Blog by Adam Clarke

Blog by Adam Clarke | Ageas Chief Underwriting Officer

Living in interesting times

Since we last gathered in this busy exhibition hall, our industry has been rising to the challenge of a steady flow of influences, that when accumulated, amass to what has certainly been a year of ‘living in interesting times’. I’m sure you’ll agree ‘unprecedented’ outstayed its welcome in the years prior.

Twelve months of pricing regulation, claims inflation, and significant weather events combined have presented an unimaginable challenge for many players in the market. However, simply focusing on these challenges is like looking at the horizon from the wrong end of a telescope – it’s impossible to see the whole picture.

Having spent the last two years doubling down our efforts in the personal lines broker market, we’re looking through the telescope the right way, and we can see that there is so much potential for growth and collaboration with our broker partners, aligned to our commitment to being their personal lines insurer of choice.

That potential is being actualised by our investment in the best-in-class pricing technology and our best-in-class technical underwriting and pricing experts.

In December 2022 we rolled out a new way of pricing our broker private car product using a new rating system (Radar Live) with the capability to integrate bespoke models in real time. Since being implemented, it’s already had a significant, and positive impact, on our quote conversion rates.

But let’s just pause for a moment to consider how it’s possible, in the middle of a very hard market, to realise growth without taking the drastic step of slashing prices below their true risk price.

I’m sure in our time we’ve all bought a ‘game-changing’ gadget like a bean-to-cup coffee machine and then promptly realised that simply owning the ‘Home Barista’ edition doesn’t guarantee that you can expertly craft your favourite flat white coffee at home.

It’s just the same with a tool like Radar Live, the technology is great but needs to be used by experts for maximum benefit. And we’re maximising the benefits of this technology by drawing on our expertise in data science, underwriting and pricing and their innate ability to create bespoke models. It’s these models, integrated into this system and blended with the multiple data sources that the systems draws upon, which enables us to attribute every quote with a personalised risk and therefore a more risk appropriate price.

This new sophisticated pricing hub, now offers brokers competitive rates deployed in real time, enabling our broker partners to better compete.

As one of our underwriting experts Sarah Jaggard eloquently said;

“Never has it been so important to be able to be agile with rating decisions and Ageas is now both flexible and fast. We have the exciting ability to tune in to evolving customer needs with digital propositions that let them have insurance their way. We’re rising to the challenge, leading the way in personal lines and enjoying living in interesting times.”