Industry-owned Polaris has announced a 21% increase in insurance premiums processed through its digital trading platform, imarket, reaching £394 million in 2023, growth which accompanies the firm’s commitment to enhancing its digital offerings.
This commitment includes a £1.5 million investment in imarket's infrastructure and over £1 million in the development of ProductWriter, its rating engine.
The firm highlighted the evolving complexity within the digital rating landscape, noting an increased adoption of machine learning algorithms and the extension of digital rating capabilities to more intricate products and risks. Polaris’s ProductWriter, utilised by 80 clients, facilitates the provision of technical premiums, terms, and endorsements, enabling digital trading or serving as a basis for specialist underwriter assessments.
Polaris has implemented around 50 upgrades in 2023, informed by user feedback. Enhancements focused on integrating machine learning for pricing optimisation, introducing new workflow tools, and supporting pricing model imports. A significant upgrade in 2023 expanded ProductWriter's functionality to include rating for large risks, catering to complex insurance needs in areas such as fleet, property portfolios, and marine risks.
Polaris plans further advancements in 2024 to expedite the deployment of new pricing strategies and product introductions to the market. The company also reported a 6.2% increase in the number of policies placed via imarket, surpassing the half-million mark with 528,711 policies in 2023, up from 497,883 the previous year.
Continued investment in imarket was highlighted by a £1.5 million infusion in November to transition the platform to scalable cloud technology, including significant recoding efforts aimed at modernising the infrastructure for future digital trading needs.
Polaris's Standards product also notably issued nine new licenses, maintaining a unique client count of 105 despite industry consolidation. The company also observed a 25% increase in its Live-Chat service usage, reaching 296,821 chats in 2023, as insurers and brokers leverage this tool for discussing complex risks in a secure manner.
Vivek Banga, managing director of Polaris, remarked on the company's role in promoting digital insurance trading and the critical nature of ongoing investment in technology to bridge risks with capital efficiently.
“Our mission remains the same, to support digital trading within the industry. Huge thanks to our Board and our industry supporters – who spent over 1,000 hours across our product forums - for ensuring we can continue to do so,” Banga said.
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