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[00:00:02] Paul Lucas: 
Hello everyone and welcome to Insurance Business TV as we take a look at one of the sector's rapidly emerging firms. Yes, PremFina describes itself as the fastest growing and most trusted premium finance provider in the UK. But what's the story behind that success? Well, in this edition, we welcome Laura Sweetman, the firm's Chief Operating Officer. Laura, let's dive in. What do you think has been the key driver of the trust from the broker community? 

[00:00:30] Laura Sweetman: 
I think fundamentally trust is earned it's not claimed you have to prove yourself and I believe that over the last three or four years we've really tried to do that. We have a very experienced leadership team who understand the premium finance market but most importantly understand what brokers need and what the challenges are. So we spend a lot of time making sure that we bring all of our expertise, not just at a leadership level, but those that are below us and making sure that we're delivering a product that works for insurance brokers. We've been really lucky. We have now probably well over 200 brokers that we work with in the UK. Those include a wide variety, all different sizes of brokers. We're working with the likes of Ardonna, Market Study Distribution, Ticker. The relationships are trusted and ultimately we do what we say we're going to do, which has been a major game changer for us. 

[00:01:27] Paul Lucas: 
And technology investment has clearly been a focus. So how have these advancements directly improved the broker and customer experience? 

[00:01:37] Laura Sweetman: 
I think it's really important that fundamentally relationships have to be there. You can have the best tech in the world, but if your relationships aren't there, then the two don't work. So we fundamentally like... We really believe in the relationships, but actually the technology helps us to deliver better outcomes for our broker partners and ultimately their end customers. What we've tried to do with technology is look at the processes that we know cause friction in the premium finance journey. So that could be things like delays in underwriting for large commercial brokers. That could be processes where we need ID from customers that historically for other premium finance businesses have been heavily manual. Whereas with what we're trying to do at Premfina is use that technology to take away some of the pain points and make the journey much more pleasurable for both the broker and their customer. 

[00:02:26] Paul Lucas: 
Yeah now you've also started working with some of the industry's biggest names so what lessons or innovations have you brought back to benefit that broader network of brokers? 

[00:02:38] Laura Sweetman: 
We have been able to get a lot of intel and design processes that work for bigger brokers. And what we have been able then to do is not just keep those for those brokers. Everything that we look to do, whether it's innovations in analytics, whether it's introducing new processes in the know your customer checks, we are able to roll those down to all of our partners, regardless of what the size is. So Premfina isn't just about the bigger brokers, it really is for all brokers and we want to try and help in whatever ways we can. 

[00:03:11] Paul Lucas: 
Yeah, Laura, premium finance is often seen as a commoditized product, isn't it? So how is Premfina changing that perception? And indeed, what makes your offering stand out to brokers in practical terms? 

[00:03:24] Laura Sweetman: 
At Premfina, we have never seen premium finance as a commoditized product. We truly believe it has a place in both individuals' lives and also businesses. Without premium finance, people couldn't pay for their car insurance all of the time which is a legal requirement, they couldn't get their kids to school. It's the same for businesses, they need insurances to make sure that they still operate so we truly believe that it is a very highly valued product and it is needed. So at Premfina what we have done is used our knowledge and also the technology that we have built to then be able to offer new products to market, new services but during all of that time, listening to what the market is doing, because we all know it's a rapidly changing market and we need to be able to move and evolve as quickly as everything that is going on around us. 

[00:04:14] Paul Lucas: 
Yeah. And looking ahead, Laura, what can brokers expect from Premfina in terms of partnership, innovation, support in the next 12 to 18 months? 

[00:04:25] Laura Sweetman: 
Well, hopefully more of the same. We certainly aren't going to stand still. We know that this industry has to keep moving and we have to keep moving very, very quickly. So we are looking at how do we take the technology platform that we've built and how do we get ahead of the game? So what are the next big things that are coming into the market? What do brokers need from us? What's going to make their lives easier? So we've got a huge drive around that. We're also looking and we have already embedded AI into our business. So again, how do we use that to help end customers contact us? How do we make the journeys less friction, cause less friction? And then ultimately, we want to move into other territories. We know that there is demand for premium finance in the international market. So we've certainly got our eyes set on that as well in the future. So it's a really exciting time for Premfina. We're really pleased with how quickly we've grown. We're pleased with the partners that we work with and we look forward to working with more partners in the future. 

[00:05:26] Paul Lucas: 
Yeah, great thoughts. Clearly, Premfina is one to keep an eye on throughout 2025. Laura, huge thanks for your time and thanks to you, of course, for watching. We'll see you next time right here on Insurance Business TV.