A big Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and clients in the US.
May your weekends be full of turkey and family goodness.
I’m back from a great week in New York – a mix of Upper East Side breakfasts (thanks Nicole), hatching plans with Columbia University 👀, client workshops and a bunch of catchups. Loved it.
Oh, and I tried something new: sticking to UK hours.
The 6pm bedtime took some getting used to, but an empty gym at 2am for the win.
Then back to Blighty to join the London team supporting the Aviva Hackathon – the kind of initiative that genuinely moves the needle inside a major insurer. So good to see.
And this wasn’t just another innovation sprint.
The Aviva ExCo showed up in force, with Amanda Blanc celebrating the ideas, the teams… and handing out the awards.
When leadership turns up like that, you know the organisation means it. But also the care, focus, attention to detail and sheer, bloody hard work the whole team poured into making it a success. A.Mazing.
For Sønr, it has been a busy few months of support. From early planning through to the hands-on support last week:
Top Tips for Your Pitch to help teams sharpen their story,
Tailored Market Insight Packs built bespoke for each challenge area,
Sønr Surgeries to refine ideas and get teams ready for Q&A,
And joining the Success Squad to provide real-time market intelligence throughout the event.
A brilliant few days.
A hugely impressive set of teams and ideas.
And a reminder of how powerful it can be when ambition, leadership and structured innovation come together.
Right, let’s get into what’s been going on…
The Tide is Changing
In the UK, Tide is diving into embedded with the launch of Tide Insurance – bringing business cover directly into the Tide app.
Initial products include Employers’ Liability, Public Liability and Professional Indemnity, rolling out to members imminently, with more landing in 2026.
Powered by Admiral Business, part of the venture-building arm Admiral Pioneer, whose CEO Emma Huntington summed it up neatly:
“By fusing our insurance expertise with Tide’s smart digital tools, we’re simplifying protection and integrating it into everyday business banking. It’s a step towards our ambition to make insurance easier to access and understand.”
It’s a strong play: reduce friction, meet SMEs where they already operate. Works for me.
Bye Miles
Another local bit of news.
After acquiring Direct Line Group earlier this year, Aviva is shutting down By Miles, the UK’s pay-per-mile pioneer. Messages sent to customers this week confirm the business will stop offering renewals from 6 January 2026.
For a company that helped define usage-based motor in the UK, it’s a notable moment.
But with Aviva consolidating its expanded personal-lines footprint post-DLG, retiring overlapping propositions was always going to be part of the plan.
One to keep an eye on as the new combined motor engine takes shape.
RiskOps gets real
Pibit AI has landed a tidy $7m Series A to push its AI-powered underwriting stack further into production.
The money goes into its CURE platform – a single environment for submissions, document ingestion, enrichment and risk analysis. Early traction suggests it’s hitting a very real nerve across commercial lines.
Also in underwriting, Federato has stepped up with a big old $100m Series D.
Federato continues to define the RiskOps category – linking frontline underwriting decisions to portfolio constraints in real time. Big equity stepping in at this scale sends a pretty clear message: this is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s becoming foundational.
The company is building AI-driven tools for advisors – cleaner data, smoother workflows, better case design and carrier intelligence that doesn’t require a hundred-page PDF.
The round pushes total funding to $35m and strengthens their position as one of the few players doubling down on advisors. A smart play into a legacy-heavy market.
Interesting new idea: Appetite, not guesswork
Agentero has launched its AI Appetite Checker, giving agents a fast way to match risks with carriers using simple free-text inputs.
Describe the business, add a state and a line, and the tool maps the exposure to carrier appetites – surfacing who’s most likely to quote, bind or decline.
This one’s just a nice bit of experimentation – Eleos Life has rolled out a new AI voice agent, offering customers 24/7 instant support without the misery of a phone queue.
It’s something we’ve explored with a few clients – pulling answers straight from policy documents, handling inbound and outbound calls across policy queries, changes, cancellations, claims basics and more.
I’m keen to see how they get on.
It’s the type of AI implementation that lifts customer experience while taking a meaningful load off human service teams. Which has got to be a good thing. If it works.
Founded in 2023 and underwriting since 2024, Clearwater blends deep marine expertise with proprietary digital tooling across port risks, hull, cargo, builders risks and war exposures.
The investment gives it the capital to scale both organically and through acquisition, continuing the trend of specialty MGAs proving that focus + tech + underwriting discipline = very attractive platforms for investors and carriers alike.
Weekend Must-Reads
If you’re only going to read two things this weekend, make them these.
As part of our Sønr 2.0 series, we’ve been digging into how insurers turn intelligence into action:
And if you haven’t signed up to pilot Sønr 2.0 in January yet, now’s the moment. The more of you involved, the bigger the impact we can build together.
Sønr Summit – 9th December, London
As you may have clocked from last SøNws, we’re bringing together a small group of clients and industry peers for an invite-only session on the tech, risks and shifts shaping 2025.
