Zego gets Gibraltarian insurance licence

InsurTech company Zego has been awarded a licence to operate as an insurer in Gibraltar.

The licence enables Zego to act as a carrier and build and sell its own products and essentially have a Gibraltar-domiciled and regulated provider business in addition to its other activities.

The firm said that it will remain working alongside its insurer partners and that the licence will enable it to innovate with new policies and analyse and implement product changes in less than 24 hours.

According to the firm the move will also give it the ability to utilise the data it collects to develop automated pricing technology through monitoring driver behaviour and analysing external data to offer policies priced in proportion to each customer’s level of risk.

Data
Its CEO and co-founder, Sten Saar has told Insurance Age that through its own data gathering: “We will get 10,000 times more data on the policy than the average insurer on the traditional annual policy.

“We can then overlay that data with customer behavioural data with weather data, with police database and the traffic patterns in the database.”

Saar detailed that developing a carrier side to the business had been in the works since mid June and that it should form about 20% of the firm’s activity.

“Our strategy overall and it always will be is to work together with our other insurance partners always, because what our own insurance carrier will enable us to do is to also innovate areas that today we are not able to develop.”

Risk
“With this innovation we’ll be able to carry the financial risk with it because not every insurer is always comfortable with doing so and together we will be growing and developing the products and we will take the risk on ourselves and with some we will share the risk so that strategy will always remain with us.”

The CEO additionally stated that the licence is part of its mission to change the insurance industry through the creation of flexible policies. 

“We have already started selling our own products but will continue to partner with other insurance companies, with this collaboration still a crucial part of our business model.”

Saar stipulated that the firm centres on motor. ”For the foreseeable future, we will be focused on motor, because it’s a huge market and there’s a lot to do in the space.”

Partners
Zego’s insurance policies are backed by 15 A-rated reinsurers, including Swiss Re.

Simon Welton, market head p&c UK & Ireland at Swiss Re, said: “Swiss Re is very pleased to have been able to support Zego with our risk knowledge and reinsurance capacity.

“We look forward to continuing to work with them in the future and supporting their growth plans.”

History
In June Zego raised $42m (£33.5m)to fuel its expansion across Europe.

At the end of October, Zego operated in five countries and told Insurance Age that it planned to expand further across Europe and continue growing its workforce.

It was launched in 2016 in order to provide flexible insurance for the gig economy and has since expanded its B2B offering to cater to the fast-growing market of new mobility services, such as fleet and scooter sharing. 

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