James Birch: Ki Insurance’s Algorithmic Underwriting Revolution

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to James Birch, Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance—the first fully algorithmic syndicate in the history of Lloyd’s of London.

In today’s conversation, we’ll explore: James’s journey from VC to algorithmic-underwriting pioneer, what a “director of strategic technology solutions” actually does day-to-day inside a digital syndicate, the partnerships, cloud architecture and data streams that let Ki quote in seconds, the biggest trends shaping Algorithmic Underwriting 2.0—and what they mean for brokers, capacity partners and the wider market, and practical take-aways for anyone who wants to thrive as the next wave of automation rolls through speciality insurance

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Ki is a growth stage business, not an incumbent, we’re trying to fight our way to win business and ultimately to grow. We have to do something different from everyone else to try to position ourselves differently and find competitive advantage where we can. That’s something I’ve carried over from the VC space.
• We started out looking at what the digital model of the traditional model, where was the toil in the value chain and the broker’s work plan process and how can we simplifying it and make it more efficient using digital capabilities that we saw in the VC space, in FinTech and other financial service industries. 
• Lloyds of London is a heavily regulated market so we need to abide by any of the regulations that any carrier or underwriter do in that market. Our approach from day 1 was to engage with the regulator early, explain what we’re trying to do, be transparent, open and honest about where the gaps are if we’d not got to a certain level of maturity, don’t overstate the algorithm. We take regulation very seriously, which has helped because Lloyds has been highly supportive of us and our growth and have allowed us to grow as the market has grown.
• The main cost-save of the algorithmic underwriting for brokers is they don’t have to have loads of brokers running around the Lloyds of London building to find 2% on a slip or something, the broker negotiates with the lead underwriter, come onto the Ki platform for the follow, and then spend their time on new business and client opportunities.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Any business should evolve as the market evolves and the marketing dynamics changes, you’ve got to react to those and be thinking 2-5 years ahead.’

‘We still trip up on ourselves, even now, because we sometimes try to over-complicate things.’

‘Speak to the customer, hear their problems, understand what’s not working for them, try to make it a simple transaction for them, and then they’ll use your products.’

‘I’m a big advocate of the partner model because if you get 2, 3, or 4 like-minded companies as partners you can build something great together because you’re all strategically aligned.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

James Birch is the Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance, the market-leading algorithmic syndicate that’s redefining how Lloyd’s of London does business. 

Blending a venture-capital mindset with hands-on operating rigor, James has spent the past decade helping innovative companies move from bright idea to breakout scale.

Passionate about demystifying insurance for the next generation, James is a sought-after speaker on topics such as data-driven risk selection, the future of algorithmic capacity and what it really takes to scale