Harnessing a Digital-First Approach to Transform Insurance

How AI and automation are helping McGill and Partners to deliver better client solutions and enhance broker-insurer collaboration 

By Simon Bradbury, CTO, McGill and Partners.

How do you enter a traditional industry dominated by large multinational firms and become one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe in just 5 years? 

The answer? Being fast and entrepreneurial with a laser focus on talent. 

You need the very best people and be willing to go where they are, adopting modern and flexible ways of working that attract diverse skill sets that might not fit into a more traditional insurance setting. 

To do achieve this, we created an industry-leading colleague value proposition we call the ‘Contract of Trust’. This commitment between the company and colleagues focuses on high performance, professionalism, freedom and trust.  It’s unique not just in the insurance industry but across many other sectors globally.  

We offer market leading benefits, such as extended, fully-paid parental leave, unlimited holiday, sabbaticals, flexible working, and wellbeing allowances. Our firm was built to be innovative and different by design across the entire business, including our approach to people management. We are committed to challenging the status quo, and our Contract of Trust reflects that.  This ethos is integral to the firm, fostering a holistic culture that enhances productivity and collaboration, improves client experiences and drives better business outcomes. 

Today, in our fifth full trading year, we employ over 550 colleagues, with global offices including London, Dublin, Bermuda and New York, and serve a who’s who of many of the largest and most sophisticated clients in the world. Last year, we ranked 76 in the FT’s 1000 fastest growing companies in Europe.

We launched the firm with digital-first principles. We understood the importance of capitalising on technology and set out to be different by design.  

This strategy has contributed to our success. To attract and retain top talent, it’s important to minimise time spent on repetitive tasks and strive towards providing a best-in-class experience, allowing our colleagues to focus on high-value activities. While we’re still in the early stages of implementing Agentic AI, our strong technology foundations, have allowed us to quickly test and seamlessly integrate these advanced tools. This approach is helping us build a more flexible and productive environment, supporting future growth and innovation.

Automated powered growth 

One of the advantages of being a new business is the absence of technical debt. We didn’t have decades of investment in heritage systems to overcome, freeing us to embrace the latest automation, cloud platforms, analytics, collaboration platforms and other digital tools from the get-go. 

One such example is our digital platform Underscore, which allows distribution partners to connect instantly with London market insurers in highly efficient and cost-effective ways, through powerful technology and automation. It improves connectivity and provides value for our distribution partners.

We also launched Auton – the first-ever, fully digital auto-follow broker facility, in the Lloyd’s insurance market – a type of insurance facility that streamlines the underwriting and placement process and automates risk selection. 

Both are great examples, of our digital-first approach. 

Couple this with an inquisitive culture that champions innovation and openness, and you have a winning combination that has enabled us to quickly advance in an insurance market that’s hundreds of years old. By bringing together the best-in-class talent with cutting-edge technology, we’re able to seize opportunities and outperform more established firms.

Agents and augmentation 

A survey by Salesforce found 71% of high growth companies believe AI will revolutionise how they leverage customer data. AI and automation have had such a transformative impact on our business that it’s fair to say its use across the firm will only grow. Across the industry, having an effective AI toolset driving key processes, will become crucial for every business, small and large. 

We’re delighted to be the first London Market Broker to leverage agentic AI, using Salesforce’s Agentforce to build our own AI agents to streamline processes, enhance data analysis, and boost productivity. 

Looking ahead, we foresee transformative possibilities for agentic AI. Our partnership with Salesforce will leverage Agentforce’s capabilities to drive growth and future success. We are currently experimenting with its application and are excited about its potential to address and simplify many of the complexities in the insurance industry.