Excellence in Technology - Service Provider
This category seeks to recognise initiatives and solutions that improve internal and external operational and administrative processes and is open to service providers operating in the UK general insurance market.
From the use of artificial intelligence to the implementation of distributed ledgers, judges were looking for tangible evidence that technology has improved operational efficiencies, customer services, and/or business administration.
All the finalists are listed below. Use the links to find out more from the entrants who have answered our series of Q&As.
GOLD: WhenFresh
SILVER: Cytora
BRONZE: Blocksure
Adapt Ready
Albany Group
Instanda
Loqate, a GBG solution
Sponsored by
Albany Group
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
Fast onboarding: No need for long question as Conect automatically finds the information from an extensive list of external datasets. You can on-board new suppliers and meet all regulatory requirements via the platform from as little as providing a company name and contact email address.
Data transfer: Secure, inside the platform and removes 'flat' documents and moves to data-enrichment. Your supply chain is guided on what is required from them by the platform, for onboarding and continuous management.
24-hour management: Conect continuously monitors your supply chain and tells you by exception what is happening. We have removed the need for scheduled rechecks of status, time-to-time monitoring, and other processes that are resource-intensive.
Can you share data or testimonials to back up your bid to win?
"We're not just automating existing or old processes but delivering a new way of thinking. It's both collaborative and disruptive." Hiscox Insurance.
"What CI has done is revolutionary, we feel we are one step ahead of the market. We call it the Speed Gun effect - Our suppliers 'feel' they are being managed and therefore their performance reflects this." Brit Insurance.
"Saving approximately 10% off total contract value = £1m+ per year." Freedom Group.
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
The growth and success of the company has been almost entirely self-funded, by always delivering robust and cost-effective technology solutions to fix real day to day & regulatory challenges facing the insurance industry. We are moving supply chain management away from document and email exchanges and time-consuming reviews between parties, to using data to drive decisions and to intercept and manage by exception: a disruptive move.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
We will thoroughly enjoy the night with our wide group of clients and colleagues who will be attending. This will then be followed by another big night out to celebrate with the rest of our fantastic team who were unable to attend. And, of course, lots of shouting about our achievement online and to the wider market.
BRONZE: Blocksure
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
Blocksure's operating system, based on blockchain technology, removes the need for unnecessary processes. Blocksure OS creates a simplified and seamless experience for all parties involved. The insurance market has been at the forefront of customer segmentation and building products to suit all customer needs however, this has often been to the detriment of underdeveloped back-office systems. Blocksure has researched these consequences and designed a solution that means the broker and insurer can spend more time servicing clients' needs and less time on unnecessary administration. At the same time improving security, reducing errors and creating higher levels of compliance.
Can you share data or testimonials to back up your bid to win?
Our first product to go live 'Insure Now' was with Commercial and General and the feedback they have provided states that Blocksure has enabled them to save 90% of their back-office costs. On the Microinsurance project, we are enabling a product to be sold for $2 with 50 cents processing costs creating opportunities in developing countries that otherwise would not be possible by creating low premium policies.
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
We believe this is transformational for the insurance sector. It creates a completely different perspective of the intermediated insurance sector and how it can position itself with customers. No longer does it need to run at high distribution costs and it can create greater trust. Cash and documents transferred via the 'blockchain' are more secure than 'legacy' systems currently in operation.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
We will celebrate with the 'insurance market' in that we are at the beginning of a journey to make insurance something to be proud of and listening to customers. Our product will reduce both costs to the customer and improve customer experience and trust.
Loqate, a GBG solution
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
Loqate's latest innovation in location data gives insurers a complete picture of the property and surrounding location to improve risk assessment, pricing, drive revenue growth and skyrocket user experience. Insurers can find out the building's age, height and property type (detached, semi-detached, terraced or flat), the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and any potential associated risks. Our software can even provide an estimated value of a property and the average slope of the roof.
Can you share data or testimonials to back up your bid to win?
By using Property Intelligence from Loqate, online insurance company Homelyfe has seen an 80% conversion rate in their online forms. Typically, insurance companies ask around 56 questions in the quote process, but Homelyfe enables customers to get a quote in seconds.
"Typically across the insurance industry, only around 1% of people who start a quote online go on to buy a policy. This is mainly down to the excessive time it takes to complete a digital insurance quote. However, we see on average an 80% conversion rate on our most popular policy type, and we put that down to our frictionless customer experience," Jon Coppin, director of data partnerships at Homelyfe.
