Zego is rolling out its behaviour-driven insurance further in Europe, targeting the continent’s +£20bn fleet insurance market.

Sten Saar, CEO and co-founder of Zego

The company, which became the UK’s first insurtech unicorn last year, said it can enable customers to save up to 20% on premiums at renewal and cut their annual number of insurance claims by up to 10%, thanks to proactive risk management.

Founded by ex-Deliveroo directors Sten Saar and Harry Franks, the business has embarked on a major recruitment drive and international growth since it hit unicorn status in 2021.

Zego’s European expansion plans, revealed in December 2020 when it secured a European broking licence, have already seen it expand its footprint to cover six countries, and the business is now launching in the Netherlands and expanding operations significantly in France, with more new territories being targeted throughout 2022.

News of the European expansion comes as many traditional insurers on the continent consolidate – as an example, the Dutch market saw a 9% reduction of insurers between 2019 and 2020 alone. This has left fleet managers with fewer viable insurance options than ever before and many of the remaining providers still work off older rating models and manual processes.

Zego’s tech-led proposition centres instead around a fully automated fleet portal, deploying telematics to enable behavioural insights said to save fleet customers up to 40% on admin time while also helping them optimise fleet performance, cut costs and improve road safety.

Sten Saar, CEO of Zego, commented: “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 was founded in 2016 and has its own UK licence to underwrite insurance. It initially focused on offering pay-as-you-go cover for delivery drivers in the gig economy and has since expanded into mobility and the fleet sector; it now supports fleets and drivers working for some of the largest last-mile companies in the world, including Amazon, Uber, BP and Deliveroo.