Marsh aims to 'unleash a new era of innovation'

Marsh hopes to "unleash a new era of innovation" as it rolls out its digital trading initiative for risks placed in the London insurance market.

The initiative is part of its global insurance placement digitisation strategy, designed to improve the client experience and operational efficiency through data-led innovation.

According to Marsh, the rollout will be delivered through Verisk’s Whitespace platform, which enables brokers and underwriters to offer, negotiate, place and bind re/insurance contracts with one another, in a digital form, across all classes of re/insurance business and geographies.

Following a pilot in 2023, which traded over $400 million of premium, Marsh is now expanding the use of digital trading across its UK Specialty and international placement business this year and anticipates that in excess of 90% of all client premium in that segment will flow through the platform by the end of 2024.

Dominic Samengo-Turner, UK chief executive, Marsh Specialty, said: “The London insurance market is the natural place to expand the rollout of our digital placement strategy, given its key importance to the global placement and broking community and the drive towards greater efficiency and innovation through digitisation envisaged in the ambitious Blueprint Two programme.

“By prioritising ‘data first’ – the transition from relying on documents and emails to structured data – and digitally connecting our clients to the best possible solutions wherever they may be found in the world, we can unlock transformational benefits across the entire insurance eco-system and unleash a new era of innovation. This enhanced digitisation will give us the ability to align our operational processes to the Blueprint programme faster, enabling us to drive benefits for our clients.”

“Following last year’s successful pilot, we are pleased to welcome Marsh to the Whitespace platform,” said Tim Rayner, chief executive of Verisk Specialty Business Solutions. “Our collaboration thus far with Marsh has led to meaningful improvements to the platform, benefiting the London insurance market. As we continue to scale the platform, we expect the arguments for a fully data-first marketplace to become increasingly compelling.”