Hiscox Group

Hiscox is an insurer primarily offering personal and commercial coverage, giving particular focus to specialist insurance. For individuals, Hiscox offers home and contents insurance, as well as travel, event, classic car, fine art, personal accident and kidnap and ransom cover. For companies, cover includes property, marine, professional indemnity, cyber and more.

Headquartered in Bermuda, the company's origins can be traced back to 1901 with the Roberts agency, which underwrote marine insurance for Lloyds. Ralph Hiscox would join the agency in 1938 and form the Roberts & Hiscox partnership 8 years late with the initial purpose of managing Lloyd's syndicates. The firm reorganised and Hiscox Holdings Ltd, a holding company, was established for the gorup.

Hiscox has grown into a renowned international insurer holding 32 offices in 14 countries. At the end of the full year 2019 Hiscox revealed a fall in profit before tax to $53.1m (from $135.6m in 2018). However the group's GWP rose to $4.03bn, up from $3.78bn in 2018.

The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and was part of the FTSE 100 Index. However, at the end of 2019 it was reported that the Group had lost its FTSE 100 status.

In August 2018, it was revealed the Group would be working with NLP tech provider, Eigen Technologies, on two pilots: the partial automation of the claims process and full automation of the quoting process for their London Market business. The following month, they announced the selection of Hi Marley's AI-based conversational service platform as its preferred intelligent messaging solution. In December 2018, they announced a pan European partnership with INSTANDA as part of their European growth strategy. This partnership was later expanded in November 2019.

In April 2019 it was announced that Hiscox was working with businesses involved with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank's Entrepreneur Accelerators. Hiscox and Entrepreneur Accelerator will work together to help support growing businesses in the UK.

In June 2019 Hiscox launched a new Cyber Exposure Calculator. The calculator is designed to help companies assess the potential financial impact that a cyber attack could cause, as well as provide information on the different types of cyber attacks.

Later that same year, in November, Hiscox revealed it was planning to launch a new Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) fund targeting cyber risks.

In January 2020 Hiscox worked with CyberCube, utilising the latter's portfolio manager product. The partnership will enable Hiscox to test its global commercial insurance business against cyber attacks and other catastrophes. That same month, Hiscox London Market partnered with Concirrus, embedding the insurtech's behaviour-based data analytics platform, Quest Marine Hull.

In February 2020, Hiscox announced it had partnered with Leakbot to offer the smart water detection device and linked app to all of its buildings insurance customers.

In June 2020 Thimble partnered with Hiscox to offer short-term liability insurance, available by the hour, day or month.

In May 2022 Hiscox became the first UK insurer to partner with home management platform Livlet. As part of the agreement, Livlet's customers can access a 10% discount on Hiscox's 606 Home insurance policies. Founded in 2020, Livlet has built a subscription-based platform that centralises home management, enabling users to store documents, track bills, and manage home maintenance tasks and building projects.

Later in 2022 the company extended its deal with Ondo to use its Leakbot product.

In June 2022 Hiscox appounted Stéphane Flaquet to Group Chief Operating Officer - a newly created role.

In March 2023, Hiscox launched its Underwriting Academy, following a successful pilot in Q4 2022. Around the same time, the company also launched The Hiscox Extranet, a new full cycle broker extranet. The extranet has the ability to provide quotes within seconds, and fully manage clients' policies.