Author: ob-dev

• New liability offer follows earlier deepening of underwriting capabilities
• Product to be headed by Paul Baynham, ex-AIG
• Expanded product range supports ambition to be ‘insurer of choice’ for high-hazard mid-market businesses

Aspect today announces a further broadening of its product range, with liability coverage now being offered alongside property risk underwriting. The expansion into liability coverage, backed by Lloyd’s Paper, comes off the back of a deepening of property capabilities announced earlier this year, with the Aspect team now able to underwrite property risks up to £19 million. 

Aspect is expanding into liability coverage after an analysis of the existing book revealed that 80% of current customers also need liability coverage. From today, Aspect customers will be able to access liability and property underwriting in one place, with the same bespoke approach to risk that has driven the team to approaching 50% GWP growth year on year. 

The liability offering will be headed up by industry stalwart Paul Baynham. Paul brings forty years experience to the Aspect team accumulated with insurers including AIG, Starr and HCC. His appointment follows other senior hires into the team, including Paul Youdan-Smith, previously of Montpelier Re and Ardonagh. 

Aspect is quickly making a name for itself in the industry as the MGA that will run toward the risks that other players would rather avoid. The team is now looking to take this same approach in liability, with employers, public, products and property owners’ liability coverage now available to Aspect customers. 

The product will further support Aspect’s detailed approach to risk management which utilises third-party surveying to ensure that solutions can be found for even the most complex of risk profiles. The high-hazard specialists have worked closely with brokers to remove key pain points from placements including a streamlined claims handling process, to enable lower deductibles, and waiving all risk survey fees. 

Commenting from Aspect’s liability offering, Paul Baynham, Senior Underwriter at Aspect said: 

“The addition of liability coverage to our product offering supports our ambition to become the insurer of choice for a range of high-hazard mid-market businesses. There are a whole array of viable businesses and properties out there being underserved by the industry at large and, by offering both property and liability coverage – our team is helping rectify this. 

“We’re building a reputation amongst the broker community for streamlined decision making and we’ll carry this ethos into our liability offering also. Our approach to risk has seen us achieve significant growth in recent years and, with a recently refreshed brand and ever expanding suite of products, we’re signalling our ambition to become the insurer of choice for high-hazard mid-market businesses.”

Oli Williamson, Co-Founder and Chief Underwriter at Aspect said: 

“Aspect is quickly becoming known as a team that will consider risks that the rest of the market won’t and our continued growth speaks to the number of businesses out there who remain under-served by the wider industry. 

“In response to client needs we’re excited to be extending our capabilities into liability cover, which will be vital to many of the businesses we work. The addition of Paul to our team is a real win for our clients who will benefit from his many years of experience in the sector and his deep expertise.”

Aspect Co-Founder and Chief Underwriter Oli Williamson highlights the UK industry’s critical minerals recycling shortfalls in a recent Recycling Today article:

Earlier this spring, the United Kingdom’s Department of Business and Trade reported that the U.K.’s critical mineral recycling sector remains uncompetitive. The transition towards net-zero and a low-carbon economy demands ever greater volumes of critical minerals, which are crucial to the delivery of low-carbon technologies including wind turbines, solar arrays and electric vehicles (EVs).

With the country heavily reliant on materials imported primarily from China and Russia, and exposed to geopolitical risk as a result, there’s a pressing need for domestic critical mineral capacity to be upgraded. Recovering critical minerals through recycling is key to this.

This can be an intensive and risky process, however. The insurance industry has a critical role to play here, helping businesses looking to plug the U.K.’s mineral recycling gap to manage risk and remain viable.

All too often, however, insurers are failing to keep up.

The idea that the insurance industry should be risk averse holds a certain irony, but it’s true. We set up Aspect to plug this gap, and every week we see recycling businesses in the critical minerals sector, and many other sectors, who are struggling to get the cover they need. This leaves them exposed to huge amounts of risk and ultimately leaves many businesses struggling to remain viable.

This means the U.K.’s recycling infrastructure lags behind and crucial recycling capacity is offshored, leaving the country exposed to the risks identified in the Department of Business and Trade’s report.

So, what can the industry do to overcome this challenge?

Emerging technologies

One significant challenge for the industry as the U.K. builds its critical mineral recycling capacity, and more broadly as we continue the journey towards a low and eventually no-carbon economy, is the impact novel technologies have on a business’s risk profile.

