Vivek Banga
Managing Director
Vivek joined Polaris in February 2019. He has over fifteen years of experience in digital distribution of general insurance having worked in this area for insurers as well as a global insurance broker. He chaired the British Insurance Brokers Association’s cross-industry Innovation Working Group for three years and was previously also a member of TechNation’s Insurtech Board.
As part of leading Polaris, Vivek is responsible for developing the organisation’s strategic priorities in consultation with its Board of Directors, who are senior leaders from Polaris’ shareholding organisations, both insurers and brokers.
Prior to joining Polaris, Vivek was the Chief Digital Officer for Gallagher UK, leading the development of a multi-product, multi-country digital distribution platform and a variety of targeted online and mobile apps. Before Gallagher, Vivek worked for Brit Insurance and for NIG, primarily leading the development of their online distribution propositions. In addition to Digital development, Vivek has also led functional areas such as offshoring business processes, distribution proposition development and product development. Before joining the general insurance industry, Vivek worked in the life insurance and management consulting sectors.
Vivek is a persistent and struggling golfer who remains optimistic about the direction of his game despite his weekly travails in this area. He is also a cricket enthusiast and a firm believer in the purity of test cricket.
Simon Bloomfield
Head of imarket
Simon joined Polaris in October 2015, having previously spent 25 years working for insurers. He has over 15 years of digital trading experience in the broker channel.
He manages the imarket proposition, which connects brokers systems to insurer systems for commercial digital trading. imarket policy volume now exceeds half a million per year.
He introduced imarket Live–Chat into the Broker channel, which is used by seven major insurers and deployed into four brokers systems.
Simon regularly meets with senior stakeholders at insurers, brokers and broker systems to support the development of digital capability within the UK insurance market.
Prior to joining Polaris, Simon held a number of senior roles in Aviva, focusing on the development of propositions for the broker channel and leading activity in commercial and personal lines digital trading.
Simon is ACII qualified and has an MBA and outside of work is a supporter of both Middlesbrough FC and more latterly Ipswich Town, increasing the chance of his weekend not being spoilt by poor results.
When not in our London office, Simon often takes an early morning walk in the countryside seeing the sunrise over the marshes in Norfolk.
Martin Thornhill
Head of ProductWriter (and Finance Manager)
Martin leads the ProductWriter team, ensuring that Polaris’ market leading rating engine continues to evolve to meet the insurance industry’s complex rating, pricing and underwriting requirements. Martin promotes ProductWriters’ versatility and scalability, from its ability to deliver niche / high value products, up to powering the many millions of private car and household quotes through the most popular price comparison websites.
Martin joined Polaris in 2007 with the primary role of company accountant. Whilst maintaining his financial responsibilities he has evolved to have a detailed working knowledge and understanding of our services and has helped support the wider business in implementing new initiatives. His experience of ProductWriter spans over 10 years, with his first major project overseeing Release 22 which overhauled a lot of the existing functionality and design elements.
Martin implemented the Good Customer Outcomes (GCO) service, leading the Assurance Team in reviewing insurer products and Software House systems. His overall aim was to ensure that these components collectively contribute to the delivery of good customer outcomes throughout the insurance life cycle, starting at pre-quote through to ongoing policy management and servicing. This is still an on-going initiative, now managed by our Standards team.
Prior to joining Polaris, Martin worked as an accountant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers for 6 years. Martin also holds the CII Diploma in Insurance qualification. Outside of Polaris, he can be seen tinkering with his 60 year old American car or playing the guitar.
Steve Waller
Head of Standards
Steve joined Polaris in July 2016 and is the Polaris product owner for our Standards proposition, covering both commercial and personal lines products. Standards play a crucial role in managing the digital trading capabilities for the insurance industry as they provide the language of the industry.
He has overseen the introduction of a new online database for subscribers to access messaging formats and code lists, the launching of new standards in response to demand from subscribers (such as cyber insurance, for short term property lets, and for motorhomes), and the development of standards to allow commercial lines products to be sold directly to consumers if insurers wish.
Steve also manages the Marketing team, who have recently relaunched the Polaris website.
Steve started his career working in the claims department of Commercial Union, and has been a product manager at Woolwich Building Society, Saga Services and Lombard Bank. Prior to joining, Steve was a Standards customer of Polaris in his five years at Google (following its acquisition of BeatThatQuote.com, where Steve had launched comparison services for household, private motor, travel, pet and breakdown insurances).
During his time at Google, Steve launched car and travel insurance comparison in the UK, car insurance comparison in France and worked with the team to launch car insurance comparison in the US.
Steve is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.
Steve is a QPR FC fan and is trying to wean himself off the pre-sets on his camera and instead learn manual mode, so he can with justification describe himself as an amateur photographer. Post lockdown, he’s been taking the opportunity to get to many more gigs and shows.
Please read these terms before using the Polaris.co.uk website (“the Site”).
By using the Site you signify your acceptance of these terms. If you do not agree to these terms please do not use the Site.
The purpose of the Site is for insurers, brokers and members of the software industry to be provided with information about Polaris U.K. Ltd (“Polaris”), our software products and services and information about insurance industry standards. We do not sell any of our software products via the Site, but if you wish to licence such products you can contact Polaris (0207 265 5765) or use our contact us page to arrange a licence. As a licensee you will be able to download the applicable products via the Site. Please note that the Site is not intended for use by the general public.
