Trusted by over 125 organisations

Core & Widely Used Technology

Uniquely, Polaris is 100% owned by the UK General Insurance industry. Since 1994, we’ve been supporting the UK & Irish markets to trade digitally. Our purpose is to provide core and widely used digital trading technology that enables the industry to build, control and distribute its insurance products efficiently and effectively across Personal and Commercial Lines.

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  • 30 years

    delivering solutions

  • £1.5m+ R&D

    investment annually

  • 1,000+ hours

    industry input annually

  • 100% industry owned

We support all market participants to trade efficiently and effectively, no matter their size

The insurance market uses ProductWriter to rate and underwrite over 250 million quotes a day, generating over £10bn GWP annually.

ProductWriter supports the most advanced rating, enrichment and machine learning requirements for over 80 insurers & MGAs.

It also provides the freedom to build any product, control and manage your distribution. Users have the flexibility to easily maintain and update products.

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Join over 100 other organisations in building products quicker and sending and receiving data in a consistent manner using the industry’s digital trading Standards. The Standards are built and evolved via extensive collaboration with the industry and cover all major general insurance products.

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Our widely used Commercial lines solution, that enables trading of over 550,000 policies, with over £430m GWP annually.

Insurers and MGAs can widen their distribution and reach thousands of brokers with their products via just one, secure integration.

imarket is free for brokers to use and enables them to generate comparative quotations from their back office system.

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Facilitates brokers to chat digitally with insurers.

With over 30,000 chats per month Live-Chat has proved to be a popular and preferred method for brokers to clarify queries with insurers.

Chats are routed to relevant insurer departments from within brokers digital platforms so questions are answered efficiently. A transcript is sent after every chat providing insurers and brokers with better contract certainty.

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New market entrant or small MGA?

If you’re a new market entrant or a small MGA, we can shape our proposition to meet your needs. Being a market owned company, we are there to support all market participants irrespective of their size.

Please get in touch to find out more.

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Powering over 250 million quotes a day and generating over £10bn GWP annually integrate the ProductWriter rating engine into your systems to be able to receive and adopt insurer and MGA products.

You will be able to support insurers who require the most advanced rating, enrichment and machine learning capabilities already used by over 80 organisations.

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Join over 2,000 brokers using imarket for comparative quotes generated straight from broker back end systems. It’s free for brokers. Register your organisation’s access below.

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Facilitates brokers to chat digitally with insurers.

With over 30,000 chats per month Live-Chat has proved to be a popular and preferred method for brokers to clarify queries with insurers.

Chats are routed to relevant insurer departments from within brokers digital platforms so questions are answered efficiently. A transcript is sent after every chat providing insurers and brokers with better contract certainty.

View Live-Chat

Our high speed and trusted rating engine, powering over 250 million quotes a day and generating over £10bn GWP annually, gives you the control to receive products from insurers and distribute them through any channel.

View ProductWriter

Join over 100 other organisations in building products quicker and sending and receiving data in a consistent manner using the industry’s digital trading Standards. The Standards are built and evolved via extensive collaboration with the industry and cover all major general insurance products.

View Standards

imarket can help solution providers connect Commercial Lines insurers and MGAs into wider software house distribution, accessing 2,000+ brokers through a single secure connection, enabling your customers to deploy their product
consistently and cost effectively to the market.

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Join over 100 other insurance organisations in building products quicker using Polaris Standards code lists.

The industry agreed sets of values are used to build data capture forms and are also used in insurance transactions from multiple insurers. We have over 350 lists covering all major products.

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Our Ownership

We are entirely owned by leading UK insurer and broker organisations. Our Board of directors is comprised of senior representatives from some of our shareholding organisations.

Having this ownership model means that the work we do is directly driven by and for the industry to continuously improve digital trading.

Glyn Hughes
Director of Personal Lines Underwriting & Pricing
Ageas
Alex Ktenidis
Director, Digital Trading & ALP
Allianz

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Aon UK
Rebecca Gambrell
Director of SME
Aviva
Paul Tombs
Director of Intermediated SME
AXA
David Birch
Managing Director – SME & Partnerships
Gallagher UK
Vivek Banga
Managing Director
Polaris
Rob Flynn (Chair)
Chief Transformation Director for Commercial Lines
RSA
Harriet Conway
Head of Retail Proposition and Digital
Zurich

Insurers

Ageas

AIG

Allianz

Aviva

Chubb

Ecclesiastical

NIG

RSA

Zurich

Brokers

Aon Risk Services

Ardonagh Group

Gallagher UK

JLT

Marsh

Willis Towers Watson

Our Story & Key Milestones

From defining and delivering digital trading technology for the UK General Insurance industry to record usage of our products in recent years, see how Polaris was established and how we have evolved over the years.

