Every Insurer is in the pursuit of new risks, new products & new innovation and we have a ‘Welcome’ sign on the door

We have always had an appetite for risk, an eye on the future and a passion for innovation at Apollo. The ibott Rover SPA is in its first full year of underwriting, which coincides with the 50-year anniversary of when one of our original investors; Neil Armstrong, became the first man to walk on the moon.

It’s an exciting time to be in insurance! The industry across all lines is facing mounting challenges to create products to meet new and rapidly changing risks; but this can only be achieved through collaboration, innovation and transparency. It's naive to think that an off the shelf product is going to meet the requirements of the future, so we need to engage with disruptive companies to collaborate and create fit for purpose solutions. Too often, we have seen the insurance industry assemble teams to sit in a dark room and hatch strategies and products for the future only to see them gain no traction upon release. So, the rise of insuretech dawns.... 

Huge amounts of funding have been thrown at a multitude of new start-ups all aspiring to cause as much disruption to the industry as possible. We agree that insurance is ripe and ready for disruption, particularly within areas of processing and in many cases the distribution of the product. However, we do not necessarily need to look at Insuretech as our pure source of new product innovation. That innovation can still come from within. All we need to do is remove the historic facade of insurance and welcome our clients with new and emerging risks that they need new products to adequately cover. There are plenty of examples of such companies, that, when approaching the insurance industry, find that the products they are offered are unfit for purpose.

The sharing economy and future mobility solutions are great examples of such companies and exactly the companies that the ibott Rover SPA is looking to partner with. We are constantly asked at Apollo to share our wordings for Home sharing, Ridesharing or E-Scooter risks. We are questioned about our approach to rating new and innovative risks. The key for us is a risk by risk underwriting approach rather than a portfolio approach. This means we consider each opportunity on its own merits. Accounts are subsequently written on manuscript wordings and risk rating is bespoke. This however, is only possible if there is a high level of engagement between the Insured, Insurer and the Broker.

With significant collaboration, we can create insurance products for individual Insureds that are fit for purpose and enable them to grow. Through a transparent and open-minded approach, we can truly create products that will ensure a long-term insurer and insured relationship. So rather than sit back and wait for new products to be released by the insurance industry, we implore you to engage with carriers that are looking to do things differently. Apollo is certainly one of those carriers. We appreciate that historically, Insurance has been somewhat poor at considering new business models. We have seen that with the large ride sharing companies being forced to set up huge captives in the face of a closed door from the insurance industry. But times have changed. Not every carrier needs ten years of loss data to consider new risks.

At Apollo, we are always looking for engagement from Insureds on how we model and price risk. We are happy to make assumptions, based on our open discussions with our Insureds, which may impact future losses and take this into account in our bespoke risk rating. We are happy to embed other rating factors into modelling. We are happy to look at individual driver rating for rideshare though the use of telematics rather than rating by mile purely by period and by territory. For E-Scooters, is there the potential to rate by rider experience? The first ten trips on a scooter taken by a rider will almost definitely be riskier than any future trips, so should that be taken into account in the rating? For the growing world of last mile delivery by independent contractors, can we start looking at the vehicle type and age and look at the advance driver assist systems that they have and how that impacts risk? Applying a per mile rate for all vehicles is surely not granular enough. In order to consider this though, companies should try to capture as much data on exposures and factors that could affect losses now and in the future. This will allow them to put forward credible arguments and trends to insurers to look at taking different rating factors into account than they normally would. All of these suggestions are not ground-breaking examples of innovation, but are examples of how we can do things differently to create new and more fit for purpose products for Insureds.

So, if you are a potential buyer or a broker and you are looking for something new and innovative from the insurance industry – knock on some doors and see if somebody wants to go on a journey with you. Hopefully you will be made to feel welcome and who knows where the journey might lead? You will certainly always be welcome at Lloyd’s of London and Apollo.