Emerging and evolving technologies are crucial to the energy transition. These technologies are backed by the government and hold huge potential but, for insurers, these technologies represent a departure into the unknown when compared to well established and more predictable technologies, and they price in this uncertainty when setting premiums.

The insurance industry is scrambling to catch up with carbon capture and storage (CCS) and other technologies designed to support the energy transition, but it remains the case that some of the bigger players in the industry don’t have the underwriting expertise or the risk appetite necessary for CCS, so coverage remains patchy.

Insuring the future

Just as energy production and consumption are adapting to the climate challenge—leading to growing demand for critical minerals—so must the insurance industry.

It’s easy for the industry to stick to “safe bets” when it comes to underwriting. This approach, however, is leaving vital facilities and technologies underinsured and undermining the U.K.’s journey toward net-zero.

Our own experience at Aspect shows it is possible to underwrite the technologies and infrastructure of the future. To do so, however, means moving beyond some of the approaches the wider industry has become accustomed to.

When it comes to supporting the U.K.’s critical minerals sector, there are simple steps insurers can take to make these businesses an easier proposition. Developing the specialist teams and in-house expertise needed to support recycling facilities, for example, can go a long way to better understand the risks and opportunities faced by these businesses. Likewise, taking the time to visit facilities to survey them properly also can allow for a more detailed assessment of risk, rather than taking a “computer says no” approach from behind a desk.

The insurers that develop this expertise and aim to fill what currently is a gap in the insurance market will be well placed to insure the future. After all, the emerging technologies of today are the established technologies of tomorrow.

Conversely, those in the industry who continue to overlook the U.K.’s recycling sector and, more broadly, the renewable industries of the future, risk being left behind by a changing world. This poses far greater risk to their business models than taking the time to understand, underwrite and back the critical minerals sector. 

Read the article published on Recycling Today here.

For more insights from the team at Aspect and to learn how we’re helping future-proof businesses through better insurance, visit our about page.

• Youdan-Smith joins Aspect to streamline policy wordings
• Formerly of Montpelier Re and Ardonagh, Youdan-Smith brings forty years experience to scale-up MGA Aspect 
• Move is part of drive towards high-tech efficiency across Aspect 

Innovative London MGA Aspect today announces a key strategic hire in the form of Paul Youdan-Smith. Youdan-Smith brings nearly forty years of insurance industry experience to the Aspect team having previously worked at industry heavyweights including Montpelier Re and Ardonagh. 

In his role with Aspect, Youdan-Smith will be leading on policy wordings, focused not just on delivering simplified wordings for smaller businesses and bespoke wordings for key industries, but also longer term projects including computable contracts and advising on Aspect’s use of bespoke AI models for policy wording comparisons. Alongside this, Youdan-Smith will be overseeing the day-to-day development and maintenance of Aspect’s wordings, and binders. 

Youdan-Smith joins Aspect following a strong start to 2025 for the team. Earlier in the year Aspect introduced a refreshed brand at the Managing General Agents Association (MGAA) Broker Exchange in London while also announcing a deepening of product capabilities which saw line size increased from £3 million to £19 million. This followed a record 2024 which saw GWP growth approaching 50%. 

Aspect has quickly made a name for itself as a high hazard specialist and Youdan-Smith’s work refining policy wordings across the business as part of a wider drive towards tech-driven efficiency as the team looks to underwrite the risks that the rest of the industry won’t. 

Commenting on his appointment, Paul Youdan-Smith said: 

“After forty years working with some of the biggest names in the industry, joining the Aspect team as they bring a fresh perspective to the industry is an exciting challenge. I look forward to working with the team and bringing my extensive experience in insurance policy wording best practice to bear as the business continues to grow.” 

Oli Williamson, Co-Founder and Chief Underwriter at Aspect said: 

“We set up Aspect to do things differently and this means delivering a more efficient product, compatible from the outset with the technologies that drive a modern business. Paul’s depth of experience in policy wordings will help us deliver this, ensuring simple, adaptable and computable wordings and more efficient underwriting as a result.

“Paul’s work will enable us to continue pushing to do what we do best; run towards the tough risks that other insurers avoid. Greater simplicity across our policies and processes means our underwriting team has more time to give to the sometimes complex businesses they work with, which are so often underserved by the wider industry.

“We’d like to welcome Paul to the team – PYS to his friends – and we look forward to the contribution he will make to our continued success.”

