you’d expect.
“We’re laser-focused on sustainability and building a profitable business, as well as a mission-driven business. We are aiming to impact and save the maximum number of lives; in order to do that we need to build a sustainable business that works for both us and our carrier partners.”
2023 has been a busy year for Flock, seeing the insurtech welcome a £30+ million fundraise in Q1 and make a flurry of senior executive hires – among them former Mulsanne CEO Darren McCauley who joined as chief underwriting officer in September. The team has no intention of slowing down now, Klinger said, and its agenda for 2024 is already pointing in the direction of continued, sustainable growth.
“We’re now one of an extremely small number of technology players in the commercial motor fleet insurance market of the UK,” he said. “And we are actively providing the technology to enable the leveraging of a wealth of telematics data to actively encourage safer driving which we see as a key differentiator.
“We can see that it will be difficult for other companies to catch up with our proposition. Because we not only help our fleet customers by building out this technology and incentivising safer driving behaviours – we’re also actively building technology to make life easier for our broker partners by automating many of the tasks that they would traditionally have to do manually, by providing them with the tools to help them support customers.”
High on Flock’s agenda for 2024 is continuing to provide its broker partners with the portals and dashboards that enable them to add value to their motor fleet customers. Evolving these technologies and making them as close to perfect as possible is the name of the game, Klinger said, and he’s relishing the opportunity at hand to continue working with broker partners and fleet customers alike to understand what they need to thrive in today’s marketplace.
“We want to understand what makes them excited, what they’re prioritising in 2024, and we want to build the features that match their ambitions,” he said. “For us, it’s all about building out those features and evolving our existing proposition so that, ultimately, the product becomes stickier and more of a value-add, and above all, helps our customers become safer while saving brokers time and money. Because that’s what we’re here to do.”
