MARKEL

Claims patterns reveal sector vulnerabilities The regulatory pressures that reshaped fintech risk profiles have translated into real-world claims for Markel’ s clients. Natalie Myhill, Claims Manager for Financial Institutions and Fintech at Markel International, has observed distinct patterns emerging across the sector over the past decade.

Regulatory investigations represent the largest category of claims, particularly targeting companies experiencing rapid growth periods that Markel identified as heightened risk exposures.

“ A large proportion of claims we receive pertain to regulatory issues,” Natalie explains.“ Regulators are taking a real interest in fintechs and we’ re increasingly seeing Section 165 document requests, Section 166 Skilled Persons Reviews and at times full investigations.”

Anti-money laundering compliance failures feature prominently in regulatory claims. Fast-growing fintechs often

Digital currency fraud losses are harder to trace and recover than conventional money struggle to maintain adequate controls while scaling their customer onboarding processes and transaction monitoring systems.

Employment practices liability claims represent another growing area.“ We’ re noticing an uptick in these claims brought before employment tribunals in the UK and internationally, where fintechs seem particularly impacted,” Natalie notes.

Discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination allegations have increased as fintech companies mature and employment relationships become more complex. The sector’ s rapid hiring during boom periods has created workforce management challenges.

What is more, fraud remains a persistent threat, with criminals targeting fintech companies and their customers through increasingly sophisticated methods, such as social engineering attacks, internal fraud and Authorised Push Payment scams.

“ The fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated and utilising new techniques to get around security in place,” Natalie observes.“ Our clients are not always able to prevent these frauds from taking place.”

Digital asset involvement has added further complexity to fraud claims over the past year.“ We’ ve seen an increase in fraud losses where the funds stolen are in digital currency,” Natalie says.“ The issue for fintechs is that funds are much harder to trace and recover than conventional money, meaning losses can be bigger.”

72 October 2025