London, England based insurance broker and tech platform Superscript, which was founded in 2015 and targets SMEs as well as “high-growth” tech firms has raised $54 million in a Series B round of funding.
The Series B funding round was led by Comparethemarket owner BHL UK, with participation from The Hartford, and Concentric.
The platform is available for customers within the United Kingdom and is made up of two core insurance businesses, one being an online-only “self-serve” style platform that is available to UK customers, sole traders, and landlords. The other is called SuperScriptQ, also available in the United Kingdom but also across the European Economic Area (EEA) which is targeted at tech businesses with complex risks that are deemed more challenging to insure.
Instances considered to be more difficult to insure include medical malpractice or professional indemnity.
“Insurance has a more complex value chain than most tech businesses, in that you need to focus on both your acquisition strategy as well as the going performance of the policies that you’re selling,” Superscript co-founder and CEO Cameron Shearer said, according to TechCrunch. “While fast-growth in customer numbers is typically seen as a good thing, if the underwriting is not right then claims — in other words, losses — will start to compound over time. If you carry long-term liabilities, then you might not experience the business’s ‘true’ results for a number of years.”
“Historically, many investors have mirrored the tech-investment models and focused on acquisition,” Shearer continued. “More recently, now with the hindsight of more mature insurtechs and a number of IPO experiences, we’ve seen investors shifting focus towards underwriting differentiation and strength. Superscript has focused on sustainable growth and quality underwriting from day one to give us more favourable loss ratios. Sophisticated underwriting, tech and data capabilities enable us to provide a highly personalized user and underwriting experience.”
