Broking Success: Spotting a gap in the market

Describe your career journey, and how you ended up in insurance?

I was a golf caddy before I started My First. What happened is that I realised there was a gap in the market for first-time drivers when I went to get insured.

Young drivers struggled to understand what were they doing. 

The go-to [for young drivers] is comparison sites, where you get given the prices in order and you choose [one of the cheapest].

But there are insurance terms that young drivers don’t understand, and there was no help in terms of explaining them. That made me think there needed to be a company that gives you advice and guidance, and allows you to buy what you need, not is necessarily cheapest. 

When I was a caddy, I got together a very small amount of investment, got an experienced team and started the business My First in November 2016 .

How do you find the insurance world?

I think it is a good industry. One where people can build a career with lots of long-term opportunities.

There needed to be a company that gives you advice and guidance, and allows you to buy what you need, not what is necessarily cheapest.

For me, I think there’s still a lot of disruption that needs to happen, it’s quite a slow sector. But everybody has to follow certain rules and regulations, so it is a really solid in that respect.

What challenges have you faced being a start-up?

I didn’t suffer from this personally, but I know start-ups do in terms of having the confidence to trust your idea. 

Starting a business is a risk, where you have to go backwards to take five steps forwards.

When I started My First, I didn’t take a salary for the first two years, and had to trust that [success] would come.

I think a lot of people would be put off by this, and starting a business is a risk, where you have to go backwards to take five steps forwards.

How did My First perform in the first couple of years?

It was a slow burner for us. We had a couple years worth of trading, and were just trying to build products and get the people to know us.

Then we hit Covid-19 and driving tests effectively stopped for a few years. So, we basically had to start again after the Covid-19 pandemic, but this time around we had more experience and our relationships – that put us in good stead. Since then we have grown really quickly.

How has customer demand been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis?

For us, our business is here for these moments to help young drivers through these difficult times.

In terms of the general rise in prices it is difficult, and we sympathise with young drivers.

We are all about advice and guidance, and making sure you do it correctly and look after the customer. I believe there are a lot of companies in the space that are just focused on selling volume.

We want to look after our customers, and make sure they can afford things in hard times.

From that point of view we are here to help, but in terms of the general rise in prices it is difficult, and we sympathise with young drivers.

How is My First performing now?

We are flying. This year, it’s month-on- month growth, and the customer base is really starting to expand.

We are starting to get a lot of interest from insurers and partners, so we are on a really strong upwards trajectory.

Where would you like to see the business go in the next year?

We aim to write about £18m in gross written premiums this year, and next year we will want to try and achieve the same level of growth.

We have strong growth plans, and want to be the go-to place for a young adult buying their first car insurance policy. For us, it is about making the processes as good and easy as possible for the customer.

What advice would you give to people who want to start an insurance broker?

I would say the most important thing when you start an insurance broker would be to do your research before you begin.

Try and start a business with someone that has been in the market before, or make sure you are coming at it with an understanding that it is going to be a long-term build and not happen overnight.

Some people just dive in when actually there is a lot of due diligence and work that has to be done prior to being able to sell a policy, whether that be getting your qualifications, getting your authorisation status, building relationships with insurers or having the products available. 

It is not as easy as you think, and it requires a lot of time and planning.

My advice would be to try and start a business with someone that has been in the market before, or make sure you are coming at it with an understanding that it is going to be a long-term build and not happen overnight.

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