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
As the leading provider of location intelligence tools, Loqate is passionate about data quality, user experience and making life simpler for their insurance clients. Our pioneering approach, innovation and unbeatable customer support separates us from the competition and has been responsible for the significant growth we've achieved. Today more than 15,000 global businesses rely on our technology everyday – so while you may not have heard of us, you would have certainly used our services before. From customers to staff we live and breathe a set of core values which set the tone for our relationships and mean that people know that they will be fairly treated, that we will go out of our way to make sure that they have the best experience and that ultimately they will stay and develop with us.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
Winning the award would be a huge achievement to the whole team – not only the developers who have built this tool but also for our customer-facing teams who work around the clock to ensure our customers have the best experience. If we won, we would like to reward the whole team in the celebrations.
Aviva
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
By fusing underwriting simplification with data, analytics and new technologies we are now able to obtain new customer insights that delivers ultimate tailoring and personalisation. It also provides the ability to identify potential poor outcomes before they happen, with little or no questions such as from under insurance to key gaps in cover. It means we are simplifying and enhancing the way we do things to champion UK business. We are working with brokers as professional risk advisors, to support the customer in understanding the risks their business face to avoid surprises should the worse happen.
Can you share data or testimonials to back up your bid to win?
"The additional insight, support and quotes are great as we are offering all this to client, with a focus on increasing sums insured, because it's personalised, more clients look at this straight away. It really helps us then from a sales point of view on all our clients, We always ensure the insight, support and quotes are discussed, it also saves us having to go to back and forth or to several insurers for a quote, which is more effective and efficient for the client." Aviva Broker
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
Insurance can be confusing which is why we focused on fusing both underwriting simplification with data, software and analytics to create a true example of technology, working very successfully in a large organisation. It's the power of both of these acts together with a strong cultural adoption across hundreds of underwriters, working with hundreds of brokers, impacting thousands of customers which makes what we have done different. It means where there was complexity and delay we now have instant decisions, no questions, high levels of personalisation to deliver the right protection and services that speak to the risks customers understand.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
We already know we are winning with amazing feedback and increased revenue, but getting this industry award would be fantastic recognition of the work of every individual involved. Recognition from our customers spurs us on to do more to improve every day.
GOLD: WhenFresh
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
Until now, insurers have had to rely on data provided by multiple, disparate data providers with separate integrations and licensing agreements, so the technical and financial obstacles to making significant changes or improvements have often proven insurmountable. By creating a 'data supermarket' for UK residential home insurers, WhenFresh has removed these commercial and technical barriers. Insurers can now access an unrivalled range of datasets via a single, simple API integration on a pay-as-you-go basis and can be up and running with access to all the data they need in the format they choose, within hours.
Can you share data or testimonials to back up your bid to win?
Unisure report record application volumes since integrating WhenFresh insurance prefill data into their superfast insurance quote system and are finalists for the 2019 Insurer Innovation of the Year category, so we wish them the very best of luck. In fact, many insurers already rely on WhenFresh data supplied via major resellers such as Experian, Equifax, GB Group, TransUnion, Acxiom, or other well-known suppliers for which we build white-label data products. Suffice to say, where home insurers are employing property attribute, risk and perils data to simplify and speed up the application process, the road often leads back to WhenFresh.
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
It's a broad category and the finalists offer widely differing solutions, so you're asking us compare apples to oranges to grapes, etc. But the competition certainly looks strong!
I guess our main differentiator is the strength of our data science team. They have an unrivalled depth of understanding of the vast array of data variables we can supply and how best to apply them. Remember, major Insurers, banks, The Bank of England, and so on, have been employing WhenFresh data for years, but via third-parties/resellers. It's WhenFresh that builds the data products for the big name big data suppliers.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
We'll think about that if we win – but don't want to jinx it! Since we launched the WhenFresh API direct to the insurance sector last year, we've enjoyed plenty of coverage in the insurance media. WhenFresh chief executive and co-founder Mark Cunningham has an ever-increasing roster of speaking appearances, including our own event alongside speakers from data partners such as Zoopla, CLS, Airbus, BlueSky and Cranfield. We're now full members of the Insurtech UK alliance, sponsors of InsTech London and have just been named in Intelligent Insurer's Hot 100 Insurtechs, so winning this award would really round 2019 off in style!