Modernising data exchange in captives and commercial insurance: Big Ticket
In an industry long reliant on outdated processes, Big Ticket is spearheading a revolution in how mid-market and large corporate insurers, including captives, manage and exchange data around risk. Co-founders Ken Fraser and Rob Bartlett claim their offering represents a redefinition of operational standards.
Fraser, Big Ticket’s president, has spent more than 35 years in insurance, including 25 of those with Marsh, with time in London and the US, where he worked with many large, global companies with sophisticated self-retention programmes and mature captives.
Bartlett, chief executive, has worked across broking, captives and digital change. He said the idea for Big Ticket came while he was consulting for a private equity firm. He recalls being baffled that commercial insurance – unlike consumer or SME insurance – was still running on emails and spreadsheets.
“It’s a $2 trillion global industry, highly syndicated and international, yet there’s no proper infrastructure connecting brokers, insurers, reinsurers or captive managers,” Bartlett told AIRMIC Today. “Imagine if banking still ran like this – it would be unthinkable.”
Compelling results
Inspired by the transformation seen in payments technology used in other sectors, Big Ticket aims to build an infrastructure that enables the seamless, secure flow of data between all stakeholders. The results are compelling.
“We’ve seen net promoter scores jump from -100 to +90 for the renewal process,” Bartlett claimed. “Processes that once took months are now done in hours or days.”
Fraser offered another example: “When I worked with Coca-Cola, the renewal process often took seven to eight months. You’d barely finish one year before starting on the next. It wasn’t just inefficient – it was exhausting.”
Big Ticket's value proposition lies in its improvement of data quality and usability. “Historically, clients produced only 31-34% of the data needed annually,” says Fraser. “Now, we’re seeing first-year scores jump to 82%, and second renewals hit 90% plus.”
This improvement is not just cosmetic. Better data quality directly enhances capital efficiency for captives. “The more complete and accurate your data, the less uncertainty your underwriter prices in,” explains Bartlett. “That means your captive can retain more risk with the same capital base – a meaningful gain.”
Data integrity also lays the foundation for modern technology such as AI and agent-based automation. “You can’t build reliable AI on incomplete, unaudited data,” Bartlett said. “We provide an auditable, permissioned platform that ensures the data’s origins and usage rights are clear.”
How to train a model
The analogy he draws is stark: “Would a carmaker use materials with unknown provenance to build a catalytic converter? Of course not. But the insurance industry makes decisions on risk data every day without knowing where it came from.”
But with rising concerns over AI ethics and copyright, Big Ticket’s infrastructure ensures stakeholders maintain control over their data – even as automation increases. “We solve one of the thorniest issues facing AI adoption: do you have the right to use that data to train your models?” Bartlett added.
In classic tech fashion, the goal is for the interface to fade into the background. “If you need an instruction manual, we’ve failed,” said Bartlett.
It’s that simplicity that has seen risk managers, captive owners, brokers and insurers all adopt the platform with minimal training. The company’s trajectory suggests it is on track to do for insurance what credit card companies did for payments – build the invisible infrastructure that powers a smarter, faster and more transparent future.
“When a process that once felt like Groundhog Day becomes seamless, intuitive, and measurable, you know you’re not just digitising insurance – you’re reinventing it,” Fraser said.
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