Policy Expert ‘broadening’ distribution relationships after ‘best month’ for renewals

Policy Expert executive chair and chief executive, Steve Hardy has said the personal lines insurtech is “broadening” its distribution relationships after the firm secured its ”best-ever month for renewal volumes”.

Figures sent to Insurance Times today (11 September 2023) revealed that more than 96,000 of the firm’s customers renewed their policies in August 2023, while it also managed to secure over 300,000 new policy sales during the first eight months of the year.

Total gross written premium for the first eight months of 2023 also increased 37% year-on-year.

Policy Expert said the growth came after attracting more customers across both home and motor insurance product lines.

And Hardy said that as part of the firm’s growth plans, the firm would continue to bolster its distribution strategy after launching on Amazon’s insurance store earlier this year (24 May 2023).

“We’re laser focused on continuing to grow our market share by leveraging advanced data analytics and machine learning to bring fairly priced insurance to more UK households,” Hardy added.

“Our strong performance for new business in particular suggests we’re heading firmly in the right direction without compromising on our care for existing customers.

“We’re also broadening our distribution relationships, having established ourselves as the go-to brand for home insurance via the aggregators and launched onto Amazon earlier this year.”

Expansion

This came after the ABI revealed last month (11 August 2023) that the average premium paid for private comprehensive motor insurance across the industry surged 21% year-on-year to £511 in Q2 2023, the highest level since records began in 2012.

On 18 May 2023, the association also found that during Q1 2023, the cost of combined buildings and content policy premiums increased by 3% from Q4 2022 – equating to a total price of £315.

Despite this, figures published by Consumer Intelligence earlier in the year (1 February 2023) revealed that Policy Expert was the joint biggest grower for customers among home insurance brands last year.

Policy Expert also said that it had opened new office in Milton Keynes and expanded its technology division to over a hundred people by adding to its data, pricing and development expertise.

“At a time when customers have more reason than ever to assess their options, Policy Expert has cemented its position at the top for new home policy sales via price comparison sites,” Hardy said.

“We [also] continue to have one of the highest retention rates around.

“The time and expertise we have invested to build a customer-centric proposition and blend data science with actuarial methods to stay at the cutting edge of pricing strategies are clearly paying off, both for Policy Expert and for our policyholders.”