Speaking to Mortgage Solutions about the firm’s strategy and distribution plans, Bagley said there was a “huge disconnect” in the mortgage journey, with advisers guiding customers through a big financial decision but leaving them “completely unserved” when it came to insurance.
She added: “That’s despite it being a requirement of the mortgage or the buildings cover.”
She estimated that 80% of advised customers would turn to external sources for their insurance, such as price comparison websites.
Bagley said: “That’s a broken model, in our view, so we have set out to fix it.”
How to get your first-time buyer clients mortgage ready
Sponsored by Halifax Intermediaries
Intermediaries are the ‘envy’ of distributors
Bagley said intermediaries were “fundamental to insurance distribution” both now and in the future, adding that this should be sold at the “critical moment” when an adviser is closest to a client.
“Intermediaries are probably at the envy of other distribution outlets, whether that’s the direct market or aggregators, because they know exactly what time a customer needs insurance,” Bagley said.
She said this was not happening due to a “lack of consistency” when offering home insurance from an advised perspective, as more time was dedicated to mortgages and protection.
Bagley added: “To get to a place where you can consistently offer insurance to customers is really challenging.”
The benefit of an embedded insurance process
Uinsure’s distribution team works to engage with and educate brokers to help them understand the importance of home insurance and how to sell it in the moment. Bagley said the sector was still only partway on this journey and left many customers under-served, which was why the firm was so “strong-willed and strong-minded” about embedded insurance.
Uinsure launched UinsureCX in 2023, an embedded insurance platform that integrates with the mortgage journey to become a “natural, automated” part of the process.
Bagley said: “Instead of asking advisers to log in to a separate system or rekey data, it plugs directly into the CRM platform that they’re using, which then allows us to automate real-time insurance quotes, using the mortgage application data.
“We can provide those quotes at exactly the right moment, whether it’s a mortgage application, offer, exchange, or completion. What you’re doing is removing the friction from the process for both the adviser and client, while improving conversion and compliance by making insurance a consistent trackable and part of the regulated sort of journey.”
Last year, the UinsureCX platform offered quotes to over 130,000 mortgage customers and Bagley said there were plans to grow that further.
Uinsure’s plans for growth
In her first year as chief distribution officer, Bagley said she wanted to make sure she worked not only on giving distributors access to the UinsureCX tool but on building a “full insurance strategy that’s a true partnership and joint ambition” to get more mortgage customers buying insurance from intermediaries.
Behind that, Uinsure has other changes planned, including an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered pricing engine set to launch this year.
Speaking more broadly about AI, Bagley said the technology could be used to support quality assurance checks and recommend the best next steps agents could take when interacting with customers. It might also be used for pricing and understanding the risk profile of customers.
She said AI would be “democratised” over time, so businesses had to embrace it and find out how it best worked for them.
Uinsure is also focusing on new product design and capacity to support its provider panel. This is backed by Will Price, its recently appointed chief product officer.
Bagley said: “We want to deepen our integrations with CRM platforms across the market, so we want to expand our reach of intermediaries and embed that insurance more deeply into the existing mortgage workflows.
“The thread in all of it is helping advisers win. We want them to win more customers, convert more consistently, and do it all without added friction. That’s what embedded insurance really means. It’s not just about the tech, it’s about timing, trust, and making sure insurance is offered at the right moment when it matters most.”
Bagley said UinsureCX was unique to the market as, unlike aggregator sites, customers did not have to compare features of a policy side by side, but still offered the advantage of having multiple providers competing to deliver the best price.
She said this helped where insurers had a change in risk appetite and exited the market, as the adviser would still have options for their customer.
