After an impressive 2020 for digital e-trading platform, Whitespace, underpinned by rapid uptake and full recognition by Lloyd’s of London, Reinsurance News spoke with Marcus Broome, Chief Platform Officer.
Broome has been in the insurance industry since 1985, originally working for a Lloyd’s syndicate before founding a technology business called ROOM Solutions in 1991, which supplied systems to a lot of the marketplace. He joined Whitespace in 2015 and is now responsible for leading the Whitespace Platform business.
In a COVID-19 world, electronic placement has been at the forefront of the insurance and reinsurance industry’s digitisation push, enabling business to be transacted remotely as lockdown measures came into force.
Of course, Whitespace isn’t the only electronic placement tool in the market, but Broome explained what sets the company apart from other platforms.
“Our differentiators are the fact the entire risk placement process is digital (data, not document plus data) from the outset; this is where the real power for the brokers and underwriters lies. It enables integration and rapid decision making,” said Broome. “We also take pride in building a consistently intuitive ‘consumer grade’ user experience. We do our utmost to match the modern experience we all have of technology at home – if we download an app, we expect to be able to use it without the need for any assistance.”
While Whitespace enables the entire risk placement process to be digital, the company’s goal isn’t to replace the need for face-to-face business entirely, but to eliminate the need for the Word and PDF documents that effectively hold the modernising process back.
“The expertise remains with the brokers and underwriters, and those relationships that make the placements of risks happen are still vital to the global insurance market. We are not a disruptor, we recognise the value that each part of the market provides. But we are an efficiency play, and we believe that if our technology enables costs savings, the market will benefit,” explained Broome.
In early July, Whitespace revealed that its platform had passed the 100 customer mark less than a year since its launch, and according to Broome, this happened faster than expected in both London and internationally.
“Before the pandemic, business was already moving very quickly and COVID-19 has further broadened and deepened customer take up. Being able to work remotely and not rely on email has been important for our customers in lockdown. We all need face to face interaction, but the efficiency of the process is clear, and real savings are now being made,” he said.
Just days after announcing it had passed this important milestone, Whitespace was in the news again after being fully recognised by Lloyd’s as an approved system for the market’s electronic placement mandate for managing agents.
Interestingly, Broome told Reinsurance News exactly what this means for Whitespace moving forward.
“We were previously restricted to mid-sized businesses and discrete teams in large businesses. In practice, it didn’t hold us back but as we passed 100 customers we felt we had demonstrated our ability to operate at scale. Recognition from Lloyd’s will not alter our independence or development at all, but it helps remove any concerns that would have been raised in larger firms by the previous condition,” he explained.
As well as burgeoning growth in the London market, Broome revealed that the Whitespace platform is seeing increasing interest around the world, with a carrier and broker already using the platform in the U.S., alongside brokers from South Africa, Italy, Spain, and most recently, interest from Panama.
“With reinsurance now being placed on Whitespace too, we expect European and Bermudian customers to start using the platform soon,” continued Broome.
Clearly, Whitespace is playing an important role in the digital revolution that is taking place across the risk transfer industry, but Broome stressed the need for continual improvement to drive demand for its technology.
“We benefit from a direct relationship with all of our customers, and the ability to make rapid decisions. It’s a huge advantage in terms of development speed, and ease of decision making,” said Broome.
Adding: “Integration of Whitespace into broker and underwriter systems will be the next step for many of our customers so they can get further efficiencies that Whitespace can bring, by starting to automate some of the more drawn out pre and post bind processes. We don’t just think about the London Market; it’s a huge global market, and every single player faces the same digital opportunity no matter where they are.”
To end, Broome offered some thoughts on what to expect from Whitespace over the next 12-18 months.
“We have an aggressive roadmap of functionality that we want to develop to add new features, and improve existing processes. Our customers are important in helping us make the decision of the order of our roadmap. Expect further international growth, and to see us addressing the processes post bind,” said Broome.