We have taken every care in the preparation of the Site. However, as certain technical matters may be beyond our control, we cannot guarantee that you will have uninterrupted access to the Site at all times.
The information that is provided on the Site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It should not be relied upon for any specific purpose and no representation or warranty is given as to its accuracy or completeness and you hereby acknowledge that any reliance upon the information on the Site shall be at your own risk.
We reserve the right to amend any of the content of the Site from time to time without notice to you.
We reserve the right to amend these Terms from time to time without notice to you. Any such amendment shall be effective once the revised Terms have been posted on the Site. As these Terms may be updated from time to time, we suggest that you check them whenever you visit the Site. If you do not agree with the amended Terms you must discontinue using the Site.
Links to other websites are not endorsed nor do Polaris take responsibility for the content of other websites, or are responsible for the availability of them and will not be liable in any way for any loss or damage which you may suffer by using those websites. If you decide to access linked websites you do so at your own risk.
imarket, ProductWriter and all brand, product and service names used on the Site are trademarks, trade names or service marks of Polaris unless otherwise stated. You may not distribute products or offer services under or by reference to or otherwise use or reproduce any such trade marks, trade names or service marks without the prior written permission of Polaris or the owner of such trade marks, trade names or service marks.
You may not publish, distribute, extract, re-utilise or reproduce any part of the Site in any material form (including photocopying or storing it on any medium by electronic means) other than in accordance with the limited use licence set out in the Copyright Notice section below or as permitted by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 as applicable or any equivalent legislation as may apply in the UK.
7.1. User generated content
7.1.1. Keep it relevant
For everyone’s benefit, please stay on topic. The Community is specifically provided to allow users and customers of ProductWriter to help each other in using our software. Please refrain from discussing personal matters, abusing any company or product, or, in general, from posting in a manner unrelated to ProductWriter.
7.1.2. Keep it courteous
Please refrain from posting anything unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, harassing, politically sensitive, threatening, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, or otherwise objectionable or injurious to third parties[SW1] .
7.1.3. Keep it legal
It is unacceptable to post any material (i) that would infringe on any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party, (ii) that contains software viruses or any other computer code or files that are designed to disrupt, damage, or limit the functioning of any software or hardware, (iii) that is deemed to be illegal by any local, or international law, rule, or regulation, or (iv) that suggests or encourages illegal activity.
7.1.4. Keep confidential information confidential
You may not use the Community Hub to disseminate or discuss any confidential information or personal data (as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation) about you, your company, Polaris, or any other person or entity. You are solely responsible to ensure that anything you post does not contain information that may be deemed confidential or to be personal data by a third party. This includes any proprietary information, trade secrets, the terms or existence of Polaris related agreements, nondisclosure agreements, sales or service agreements, any data identifying or relating to an individual, or any other information that may be deemed confidential.
7.1.5. Polaris retains the right to remove content and limit user’s access
Polaris retains the right, at its sole discretion, to limit users’ access to the Community Hub and to remove material that, in Polaris’s sole judgment, does not comply with the current Community Usage Guidelines, or that is otherwise inappropriate, harmful, objectionable, or inaccurate. Moderators may take any action they deem necessary in their own judgment to support the Community Usage Guidelines, and, in general, prohibit content that can detract from the experience of other users or the purpose of the support community. Such actions may include editing or deleting material and suspending individual users. Violation of the Community Usage Guidelines or other terms could result in the suspension or termination of your access to these services. If your account is suspended, you will not be able to sign in.
7.1.6. Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability
Members like you are providing most of the material in the ProductWriter Community Hub. Such third-party content is the sole responsibility of the person originating the material. Polaris does not control and is not responsible for this third-party material.
Whilst we have taken care in the preparation of the Site and its contents (including virus checking files which are accessible from the Site), the Site and its contents are provided on an “as is” basis and to the fullest extent permitted by law all warranties (whether express or implied) in respect of the Site and its contents and your use of the same are excluded. Except in the case of death or personal injury caused by our negligence we exclude all liability to you (whether in contract or tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty ) or otherwise) for any losses sustained arising out of or in connection with the use of the Site including without limitation, loss of profits, loss of data or loss of goodwill (in all of these cases whether direct or indirect) nor any indirect, economic, consequential or special loss.
Notwithstanding the above, we recommend that you conduct virus checks on any files you download from the Site.
The contents of these pages are © Polaris U.K. Ltd. Reproduction of part or all of the contents of our Site in any form is prohibited other than in accordance with the following permissions:
9.1 Licence to copy for personal use:
You may make copies of the web pages from our Site as necessary incidental acts during your viewing of it, and you may take a print for your personal use of as much of our Site content as is reasonable for the purpose of your Company’s business (“Company” means either the insurance, broker or software company which authorised you to access the Site).
9.2 Licence to recopy for limited purposes:
Only Polaris licensees (users of this Site who have entered into a licence with Polaris for the use of its software) may recopy content from our Site to individual third parties but only for their personal information, and only if:
This licence to recopy does not permit incorporation of the material or any part of it in any other work or publication, whether in hard copy or electronic or any other form.
No part of our Site may be reproduced on or transmitted to or stored in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.
The Site is operated by Polaris U.K. Ltd (registered number 2911441) and whose registered office and contact address is at:
New London House, 6 London Street, London, EC3R 7LP.
If you have any comments or questions regarding the Site, please contact us.
These Terms are governed by and will be construed in accordance with the law of England and Wales. Any dispute arising under or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.
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