Esure quotes car insurance inside ChatGPT, and the shop window moves
Ageas has put an esure car insurance quote inside ChatGPT, built in house. The interesting part is not the plugin but who owns the customer conversation once it starts there.
Writing
Notes on building in insurance and financial services. Most of these appear on LinkedIn first.
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Guidewire buys hyperexponential, and pricing becomes a platform
A US software group is paying up to $2.1bn for the London pricing engine used by many UK commercial insurers. The question for boards is who owns the edge once the rating logic sits with a vendor.
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AmTrust buys Wakam, and MGAs learn what their capacity rests on
AmTrust has bought Wakam a month after France's regulator stopped its main insurer writing new business. The UK arm stayed solvent throughout, and that difference is the lesson for every MGA.
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The FCA wants to stop certifying the people who run claims
CP26/37 would scrap the Certification Regime, saving firms an estimated £133m a year. For brokers, MGAs and insurers, the annual sign-off on claims managers goes, and the duty behind it stays.
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The Lords want home insurance judged on claims, not just price
Peers say home and travel cover is bought on price because nobody can compare claims outcomes. If insurers cannot agree comparable data, the FCA should impose it.
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The PRA wants its insurer thresholds to grow with the economy
CP13/26 would link 128 fixed thresholds, including the Solvency UK size test, to nominal GDP from 2031. For smaller general insurers, the regime boundary stops creeping towards them.
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Sabre says motor prices still trail claims inflation
Sabre puts UK motor claims inflation at 6% to 7% this year and says premiums have not kept pace. Severity is rising while frequency is not, and that changes who is really underpriced.
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Insurance premium tax is the Budget's quietest £9bn
Insurance premium tax raised a record £9.04bn last year, almost double what it raised in 2016 to 2017. Ahead of the 28 October Budget, the case for cutting it on health cover meets a Treasury that has grown used to it.
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Home insurers forecast a loss before the hottest summer on record
Two forecasts put UK home insurance above a 100% combined ratio for 2026, before the subsidence surge. Prices have barely turned, and someone has to move first.
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Stellantis provisions six times more before any ruling lands
Stellantis's UK finance arm swung from profit to loss after a six-fold rise in its motor finance redress provision. The Upper Tribunal has yet to rule on whether the FCA's compensation formula survives.
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Record payouts to frightened customers
Motor insurers paid a record £3.2bn in claims last quarter. A third of drivers are too frightened to make one. Those two facts belong together.
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Without logic there is no surprise and no joy
Process delivers the expected. Culture delivers the unexpected. The second only lands because the first is so dependable that people had stopped noticing it.
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Redress delayed
A lender collapses, 120,000 customers join the back of the queue, and the redress timetable runs to 2028. What delay teaches people about doing the right thing.
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You can't automate a mess
Two systems that were never able to see each other, and a process nobody ever mapped. Why bolting AI onto that gives you a faster mess.
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The bag that never goes missing
We see the failure in high definition and stay blind to the ten thousand quiet preventions. That is exactly where AI is going to live.
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Am I covered?
2027 will send millions back out to shop, and AI agents will do the comparing. Whoever makes cover legible at that moment wins.
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The claim is the promise
Price and claims keep getting merged, and merging them does real harm. On the claim, the evidence is better than the headline suggests.
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8-part series
Engage
Part 1 of Engage — a nine-post sequence written across one quarter on what it means to build, and to hand over, intelligence.
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Glitter or gold
You can now get a home insurance quote through OpenAI. That is not the story. Whether AI understands fair value is.
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Folding laundry and being brilliant
Two AI sessions working in parallel while I fold the laundry. Delegation at a different altitude, and why the skill is knowing what to ask for.
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The Granny at Sunday lunch test
£485, then £546, then £510 — same driver, same risk, same insurer. If you cannot explain that, you do not have a pricing problem.
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Going once, going twice, gone wrong
Going once. Final hours. Then a bigger discount the next day. Manufactured urgency is a regulatory risk, and a trust problem.