Big Ticket results ‘impressive’, says Airmic, as platform teams with Ifrima to accelerate Europe and Asia expansion

Following successful pilots in the UK and US, digital renewal platform Big Ticket is working with Ifrima and national risk management associations in a bid to expand into Europe and Asia.

Industry-backed Big Ticket is a free-of-charge renewal platform for risk managers and insurance buyers, developed with founding partner Mastercard and Global Advisory Board members including Airmic, Aon, Aviva, Oasis and Zurich. The platform is currently being piloted in the UK and North America, with plans to roll out in Europe and Asia over the next two years.

Julia Graham, chief executive of Airmic and chair of the Big Ticket Advisory Board, said the initiative has potential to change the industry on a global scale.

“Results from its first year of operations are impressive – the benefits and opportunities it presents are even more significant than we hoped. Risk management associations and their members have a key role in driving the digital agenda, and Big Ticket is a game changer for the insurance industry and for risk managers alike. The next step is for us to support our members to adopt Big Ticket at scale,” she said.

Early results from the roll out of Big Ticket have seen renewal times dramatically reduce and data quality significantly improve, according to Robert Bartlett, co-founder and chief executive of the company. Using Big Ticket, corporates are processing renewals in hours and minutes, rather than months, he said.

“This is proper industry level infrastructure designed for the purpose of connecting millions of people and hundreds of thousands of policyholders, across multiple business lines, at scale and safely. What we are doing now is delivering on that promise. Delivering on the benefits, savings and experience,” said Bartlett.

“Last year was conceptual, delivering for one or two clients. What we are seeing this year is frankly unbelievable… from a broker, client and insurer perspective, they are being knocked out of the park,” he said.

Aon has been encouraged by the experience of clients using Big Ticket for renewals, said Joe Peiser, global chief executive officer at Aon Commercial Risk Solutions. “It is clear that a standard, digitised approach to structured exposure data will help reduce uncertainty and will drive better decisions for our clients and benefit all our industry partners.”

Big Ticket has been working with Aon and Zurich in North America to pilot the platform with a wide range of companies, from mid-market through to large risk-managed corporates. In the UK, Big Ticket is working with several undisclosed global and national brokers to pilot the platform. It said it has a pipeline of brokers and insurers interested in using Big Ticket post-pilot stage.

Big Ticket will soon move from the pilot stage to “scalable production”. It will begin to onboard brokers and insurers in the UK and North America in the second half of this year. The company hopes to expand into Europe next year and then Asia within two years.

“By this time next year, we would want to be heavily rooted in the UK and Europe, and then Asia would be 2026. One of our main insurers is a very strategic large Asian insurer and we have rightly discussed that they would be our lead insurer going into Asia,” said Bartlett.

Big Ticket’s core business model is to connect brokers and insurers, but it has also onboarded a number of large corporates and captives directly. It is now working with national risk management associations under the International Federation of Risk and Insurance Management Associations (Ifrima), explained Bartlett.

He said the insurance industry is beginning to move away from the current regional and country-based approach to technology and process to global solutions. “What we are now seeing is global platforms being built, and Big Ticket is one of the first examples of that,” he said.

Bartlett argues that the insurance industry has not thought enough about the customer as part of its digital journey.

“The voice of the customer needs to be heard more clearly, particularly when it comes to digital, governance and the use of data. We see the risk management associations as being the voice of the customer globally. We think the industry has not listened as hard as it should, and that is now changing. In a small way, we are now a catalyst for that change,” said Bartlett.

“We are bringing the customer, and the customers’ needs, front and centre, and into focus,” he said.

Ifrima, which represents risk management associations in North America, Europe and Asia, will now select around half a dozen national associations to bring a number of corporates directly, or through their industry partners, into the Big Ticket platform, according to Ken Fraser, the company’s co-founder and president.

“There are Ifrima members that want us to launch in Europe and Asia, and are willing to support us… They want to get feedback from risk managers in those various countries as to its applicability and efficacy for each of their member associations. From our perspective, it will initially accelerate our presence in other countries around the world,” he said.

“Bringing senior risk managers in those countries together and having a common view around Big Ticket and its ability to sustain itself and be successful and in multi-lingual multi-cultural environments, is a big stepping stone for us,” he added.

Big Ticket and KPMG have produced a “playbook” for risk management associations and their members to adopt Big Ticket swiftly, smoothly and easily.

According to Bartlett, the industry spends $25bn each year on collecting exposure data in a “groundhog day” annual renewal process. And yet insurers currently receive just 35% of the information they need to price risk, resulting in additional costs from the need to factor in uncertainty, he said.

“We are now thinking that our original estimates [for cost saving] are understated. The ability to transform an industry for the benefit of clients and to the benefit of brokers and insurers as well, is really exciting. And that is what we are now starting to see,” said Bartlett.

Initially, Big Ticket works with brokers and insurers to upload an insured’s exposure data following renewal, at no cost to the insured. Risk managers and brokers can then update that information ahead of their next renewal.

“From a corporate buyer’s perspective, you arrive at our platform with your data pre-loaded and paid for by the insurer. If you want to, you can literally just push a button and you are done. A renewal process that takes months and weeks today can be done in seconds,” said Bartlett.

“At scale, that starts to become transformational. We talk about the $25bn cost benefit being understated, but actually it unlocks innovation, downstream and upstream. That is why all the visionary leaders that work with our steering group see the opportunity here to truly transform our industry,” he said.