When we started Aspect two years ago, our aim was simple. We saw many viable, mid-market companies  being underserved by the insurance industry. We saw many businesses that could previously access quality coverage suddenly locked out and struggling to secure insurance and we didn’t think this was right. 

In short, we felt the market could do better and we built Aspect to do just that. 

Doing the right thing is about more than just business however and we are determined to build a company that our employees and policyholders can be proud of. We want Aspect to be a force for good and a responsible corporate citizen. We’ve already taken a number of steps in this direction.

As a Living Wage Employer for example, we’re ensuring our employees are paid fairly for their work and feel valued and respected. Likewise, we’re putting our belief in the power of giving back into action through charity partnerships and encouraging our team to get involved and volunteer. We see this as a way to not only tackle important social issues but also inspire our team to take pride in their contributions to the greater good. 

This is integral to our company values and a key driver of our long term success and the motivation of our employees. It’s for this reason that we’re today pleased to announce that our team has been busy behind the scenes taking us on the journey toward B-Corp status. 

The journey so far

As far as we know, we’re breaking new ground here and when we achieve B-Corp we’ll be the first London Market MGA to do so. This is therefore an important step for us and for the wider industry. 

Our journey began with a scoping exercise to work out what’s involved in becoming a B-Corp and to speak to some other businesses who’ve already made the journey. The entire purpose of the B-Corp movement is to show that business not only should be done better, but can be done better. Trust is crucial to this however. We’ve seen in recent years how issues like ‘greenwashing’ have served to undermine public confidence in ESG. To mitigate against this, the process of becoming B-Corp has been designed to be deliberately meticulous. 

Our research and conversations have given us a realistic roadmap and so, we’ve since taken a number of steps that support our B-Corp ambition. 

This has included developing our 2025 Giving Strategy with the assistance of the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF). This has helped us reinforce our commitment to corporate social responsibility and clarify our goals for the year, as well as selecting charities we will support.

We’ve also begun our B Impact Assessment, securing the preliminary 80 points required for certification—while continuing to refine our approach to maximise our score before submission. 

In line with our remuneration policy described above, we’re also proud to have earned Living Wage Employer accreditation, which we believe will further enhance our B-Corp journey.

More broadly, we’ve taken action as a business and as a team to strengthen transparency and accountability while implementing new well-being initiatives and employee benefits and reviewing our partnerships to focus on working with organisations that prioritise sustainability and social awareness. 

Starting our own MGA was driven by a desire to make a real impact in the insurance space that goes above and beyond just business. The B-Corp journey is our way of demonstrating to our customers and the industry what an MGA can be.

Keep an eye on our website for further updates and for further information.

We set up Aspect to make a difference. Not just to the customers we work with and the many businesses that we see being underserved by the wider insurance industry, but also to wider society.

There are a whole range of challenges that we collectively face and in which the insurance industry has a role to play. From helping communities and businesses adapt to and mitigate the risks posed by climate change to supporting disadvantaged kids in the UK, we want to build not just a business but a good corporate citizen. 

We are therefore proud to announce that we have today become associate members of the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF). The IICF brings the insurance industry together to help support communities across the UK. Since launching in 2015, the IICF has had a positive impact on the lives of more than 7,000 people and has brought together more than 2000 leaders from the industry to help drive positive change. 

In particular, IICF is focused on the ‘S’ in ESG, and is supporting initiatives aimed at increasing social mobility and allowing everyone to reach their full potential, regardless of their background. 

This is something that chimes hugely with the team here at Aspect. 

Previously our team has taken part in initiatives ranging from helping support homeless people in Luxembourg with hot and healthy meals to supporting vulnerable families in the Nordelta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. There’s always more to do however and, as our business continues to grow, we keen to lean into the expertise of the IICF and their partnerships to help us reach ever more people and give back. 

Wendy Wilder, Executive Director at IICF UK said: 

“The insurance industry can make a real difference in fostering greater social mobility in the UK and ensuring that everyone has a chance to succeed, no matter their starting point in life.” 

“As we welcome new corporate partners, it’s exciting to see more insurance leaders recognising that we can create greater social impact together as an industry. Aspect in particular is a team that believes the industry can do better, and their partnership with the IICF indicates that this means going beyond business to achieve a positive social impact.” 

“We look forward to working with the team at Aspect towards our shared goal of helping communities and enriching lives together.”

Find out more about the IICF here and more about our own approach to social impact here. If you’d like to find out more or even get involved, then reach out to impact@aspect.insure