InsTech - insurance & innovation
00:07:45 · Matthew Grant, Richard Gunn
[00:07:45] S1: 60 clients is actually really impressive. Mean, a lot of companies get stuck, for those that are familiar with the technology adoption curve, or Geoffrey Moore's point about crossing the chasm, where you can be ready for early adopters, but the early majority don't really wanna take the risk. I mean, you're definitely now into mainstream with 60 companies. What's the balance between those that are in The UK where you started off versus in The US? [00:08:06] S2: Yeah, good question. Our largest customer base is already in The US, so about 40% of the premium that's priced on our platform each year is US premium, and that's kind of reflected in how many customers we have in The US as well. That's in part because we were able to sell into The US from The UK very effectively, but also reflects just how much premium there is in in The US market. So when you sell to some of the clients that we can name, likes of Sompo, Unicry, Markel, all US carriers, or recently sold to Bowhead, for example, started partnering with them. Just allows you just to build a lot of traction very quickly. [00:08:39] S1: Some great names. I'm guessing coming originally out of The UK and specifically the under market, where there's a whole different range of lines of business being written that you've either had to or you've been sort of chosen to be very flexible about what lines of business can be run through the tool.
00:08:39 · Matthew Grant, Richard Gunn
[00:08:39] S1: Some great names. I'm guessing coming originally out of The UK and specifically the under market, where there's a whole different range of lines of business being written that you've either had to or you've been sort of chosen to be very flexible about what lines of business can be run through the tool. [00:08:59] S2: Yeah. It's almost like we we look at it. It's got two ends of complexity, and we started at one of the most complex ends, which is the specialty Lloyd's in London market, and are moving down that complexity curve towards solving more for mid market and kind of... We got some clients now starting to use this for some of their flow underwriting in the SME space, for example. So we see that as very much one of our strengths, starting that high underwriting touch, complex lines, and then how do you bring that down to a higher volume business rather than having to solve for it the other way. So that meant it was very natural for us in the first instance to land in the E and S space in The US market. So we initially started to work with carriers in that space, then we've, in the last year, released some more product capabilities for the omitted lines, which are more likely to have slightly different and more predictable approach to pricing, and recently released an omitted market product as well so that we could start to support clients in that space.
00:09:55 · Matthew Grant
[00:09:55] S1: Well, that's the full coverage. So just for those who don't speak insurance, E and S is the excess and surplus lines which are non admitted, but essentially the kind of risks that the admitted insurance carriers, is the kind of mainstream ones who have to get their rates agreed, will choose not to write. So, you're kind of going across the whole gamut from the massive admitted insurance companies where I've potentially got a very good relationship with them, with all the kind of quirky, difficult to underwrite price, but also needed and quite successful. So you've definitely made your mark on mainstream. What advice for people that are currently still in The UK looking to how they grow into The US? Because ultimately any company, particularly on the company that wants to grow or is funded, is going to need to move outside of The UK at some point. Were you successful at selling into The US when you were... Didn't have an office in The US?
00:10:47 · Richard Gunn
[00:10:47] S2: You could probably approach that through two different lenses. One is from a product and one is from a go to market perspective. From a product perspective, what we absolutely found the best approach was to go through your customers. The benefit of the insurance market is that many of the large global players are exactly that. They're global. So you may have landed in Europe, for example. They're likely to have a US operation as well. And therefore, if you can demonstrate success with their European counterparts, I'll give you an opportunity to start to demonstrate how you can support them in The US, at least to get that feedback. We have... We lean into the notion of design partners who will bring clients on as design partners as we build build out new product capabilities. So rather than taking the approach of let's build it, hopefully they will come, let's build it with them so we know that it'll at least meet the needs of our existing customer base. So that's one approach. That's the kind of lowest path to expansion from a product perspective. From a go to market, it's a mix. We actually found very interestingly and almost the opposite of many startups potentially outside of the insurance space and other hyperverticalized businesses. We actually found it easier to sell to the XL global players. And not exactly sure why that is, but my hypothesis is because people working at very large global players are used to speaking with Europeans who maybe are using slightly different nomenclature when they're talking about the underwriting journey than they are when they're speaking to Americans. One of the most obvious ones in our space is pricing and rating mean different things each side of the pond, for example. And actually, big learning for me and my team over the last year was actually understanding how to look and sound American when selling to the non global players, so to selling to still very, very large, very material insurers, reinsurance and MGAs. They might write multibillion dollars of premium, but they aren't inherently a global business. They just sell into The US market. And I do wonder sometimes whether... You know, it's almost been a bit of a social learning for me that if you look and sound the same as someone, people are looking reasons to qualify you in. Whereas if you look and sound different, just kind of seems...
00:12:40 · Richard Gunn
And I'm I'm feeding off anecdote here rather than actual data, but it seems like people are more akin to looking for reasons to qualify you out. And so it's actually been... Like, from a product perspective, we found we achieved what you'd call product market fit very fast, but to sell to the kind of mass market, if you will, kind of anywhere below the XL players in The US market, it's been really important to build out a US team and actually to invest in our product marketing, we very much look and feel American. And a key part of doing that as well is not just building a team here, but also making sure that our executive team are also Americans. We're hiring experienced insurance practitioners from The US, we now refer to ourselves as dual headquartered because half of our executive team are based in The US and many of them are Americans. We've been hiring out practicing actuaries, underwriters, brokers, etcetera, in this team to make sure that we can truly say we're by the market for the market, but from a US perspective and not just a UK one.
00:13:31 · Matthew Grant
[00:13:31] S1: There's a lot of really valuable advice in there. I completely agree with what I've seen. And to some extent, it's a kind of level of commitment. I'd say there's bigger companies that are also used to working with earlier stage companies, or they're kind of, if not bleeding edge, certainly leading edge, they'll kind of look anywhere in the world for the solution. But when you start to go into that, back into early majority on the curve again, a big part of it is they want the confidence that whoever they're dealing with is gonna be there. And that to me is a lot about where the sort of local acts and local people come from. It's just easier to understand, it's easier to communicate when things go wrong. It's always very interesting. I think we can all do our best to communicate with people that are not from the same country or from when things are going well. But what really differentiates is when something's not going well, how do you manage that? So, I can see lots of reasons. Think one of the advantages of having that funding out last year is to be able to commit to be in The US, which in turn generates its own growth.