See our story

Our Values

Trust

Polaris sits at the heart of digital trading within the General Insurance industry.

We exist for the benefit of the industry and are trusted to support the evolution of digital trading.

Collaboration

We're big on collaboration. We bring together views from the industry and combine our knowledge, financial investment and technology enhancements to help the market innovate.

Innovation

We are always seeking opportunities to enhance digital trading, improving outcomes for insurers, MGAs, brokers and customers. We develop and manage several proofs of concept, bringing ideas to life and encouraging digital trading advancements.

Got a Digital Trading related question?

Ask us! Our role is to guide you in the right direction

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Our History

  • Over 500,000 annualised policies for first time through imarket
2023
  • 20,000 Live-chats per month through imarket Live-Chat
  • Between 2019 and 2022 gender mix increased from 20% women to 50%
  • Introduction of hybrid working
  • Motorhome product standard developed
  • 30 organisations and over 250 users are now on ProductWriter Cloud
  • Polaris re-certified for ISO 27001
2022
  • Polaris’ highest ever unique client count, for both Standards and ProductWriter
  • Over 100k imarket Live-Chats conversations between brokers & insurers
  • First Live-Chat chatbot deployed
  • Implementation of updated Property Owners Small Standard across four software houses and nine insurers
  • Relaunch of Polaris website
2021
  • Despite lockdowns in the UK economy, imarket’s e-trading policy count grows by 4% to an all–time high of 482,000
  • ProductWriter offers clients the capability to use machine learning models for rating
  • ProductWriter’s Cloud offering continues to grow, with over 150 users transitioned
  • Polaris’ Standards Management platform comprehensively updated providing API functionality
2020
  • ProductWriter Cloud is launched.
  • imarket breaks through 400k policies.
  • Vivek Banga joins as MD
2019
  • imarket reaches 6,000 live-chats per month
  • imarket breaks through 300,000 policies a year
  • ProductWriter first line support moves in-house
2018
  • The Polaris Online Database (POD) becomes truly online, providing subscribers with browser based access to code lists, message definitions and structures for E.
2017
  • imarket Live-Chat service is launched providing imarket integrated Brokers with a single solution to chat with Insurers.
  • Polaris introduces its ‘Good Customer Outcomes’ initiative. Helping brokers secure good outcomes for their clients via their imarket e-trading solutions
2016
  • Polaris launch new website and re-brand
2015
  • QBE becomes the latest insurer to provide commercial insurance products via imarket
  • imarket contract with IBM is renewed, including a transition to host imarket on IBM cloud
2014
  • imarket transactions increase by 60%
  • Polaris celebrates 20 years of supporting the industry
  • RSA & Allianz go live on imarket with new products
2013
  • Open GI announces plans to integrate their commercial e-trading platform with imarket
  • Website relaunches – bringing together Standards, ProductWriter and imarket
2010
  • Extension of Logica UK Limited’s ProductWriter contract until 2019
2009
  • Our ProductWriter rating engine (RTE) powers the launch of Irish insurer FBD’s new website in just three months
  • Celebration of 3,000 broker firm members to imarket
2008
  • Schema based dictionaries launch, allowing easier product definition
  • Swinton goes live on imarket
2007
  • Work begins to integrate software house systems with imarket
2004
  • imarket platform launches for the trading of commercial lines insurance between brokers and insurers
  • imarket UK roadshows visit 12 locations, attracting over 2,000 intermediary businesses
2003
  • IBM appointed to handle technical development and implementation of imarket
2002
  • The Association of British Insurers transfer their e-trading support services to Polaris following an internal reorganisation, bringing all UK general insurance standards together under one roof – Polaris.
2001
  • The Commercial Lines Market Initiative (CLMI Limited), which previously controlled commercial lines standards, merges with Polaris
1998
  • Polaris appoints Logica UK Ltd to handle technical development, implementation and customer support activity for ProductWriter
1997
  • ProductWriter launches
1995
  • Polaris founded by Commercial Union, Eagle Star, General Accident, Guardian Royal Exchange, Norwich Union, Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance
1993