Allianz is preparing to deploy a raft of new digital platforms across its UK business in April and May this year (2025) following group-wide, global investment into digitalisation, according to Colm Holmes, chief executive at Allianz UK.
The German-headquartered insurer invested a “significant” £200m in its UK arm in 2024, ringfenced for re-platforming and digital “end to end change”. The global business has further committed this same amount to action digitalisation projects throughout 2025, Holmes confirmed.
Building on Allianz UK’s prior investment in data analytics – such as its 2021 partnership with insurtech Cytora, for example – Holmes told Insurance Times that the insurer will be rolling out “new underwriting workbenches, new back end platforms and [a] new claims system” over the next two years to make it “increasingly efficient and simple” for brokers to trade with Allianz UK.
He added that the insurer is striving to “respond much quicker” to quote requests from its broker partners and “with a much higher degree of accuracy with regards to pricing” via its new technology systems and digital trading mechanisms.
Holmes explained: “We needed to do this. These big builds are not fast and they’re not cheap. But we’ve made that investment and [in] 2025 and 2026, [we] will deploy that technology having spent the last two years very much in the build phase of that new technology.
“It is very much an end to end change in our technology platform, front end, digital use of artificial intelligence (AI) and how we interact with brokers.”
The “brand new” underwriting workbench, for example, will help Allianz UK service its “largest corporate business right down to a small digital trading business”, Holmes continued, utilising “advanced technology” and “an advanced data feed and use of software”.
Getting brokers’ business
For Holmes, Allianz UK’s digital update is vital if the insurer is going to continue to attract business from brokers.
He said: “Ultimately, it’s the relationship and trust between brokers and insurers that is what drives our business and it’s important that we continue to invest in that relationship and the ability to do business simpler because I want brokers to want to always give us their business.
“That trust relationship, that ease of doing business, that speed at which we can respond is very important to our broker partners and that’s very much where we [have focused] the investment – that front end of our business.
“2025 and beyond is where I see Allianz very much delivering on our capability, delivering on our promise and continuing to deliver [the] best services we can to our customers and brokers.”
