Zego plans European expansion

Commercial motor insurer Zego is planning a major expansion across Europe as it targets the continent’s £20bn fleet insurance market.

It will launch in the Netherlands, before ramping up its operations in France. Zego currently operates in six countries but says has identified “several” target territories to enter in 2022.

The international expansion follows a year of growth for Zego, where the company increased its headcount from around 300 in January 2020, to 637 today, and was recognised by Deloitte as one of the UK’s fastest-growing tech companies in its tech Fast 50 Awards.

The expansion comes as a number of traditional insurers on the continent are consolidating their businesses, with a 9% reduction of insurers in the Dutch market between 2019 and 2020 alone. This, according to Zego, has left fleet managers with fewer viable insurance options, with many of the remaining providers still working off “older, outdated rating models and time-consuming manual processes”.

Zego’s behaviour-driven insurance is said to optimise fleet performance, cut costs, and improve road safety. The company says its customers save up to 20% on premiums at renewal through proactive risk management.

Fleet operators can also cut the number of insurance claims they make annually by up to 10%, Zego claims.

Sten Saar (pictured), CEO of Zego, said: “Commercial vehicles now account for over 13% of the vehicles on our roads, the highest proportion ever recorded, and this number is rising, as technology continues to decentralise our shopping and travel habits. For the people and businesses managing these fleets, flexibility and control are both highly sought after, but driver behaviour remains a huge variable that is notoriously difficult to influence.

“Telematics and data science have proven that they can improve driving behaviour, and when combined with a financial incentive, they have great potential to make fleets safer and cheaper to run. At Zego we are using this data to understand risk better than traditional insurers and other insurtechs, so we can offer more accurate pricing and more control; both of which have halo effects that improve life for everyone.”

Zego believes that aligning insurance premiums to the driving behaviour of fleets can lead to a dramatic drop in road collisions by commercial vehicles. Its data suggests that its fleet offering precipitates up to a 10% reduction in claims, due in part to the greater oversight of driver behaviour.

Zego was founded in 2016 by ex-Deliveroo directors, Saar and Harry Franks, offering flexible price-per-mile insurance. Since its foundation, Zego has gone on to develop its commercial insurance products and now supports fleets and drivers working for last mile companies including Amazon, Uber, BP and Deliveroo.