Entrepreneur Richard King believes he’s onto a winner with his third startup – and with a football legend and Dragons’ Den investor backing him, he’s already starting to disrupt the insurtech market with Ticker.
“One of the leaders I admire is advertising executive Sir John Hegarty who said, ‘You must be fearless and creative’ which is what we have been with Ticker,” said King, who explained that the company is an insurtech bringing connected motor insurance to a much wider market but, at its heart, is a data company.
Collecting quality connected car data across the whole customer experience allows Ticker to price risks far more accurately, a concept that has won the support of Gary Lineker and Theo Paphitis.
As an insurtech, Ticker is taking connected motor insurance to niche markets and uses the latest telematics technology and pricing methods.
“We’ve created an ecosystem, then we overlay niche propositions. We have two products live today, for novice and van drivers. In just over two years, we’ve managed to get to a US$65mn GWP run-rate with these two products,” said King. His other ventures include ingenie and Deep Blue Restaurants, which has grown to be the largest chain of fish and chip restaurants in the UK with 75 branches – including Harry Ramsdens, which was acquired in 2019.
King is also a director and trustee of Chelsea FC and was part of the original team that created the trust to provide financial and medical support to past players. He refers back to Hegarty, whose dictum in life is, ‘do interesting things and interesting things will happen.’ “These are lessons I’ve brought into all my businesses,” he said.
Commenting on what inspired the name Ticker for his latest venture, King said: “Coming up with a name is the easy bit; trying to get the legalities and URL sorted is next-to-impossible. We worked with a London/New York branding agency and we had a great creative process debating the culture and the vibe we wanted. Ticker jumped out at us right away. It felt like even though we were going to be this sophisticated insurtech, there was a beating heart at the centre.”
King believes it is the quality of the team that will give Ticker a competitive edge in the market. “I pay particular attention to communicating with everyone. It’s not a company meeting once a month; we come together every single morning at 9.30 am for a 10-minute Zoom so I can drip feed what’s happening with the business every day, so it’s naturally a part of everyone’s DNA.
“Since the pandemic, there’s now so much more focus on a company’s personality, culture, vibe, and attitudes towards things like gender and diversity. Ten years ago, those subjects were on the agenda but not that high; today, they’re near the top of the agenda.
“I’ve been delighted to see the wide range of backgrounds insurtech now attracts. I’ve worked in motor insurance for 30 years and it’s always been male-dominated, but that’s no longer the case. We didn’t set ourselves concrete objectives for gender parity, but I’m delighted that a significant part of our leadership team is female.”
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