Broker says smartphone app will help customers find "better options" for cover using AI. InsurTech start-up Brolly has launched gadget and motor insurance in its smartphone app. In addition, the broker said its switching feature, which analyses what a customer is buying and searches for a better option based on information shared about their lifestyle, is live for gadget insurance. CEO and co-founder Phoebe Hugh confirmed that this will be rolled out on other product lines, including motor, home and travel in the coming months. The start-up broker claimed that Brolly's is the first insurance app where it's possible to switch and purchase insurance directly in-app.

In December, Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned that half of the UK's workforce could be replaced by robots or computers in the coming years. In the insurance industry, we've recently seen Aviva asking its staff if a robot could better perform their job in a bid to increase its competitiveness in our increasingly digital world. Specialist brokers and smaller MGAs often find themselves trapped in manual processes such as rekeying information into multiple systems or manually generating documents and reconciling payments. If your business is significantly more expensive to run than a similar competitor, there is no good outcome in the long run. At best the Christmas Party will always be a low budget event, in the worst-case scenario you could go out of business.