Insurtech boards often look the same: VCs providing the funding, tech execs offering product wisdom, and a retired insurance CEO from a bluechip org offering access to their network. What's missing? Insurtech operators who've actually built and scaled an insurtech.
This gap matters as insurtechs mature toward profitability. The sector's shift is evident: 57% of UK insurtechs now prioritize cost metrics compared with 29% in 2023. As insurtechs move from disrupting insurance to being insurance companies, the absence of operational expertise creates predictable failures.
The Traditional NED Profile Doesn't Always Fit an Insurtech
Insurance boards traditionally draw non-executive directors (NEDs) from predictable pools: retired CEOs, CFOs, accountants, lawyers, ex-regulators. These profiles bring essential corporate governance—financial oversight, regulatory compliance and crisis management experience—and make sense for mature carriers.
But for insurtechs, there's a critical gap: operational experience in how insurtechs actually work. Insurtechs move fast, iterate weekly, deploy code hourly, operate cloud-native infrastructure, and leverage real-time data for pricing. Most traditional NEDs haven't experienced this reality.
Board Oversight Requires Operational Fluency
You cannot challenge what you don't understand, and you cannot understand what you haven't experienced. Take underwriting. A traditional NED might ask: "Are you rating on the full postcode?" But the question to the executive should be: "What's the key telematics data point that identifies poor driving, then how quickly are you removing drivers?" This requires an understanding of telematics data, real-time risk scoring, and behavioral analytics—having built these systems, not just read about them.
Regulatory relationships: I wore trainers to the GFSC and still secured approvals for Zego Insurance. Not because regulators don't care about professionalism—they do—but they care more intensely about competence, transparency, consumer protections and how an insurance carrier has quantified and manages their risks. The fact that I wore trainers is irrelevant. What mattered most was demonstrating an intimate understanding of underwriting models, capital adequacy, conduct and risk. It's about substance and authenticity, not formality.
Traditional NEDs can sometimes impose processes mismatched to insurtech speed: 200-page quarterly board packs taking weeks to prepare, approval gates slowing decisions, risk frameworks designed for 100-year-old companies applied to three-year-old startups. Not because they're obstructive, but because their experience hasn't equipped them to distinguish proportionality.
This isn't a license to ignore governance. Insurtech operator NEDs who are effective understand that to move fast, this still means robust governance controls, stress testing and customer protections. The best insurtech operator NEDs combine speed of execution with a governance mindset.
When Insurtech Operator NEDs Become Critical
Phase 1 (Seed-Series A, £0-10M): Early stage insurtechs prioritize product-market fit. Board composition appropriately made up of VCs and product/tech executives. Operational insurtech expertise remains advisory. Governance-focused NEDs to ensure financial control.
Phase 2 (Series B-C, £10-100M): This is the inflection point where most insurtechs stumble without operational guidance. The company faces scaling challenges: establishing reinsurance relationships, navigating regulatory relationships, building in-house claims operations at scale, managing underwriting profitability, and risk management.
This is precisely when operational insurtech NEDs become essential. They've navigated these transitions, built these capabilities, and made these mistakes. They recognize the warning signs: adverse selection in growth cohorts, claims cost inflation, disadvantageous reinsurance treaties, and regulatory relationships straining. The majority of insurtech value creation or destruction happens here.
The optimal board at this stage combines a blend of skills and experience:
- Insurtech operator NEDs, who understand how an insurtech actually works and have the battle scars from past experience
- Governance NEDs, who bring their legal, regulatory, financial and compliance background and insight
- Investor NEDs, who provide direction on their investment and capital markets.
It's not an either-or; it's achieving the right balance. It's about achieving good corporate governance.
Phase 3 (Series D+, £100M+): Late-stage insurtechs require boards driving profitability discipline, optimizing capital efficiency, and preparing for exit. This demands senior executives who've scaled carriers to £500M+ revenues and delivered sustained profitability.
What Insurance Operator NEDs Bring
Underwriting Discipline: VC-backed insurtechs face pressure to grow revenues and hit milestones, creating an incentive to loosen underwriting standards. Operators who've lived through this provide an essential counterbalance.
