Percayso Inform is a business on the up after reporting 200% annual growth – and its MD says there is more to come in 2024.
Rich Tomlinson joined the fledgling Nottingham business in 2017 after spending nearly 30 years in data and analytics in a variety of roles including at Experian and TransUnion.
It would launch its insurance intelligence service to the market three years later with the aim of helping insurance providers to adapt to fast-changing market conditions, gain true competitive advantage and write better business.
“The insurance market has seen a number of challenges over the past few years from increased regulation, claims inflation, increased fraud and increased competition generally leading to some of the worst loss ratio results in decades,” he explains to BusinessCloud.
“These issues all mean that insurance providers need to be smarter with data and write better business to survive and ultimately thrive.
“However, the use of data enrichment techniques to enhance pricing strategies has become a given in the insurance market which, before we launched our proposition, was at a point where competitive advantage had all but disappeared, as every provider had pretty much the same level of insight.”
Percayso, third on our InsurTech 50 ranking late last year, goes beyond traditional data enrichment to provide unique, real-time solutions at all stages of the insurance lifecycle and deliver insight into insurance risk. Clients include Ageas, Covea, Direct Line, Markerstudy, Somerset Bridge and The AA.
“Looking back to when we first laid down roots in the market, the biggest breakthrough at the time was the use of third-party data sets at the point of quote. Enriching tens if not hundreds of millions of quotes flying around every single day was as much a technological challenge as it was a pricing, underwriting and fraud challenge,” says Tomlinson.
“For us, it has been about moving that piece on further – enabling all these data points to have a bearing across all insurance lines and not just at point of quote and having an outcome-orientated approach as well as developing a true partnership with our clients.
“It’s all about turning data into intelligence, insight and outcomes from optimising pricing and fighting fraud to reducing cancellations, improving conversions and increasing profits.”
Cazana deal
One transformative move in 2023 was the acquisition of Cazana – focused on real-time valuations, pricing trends and stock management tools – for an undisclosed amount from online car retailer Cazoo.
Cazoo had completed a £25m cash swoop for the London-based data platform just 18 months beforehand in the days following its $8 billion SPAC merger listing in New York. However global expansion did not pan out as hoped and its share price nosedived, leading to cost-cutting measures including the offloading of several arms of its wider business.
“We have been able to be reactive to opportunities that we didn’t plan for, such as the Cazana acquisition,” says Tomlinson. “That wasn’t in the strategy, but you have to grab these things as they present themselves if the opportunity is right.
“Cazana had been our motor data partner of choice since we launched our service to the UK insurance market. Their data tools were relied upon by some of the biggest names in insurance while some of their services were genuinely ground-breaking and remain unique today. When the opportunity arose to bring those services under the Percayso banner, we saw it as one we had to take.”
Full throttle
Since relaunching and reinvigorating the proposition under the Percayso Vehicle Intelligence brand, it has seen a surge of enquiries. “We have on-boarded a whole host of fresh clients in addition to renewing contracts with existing customers that had been considering alternatives prior to our acquiring the business,” reveals the MD.
“That’s clearly had a positive impact not only on our turnover but also in accelerating our presence in the motor market.
“The next phase for us is to go full throttle on our product development plans, which means taking what we already have in a market leading vehicle intelligence capability and significantly enhancing it – whether that’s new functionality within our SaaS platform Claims Companion or additional powerful datasets into our API solution.”
Percayso raised £2.7 million funding last year and £3.4m the year before. Today it has 35 staff and is growing in the region of 200% per annum. “We expect to have close to 100 insurance clients by the end of 2024,” says Tomlinson.
InsurTech 50 – UK’s most innovative insurance tech creators for 2023
So what did it mean to him and the team to make it to third spot on our InsurTech 50 ranking?
“It acts as a huge testament to the value that we’re creating for the insurance industry. Being judged by a completely independent group really adds credibility to our proposition – and achieving a podium place in this year’s ranking was quite simply massive,” the MD answers.
“It’s also a great source of pride for our team to know that their efforts are being recognised. It’s pushing us all on to aim for the top spot in 2024.”