It’s fortuitous for the managing director of Percayso Inform, Richard Tomlinson (pictured) and his team that they relish being busy. COVID-19 has represented an eventful time for the firm which, after onboarding a variety of new clients, completing its first funding raise and being recognised by Oxbow Partners for its ability to help insurers succeed, doesn’t look set to slow the pace down anytime soon.
The last year has been pretty crazy, Tomlinson admitted, and as soon as everybody found their feet after the first few weeks of the crisis, Percayso found itself having a lot of great conversations with current and prospective clients. There was a lot of activity because it was easier than ever just to jump on a call with somebody, he said, but it has also been more difficult for some companies to put new ideas into action with legal, compliance and IT teams seconded on COVID projects.
“But if pre-COVID I could have forecast where we’d be, I’d [be delighted],” he said. “In the last year we’ve contracted with five new clients and gone live with those guys, including Wrapper Insure and, Arma Karma, and we have around 20 insurer, broker and MGA prospects of which about 75% are expected to go live in the next year or so. It’s been just great to see our clients going live on the system, the transactions being written and the policies going through and knowing we’re an integral part of that.”
As somebody passionate about the role that data enrichment plays in driving innovation within the insurance space, Tomlinson highlighted that it has been rewarding navigating the two main streams of Percayso’s business. The first of these is the start-up broker and insurtech space, where businesses are newly launching, such as Wrapper, a digital-first broker offering services in the caravan and motorhome space. Many in this camp tend to be very technologically advanced and are poised to move very quickly, and all are great to work with.
“And then at the same time, we’re doing some quite in-depth analytical projects for some of the bigger insurers and brokers who are much more established, and have a few 100,000 policyholders or maybe into the millions, and have many years of data to analyse already,” he said. “And they’re probably already doing bits and bobs around data enrichment and are reasonably sophisticated. And in that case, their question is ‘how can I step up to another level and stay ahead of the curve?’ Those kinds of projects take quite a lot longer and there’s two or three that we’ve been working with for the past year and we’re hoping to go live with pretty soon.”
Deceleration is not on the menu for Tomlinson, and the Percayso team, which has grown to 25 people since its inception, is attracting fresh talent all the time due to its unique market position and the variety of services it has to offer. This has been complemented by the recent addition of former Open GI executive David Kelly to the board of the business. Kelly exited his 15-year tenure as chief growth officer at Open GI about a year ago, he said, and established himself as an insurtech/ technology insurance advisor.
“Various Percayso contacts know David very well from previous lives, and David actually invested in Percayso as well,” he said. “So he’s invested and he’s advising, and he’s working for us at least three/four days a week now. And David’s really involved with the business and the number of contacts he’s got across the broker and insurer market and the knowledge he’s got of insurance software platforms and of how that ecosystem works is proving really invaluable.”
It’s an exciting time for the business, he said, and feels that Percayso has got some real momentum behind it as start-up insurtechs are embracing the role of data enrichment while established businesses are actively seeking innovation opportunities, particularly in light of COVID-19. The focus now is on onboarding new clients, bringing new data partners to the table, working with new software providers and proving Percayso’s place within the insurance ecosystem.
Percayso is keen to work as flexibly as possible with its insurance business partners, Tomlinson said, and is actively looking to work with organisations that are open to change and want holistic solutions focused on long-term value. The reality is that every insurer and broker is slightly different in every fundamental way from their client profiles to their most pressing concerns, and a bespoke solution is the only practical way to address this.