Regulatory Navigation: Insurance regulation is relationship-intensive. Regulators want to know you understand the risks and that you will be transparent when things go wrong. Operator NEDs help management distinguish genuine regulatory concerns. The best foster proactive regulatory relationships, flagging emerging risks early, explaining new approaches transparently and treating supervision as a partnership. This builds trust that protects the business during challenges.
Reinsurance Expertise: Technology founders approach reinsurance as pure optimization: minimize cost, maximize coverage. The reality is more nuanced. Reinsurance partners provide capacity, capital relief, risk diversification, and revenue. Insurtech operators understand these tradeoffs from experience, preventing expensive mistakes.
Claims Reality Checks: Claims are where profitability lives or dies. The temptation is to treat claims as pure tech: automate everything, eliminate humans. The reality resists this. Claims require empathy, judgment, and negotiation. Insurtech operator NEDs help boards recognize when automation enhances versus degrades operations.
Governance integration: The best insurtech operator NEDs bring execution expertise and governance understanding. They've worked with regulators, managed capital adequacy, balanced speed with policyholder protections and regulatory compliance. This combination of operational fluency plus governance mindset makes them most valuable.
Consumer Outcomes: NEDs understand that algorithmic pricing models must present fair customer outcomes. They ask: How do our pricing models treat vulnerable customers? How do we identify vulnerable customers during automated claims processes? This consumer-first mindset is critical.
The Insurtech Operator NED Profile
Not every insurance executive makes an effective insurtech operator NED. Requirements include:
- Recent Experience (Within Five Years): Insurance and tech evolve rapidly. Experience from 1998 lacks 2025 context.
- Hands-On Building: NEDs who've implemented underwriting systems, launched products, negotiated reinsurance, secured regulatory approvals—not just strategized.
- Technology Fluency: An understanding of how modern technology enables insurance operations at a conceptual level sufficient for informed questions.
- Startup Empathy: Distinguish necessary governance from bureaucratic waste. Insurtechs with 50 employees cannot operate like 5,000-employee global carriers.
Red Flags:
- Retired executives disconnected from current dynamics
- Pure strategy/M&A backgrounds without operational depth
- "We did it this way at [Big Incumbent]" mentality
- No understanding of data-driven underwriting
- Too hands-on—they can't distinguish between strategic oversight from operational execution
- Dismissive of governance requirements or regulatory concerns
Data-Driven Underwriting Requires Data-Literate Boards
Board oversight of data-driven underwriting requires an understanding of how modern data infrastructure and machine learning function in production. How are you validating model performance? Detecting drift? Preventing algorithmic bias? Former compliance officers typically can't ask these questions.
Making It Work
For insurtechs adding operator NEDs:
- Give them a voice when it comes to product, underwriting, pricing and claims decisions
- Pay competitively (+ equity for serious involvement)
- Include them in strategic discussions early—their pattern recognition prevents expensive mistakes and supports faster execution.
- Balance insurtech operator NEDs with governance NEDs—you need the best of both worlds
For operators becoming NEDs:
- Move from doing to advising—you're not the CEO anymore
- Bring your governance experience too, alongside operational expertise.
The Opportunity
Insurtech operators contemplating board careers face an unprecedented opportunity. The UK alone hosts 300+ insurtechs seeking insurtech operational expertise. As funding shifted toward profitability in 2024 (Series B/C funding up 30% while seed declined), boards are increasingly recognizing operational expertise gaps.
For insurtechs, the imperative is clear. As you scale beyond Series A, add operational insurtech expertise. Not just former CFOs or compliance officers, but operators who've built insurtech carriers, navigated regulators, negotiated reinsurance and achieved profitability, while understanding the governance requirements and their fiduciary duties.
The insurtech sector's next phase belongs to companies combining technological innovation with operational excellence. That combination requires the board's understanding of both. The missing ingredient on most insurtech boards, operational insurtech expertise, is also the most critical ingredient for sustainable success. The question is not whether your board needs insurtech operators, but how quickly you'll recognize the gap before expensive mistakes make the answer obvious.
