The Insurtech UK Spring Conference was once again a huge success, and we would like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to everyone involved.
There was a fantastic turnout for our annual Spring Conference, kindly hosted for us by our partners S&W at their London offices.
Encouraging collaboration and connection
Billed as an opportunity for insurance innovators to collaborate and connect, the conference provided delegates with an afternoon of insights, innovation and conversation. And the packed programme didn’t disappoint, the energy in the room reflecting both the strength of the UK insurtech community and the value of bringing people together from across the insurtech ecosystem.
From honest discussions on access to capacity, to practical insights into pitching, scaling and expanding globally, to exploring the fast-evolving role of AI in insurance, every topic on the agenda was met with enthusiasm and appetite from a highly-engaged audience.
Melissa Collett, Insurtech UK CEO, said: “It was inspiring to see so many people come together at our Spring Conference to connect and explore the latest advancements in insurtech. The conference featured some truly insightful discussions and its success is testament to the strength and vibrancy of our community of insurance innovators.
“We want to express our sincere gratitude to our hosts, S&W, for providing such a fantastic venue and for their support in making the event a success. We’d also like to give a special ‘thank you’ to our incredible speakers and panellists who shared their expertise across a range of important topics.
“Finally, we want to celebrate our members, whose networking discussions were genuinely enlightening, filled with insightful conversations and the forging of valuable connections. We’d like to thank them for their thoughtful and engaging questions during the panel sessions. Their curiosity and active participation enriched the discussions and made the event even more valuable for everyone involved.
“We look forward to doing it all again next year!”
View image gallery - click here to view all the images from the day
Conference highlights
Highlights from a packed schedule included:
Big news for Insurtech UK
Our CEO Melissa Collett welcomed members and kicked off the conference with some big news, unveiling the results of our rebrand, including our brand new website.
Access to capacity: Ample or absent?
In this lively panel discussion on the topic of access to capacity, Insurance Data Lab co-founder Matt Scott presented the results of the organisation’s latest report for Insurtech UK looking at insurer appetite for providing product capacity and the nature of any barriers that inhibit collaboration. These findings were then debated and discussed with experts Iryna Chekanava, Senior Innovation Underwriter at Chaucer Group, Zvi Ebert, Senior Manager at KPMG, and Gigasure founder and Insurtech UK Council member Ernesto Suarez.
The insurtech journey
This fireside chat between ManyPets CEO Luisa Barile and Revolut Travel CEO Michelle White took in topics including tech trends and increasing personalisation, scaling into overseas markets, and meeting customer needs through insurance innovation.
Pitching for partnerships: Dos and don’ts
From precise preparations and what to include in the pitch deck to how best to follow up, this session saw insurers Aviva and Ageas UK join with investor Insurtech Gateway to share their top tips on pitching for partnerships.
The conference also provided the ideal platform for the launch of our new podcast series with Aviva on building successful partnerships: The Partnerships Podcast.
The role of infrastructure and innovation in scaling insurtechs
In this fireside chat Darren Snoxell, Head of Insurance EMEA at JP Morgan Payments, and Mark Rogers from Vitesse gave their insight into the role of banks in enabling innovation. From streamlining claims payments to supporting compliant, cross-border operations in a complex regulatory landscape, they discussed how strategic collaboration between global banks and technology innovators can support growth, scale and operational resilience.
Expanding overseas
For those preparing to scale their insurtech overseas, there were insights galore as a panel of experts from S&W, ICEYE, distribind and ClaimSorted shared their first-hand experience of entering new markets, discussing topics ranging from getting to know the country, culture and potential customers to securing great talent and team building across timezones. They also tackled the all-important question: When is the right time to build out local operations?
Regulating AI across the globe
Louise Crawford, partner in the Hogan Lovells technology team, presented a whistlestop tour of different principles for regulating AI in the USA, UK and EU, talking members through the varying approaches ranging from deregulation, use of existing outcomes-based regulation, and new regulation trying to define specific AI risks.
FCA AI update
The Financial Conduct Authority’s Head of Data Science, Edmund Towers, was on hand to introduce the authority’s new AI Lab and talk about its latest plans to include AI live testing to support the firm’s adoption of artificial intelligence.
Innovating insurance with artificial intelligence
In a monster panel session for a huge topic, we welcomed Steve O’Reilly, Product Manager at Concirrus, Chris Weston, Senior Technology Consultant at NashTech, and Jack Whalley, Director of Insurance Strategy at Deloitte, to explore real-life use cases and future possibilities. Meanwhile, Louise Crawford from Hogan Lovells and Edmund Towers from the FCA returned to the stage, joined by Louise’s legal counsel colleague Charlie Shute, to discuss governance, trust and rules.
Long live insurtech!
Finally, the conference was brought to a close with a keynote speech delivered by Chris Hayward, CIty of London Corporation Policy Chairman, emphasising the important role insurtech will play in the future of the City and financial services.
Your views
“I thought the event today was really good. The panel sessions were really informative and there was a lot of discussion about lots of things that are going on in the market at the moment and I think its really good to have these connected discussions to help all the members and external parties about what’s happening, where things are going, what’s moving, what’s not moving and how potentially we can all work together to have a successful insurtech industry.”
Kathryn Ellis, Distribind
“I thought it was a really good event today. As a non-member coming in new to the organisation [...] it was absolutely fantastic from start to the finish. The keynotes were outstanding, asking all the key questions that people want to get to the bottom of [...] Just an absolutely great opportunity to connect with everyone.”
Luke Stratford, Fujitsu
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