Ben Legg: Open GI homing in on ‘North Star’ of empowering brokers to write better business

Insurance software house Open GI is honing in on its “North Star” after retaining its third place position in the 2024 Insurance Times Five Star Rating Report: eTrading.

This year’s annual report, which was based on a survey of more than 700 UK general insurance brokers conducted between January and March 2024, ranked the firm third out of the four software houses in the analysis.

This solidified the company in third place, after it it also came in third place last year in 2023’s eTrading Report. 

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Ben Legg, chief product officer at Open GI, says: “It’s consistent. We do take [the eTrading report] on board as valuable feedback and it’s great to see some of the strengths of our platform recognised.”

Armed with that feedback, he adds: ”Now we have got to home in on that North Star.

”We see our role in the market [as empowering] our brokers to write more, and better quality, business, as well as improving the lives of anyone using insurance products.”

Legg says that Open GI views its business through this lens and tries to ensure its teams are focused in on this “North Star”.

In July, the firm ran an all company meeting where it brought everyone together across its sites to discuss growth strategy and how it aligned to customers.

Part of this involved working on the software house’s roadmap, with an agreement having recently been signed to add generative artificial intelligence (AI) chat functionality into the platform for customers.

The firm is also aiming to develop HugHub’s platform, which it bought in April 2024 after the insurtech entered administration.

These projects, among others, are being completed in line with an ethos to help brokers do their jobs more easily and effectively.

Challenging commercial lines 

Despite forward momentum, however, there are challenges in eTrading for commercial lines still to be addressed.

Legg tells Insurance Times: “The commercial lines [sector] remains quite challenging, particularly with some of the complex products. For something to be eTraded effectively on a panel, you need to be able to create a standardised question set.

“Each insurer will have its own view on what’s important around the risk. Aligning that question set across the insurers is the first challenge because, if you can’t align it, then you can’t have something eTraded on a panel.”

However, on the simpler – or “more standardised”, as Legg says – side of commercial lines is eTraded SME insurance. Legg says Open GI is continually looking to improve its capabilities here so that it can offer customers “a diverse product set”.

Part of achieving this goal is seeing Open GI work with several MGAs to extend its panel and cover more diverse risks.

”That’s started to bring some of the more complex things into our panel [and] allow our customers to eTrade them,” Legg adds.

The firm also recently implemented some customer experience improvements to its property owners products to reduce elapsed time to complete, as well as extending its mini fleet products. But, “beyond that, there are some complex products that are not ready for eTrading,” Legg explains.

That is not an admission of defeat, but an acceptance of the current reality. Complex products will continue to be developed across the market and software houses like Open GI will be reliant on broker feedback to ensure its developments target the right areas, says Legg.

As a software house, the firm alone cannot be responsible for the increasing complexity of eTraded products. 

He finishes: “We are merely a piece of that puzzle. We need to work with the brokers [and] insurers to try and create those standardised products.”