MARKEL
When Nick Rugg, Head of Fintech and Investment Management Insurance at Markel International, first encountered requests to insure fintech companies in 2015, the sector barely resembled today’ s multi-trillion-pound industry. Back then, crowdfunding platforms and peer-topeer lenders dominated what was still a niche market.
“ We started to see these requests from brokers to insure fintech companies coming in,” Nick explains.“ At the time, it was crowdfunders and peer-to-peer lenders that seemed to be the dominant sub-sectors of fintech.”
Markel International – the specialty insurance arm of Markel Insurance, which focuses on international markets outside the U. S., including the UK, Asia Pacific, Europe and Canada – recognised an opportunity where others saw uncertainty.
Based near London’ s Silicon Roundabout technology hub, it was well positioned to observe the emerging sector’ s growth potential.
2016
Markel launched its fintech insurance product in 2016 after a year of development
“ We quite liked the risks,” Nick recalls.“ The fundamentals of those types of companies were around investing and lending – the core exposures that we would insure on a day-to-day basis within our financial institutions portfolio.”
However, existing insurance products failed to address fintech companies’ unique risk profile. Traditional financial services policies did not cover technology exposures, while technology policies overlooked regulatory and financial risks.
“ There wasn’ t a product out there that really catered to it,” Nick says.“ We decided to put our heads together and think, because this was an industry that was going to grow. It needed to have a proper insurance policy.”
Markel assembled internal teams spanning cybersecurity, technology and financial services to develop a hybrid solution. After about a year of development, the company launched its fintech insurance product in 2016.
“ We had these fintech companies – hybrid financial services and technology companies – so we needed to provide an insurance policy that was a hybrid technology and financial services insurance policy,” Nick explains.
The timing proved prescient. Between 2018 and 2021, historically low interest rates of 0.25 % fuelled massive venture capital investment into fintech companies. Some startups achieved unicorn valuations worth over US $ 1bn within years of launching.
This rapid growth created new risk exposures that Markel had to navigate.
68 October 2025