Nearly all of UK SMEs are snug with AI assessing their insurance coverage wants and recommending essentially the most appropriate protection choices, in keeping with GlobalData surveying. In the meantime, AI-native insurance coverage dealer Meshed has secured backing from Aviva and different traders, with the intention of reshaping the business insurance coverage marketplace for SMEs.
GlobalData’s 2025 UK SME Insurance coverage Survey has discovered that 64.5% of SMEs are snug, to some extent, with AI assessing their insurance coverage wants and recommending essentially the most appropriate protection choices. Furthermore, over 1 / 4 of SMEs (26.7%) cited that they had been extraordinarily snug with this.
In the meantime, Meshed has raised £950,000 ($1.3m) in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding spherical to rework the business insurance coverage marketplace for SMEs. Buyers included Haatch, Aviva through Founders Manufacturing unit, the Exponential Science Basis, and several other angel backers. Meshed highlights that round 80% of UK SMEs stay underinsured, largely resulting from outdated brokerage practices and inefficient handbook processes. By deploying AI-powered brokers for quoting, knowledge assortment, and different routine duties, the agency goals to chop administrative prices, cut back premiums, and allow brokers to focus extra on consumer relationships and specialist recommendation.
But, findings from our 2025 UK Industrial Insurance coverage Dealer Survey point out that brokers could also be underestimating the dimensions of disruption that AI may convey. Solely 5.2% of brokers see AI as the largest menace to their enterprise, in contrast with 13.2% citing competitors from different brokers and 11.2% from direct gamers. Furthermore, adoption stays restricted, with simply 5.9% of brokers utilizing AI-driven coverage advice instruments, whereas 78.6% report no plans to undertake them.
Brokers ought to acknowledge that whereas AI could not appear to be the best menace in the present day, failing to undertake it may make it one tomorrow. By overlooking AI, brokers threat falling behind faster-moving opponents and shedding relevance in a market the place effectivity and digital capabilities more and more drive consumer expectations.
