Insurance Insider: Carving out a category leader and supporting the next phase of growth

Equally important was a laser focus on risk. Costs can spiral quickly in a carve-out if separation expenses and ongoing operating costs haven’t been properly scoped. IT licence costs per head change at a smaller scale business, employee benefits need detailed costing, and office moves need realistic estimates. Beyond cost, there are cyber risks from setting up new IT infrastructure, business disruption from system migrations, and people disruption as roles adapt to a new structure. All of this had to be managed without consuming too much of the management team’s time. 

After nine months, the carve-out was completed on time and on budget, and Insurance Insider was operating as an entirely standalone business in its brand new offices in the City, New York and Bulgaria. To the management team’s credit, the business continued to trade well, which gave us great encouragement in our investment thesis. 

How has ECI supported Insurance Insider post carve-out?

We always knew we were backing a great team, and part of our focus post-carve-out has been strengthening this even further with high-calibre hires. We’ve supported Mariana in hiring a permanent CFO and building a full finance function from scratch, developing the HR function, investing in the sales and commercial teams, and strengthening product and technology leadership. In just the last month, Insurance Insider announced the appointment of Jonathan Goor, who previously worked in senior roles at data businesses Acuris and With Intelligence, as COO.

Technology is so important to how Insurance Insider delivers proprietary data and sector-leading content to its customers. Post-carve-out, the team have already launched Insurance Insider 2.0, a redesigned platform with improved UI/UX and increased personalisation, making sure the information they’re reading is bespoke to their needs. Insurance Insider 3.0 is already in the works, building further on its AI and data capabilities to serve more relevant information to customers. ECI’s full suite of Growth Specialists have also been closely involved: Orlando Machado, our AI & Data specialist, has supported the team on operational efficiencies and AI adoption; Gillian Fox, our People & Culture specialist, has helped to build the HR function from scratch and scale; Chris Ginnelly, our Sales & Marketing specialist, has helped the team to hire and expand into the US; our Cyber specialist, Ash Patel, supported on cyber and IT set-up post carve-out; and Badr Khan, our Tech specialist, has joined the Board as a non-executive director to strengthen tech governance.

What comes next at Insurance Insider? 

Insurance Insider 3.0 represents the next major step. The business holds over 30 years of proprietary content and intelligence, sourced directly from insurers through deep industry relationships. This insight and data is incredibly valuable and cannot be replicated by competitors or AI. Mariana and the team are working to leverage this data to launch a new generation of data and AI products, including an MCP (Model Context Protocol) to embed Insurance Insider’s intelligence into customer AI workflows, and deliver its content more intelligently.

International expansion is also on the agenda, and in particular we are supporting the business to expand in the US, which is its fastest-growing geography, and they recently successfully launched their New York conference. The Commercial Team is working with management on key product extensions, including the asset management side of the insurance market. There is significant further opportunity across the US and in other geographies, including in Asia. Alongside organic growth initiatives, M&A is absolutely on the table, and the ECI Origination Team is working closely with management to identify selective acquisitions that can accelerate international expansion and build out capabilities.

Insurance Insider is already well on its journey from a specialist intelligence provider to a data and AI-led market intelligence platform with global reach. We have been delighted to support Mariana and the team to date and look forward to what comes next.