In the six years since Broker Insights launched, the data and distribution platform has seen first-hand a mindset shift when it comes to data sharing and analytics.
In an exclusive interview marking the firm’s anniversary, president and co-founder Fraser Edmond (pictured) noted that, six years ago, it would have been “unthinkable” that brokers would share customer information with an independent entity in a bid to build better products and trading knowledge. Starting from a blank sheet of paper, brokers have since uploaded £5.5 billion of GWP to its platform – with £6 billion in sight by the end of the year, around a third of the GWP in the UK commercial insurance sector.
From the beginning, Broker Insights had a stated ambition to modernise the market, both from an insurer and broker perspective, he said, a mission informed by his own decades at a traditional insurer and living with the “inefficiencies and frictions” inherent within that. “That’s a big part of why we created this business. I [see that] the market is evolving, and people want better products delivered more efficiently and effectively. And if we can have that, everybody will be happier – the end customer, the broker and the insurer.
“It’s interesting that the larger entities have definitely woken up to the value of having good quality data, and what they can do with that data.”
The market’s renewed focus on efficiency and performance optimization is a clear reaction to the inefficiencies and friction that have made conditions challenging for insurers, brokers and insureds alike. There’s a renewed appreciation for the role technology and data have to play in empowering brokers to place their business more efficiently with their preferred markets.
In turn, insurers increasingly understand the power of aggregated insights on what the market looks like from a market composition standpoint and how they can use that knowledge to build better products and align themselves to what their distribution partners and end customers want from them.
“All the inefficiencies and friction in the market come from lack of knowledge,” Edmond said. “If a broker doesn’t understand an insurer’s appetite or their capabilities, how do they know which one to engage with at the right time for which client? Equally, if an insurer doesn’t understand a broker’s business and its customer base, how can they align their products and their resource appropriately to the market? Just by bridging that knowledge gap, you can start to break down many of the inefficiencies that do exist in the market.”
Discussing how this gap can be bridged, he highlighted how education around data – and its potential – has been crucial in enabling it to become much more commonplace for key market players to share information. They understand the importance of working with the right partners, he said, but equally, it has been the role of those partners to display the data security and trustworthiness required to build the trust required for a great and transformative partnership.
Six years into their journey, he shared what’s top of the agenda of the Broker Insights team. First and foremost, it’s looking to continue to grow its customer base. “The more we can pull that knowledge together, the more things we can do with that knowledge, to work for our customers, to build their products and to service the market better. Because all trading knowledge has a huge value to it.”
Edmon noted that he’s now spending a significant chunk of his time in the US, which the Dundee-based company has earmarked to lead its international growth strategy with a platform launch in the US commercial insurance market. Some of the conversations he’s having there are with US$14+ billion GWP brokerages, he said, so it’s at a new scale entirely. “But it’s the same mission we’re trying to fulfil. And it’s interesting how it all resonates with the same market dynamics, the same challenges and the same opportunities. So, in terms of what’s next is about doing more of what we’ve been doing, but doing more with what we’ve got and breaking new frontiers.”
