A Dundee tech firm set up six years ago to disrupt the insurance sector has now captured more than a quarter of the UK commercial market.
An astonishing £5 billion worth of premiums will go through the platform created by Broker Insights this year.
The company, which is financially backed by tech entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl, employs 55 staff at the Water’s Edge offices at City Quay.
The Broker Insights platform allows brokers to upload their customers’ requirements. Through a matching system, large insurance firms can then find the type of risk they want to insure.
Broker Insights growth
Set up by Aviva employees Fraser Edmond and Iain Crole, the firm quickly gained traction.
Within a year there were more than £250 million of policies on the platform. This doubled to £500m in 2020 and doubled again to £1 billion in 2021.
Chief executive Mr Edmond said the latest phase of growth has been thanks to a new version of the Vision platform, adapted for larger brokers.
He said: “Signing up large brokers has been the main focus of the last 18 months, which has accelerated the volume.
“We’ve also signed up more insurance companies as well.
“We think the total UK commercial market is between £16bn and £18bn so we’re now capturing a large part of the market.
“Vision is growing rapidly as brokers and carriers see the value of joining a platform that quickly and efficiently brings them together to do business, saving significant time and money.
“Our clients appreciate that our unique dataset and increasingly AI-powered technology provides them with real-time business and market insights.”
Fundraising plans ahead of US market push
The company raised more than £6 million at the end of 2021, which valued the company at £30m.
Another fundraising round – for an unspecified but larger amount – will take place at the start of next year as the company plans expansion in the US.
Broker Insights currently has two staff in America and its first customer but growth there is one of the company’s main targets for 2024.
“We’ve spent a lot of time shaping the proposition for that market,” added Mr Edmond.
“Next year we’ll put our foot down in terms of going to the market.
“With £5bn of premiums on the platform another opportunity for us is using that data set.
“The future is also about us mining that data for new products, services and insights.”
Conversation