eTrading in construction: a roadmap to digitisation

IN Partnership with

‘Digital doesn’t mean diminished’: Markel redefines broker confidence in construction eTrading

DIGITAL TRADING, or eTrading, is evolving – and quickly. No longer a distant ambition in insurance, eTrading is now embedded in the everyday decisions brokers make to protect clients operating in complex, fast-moving environments. Recent research found that a staggering 63% of insurers plan to fully digitise by 2025 in a transformative move to reshape the sector at large. And nowhere is this evolution more relevant than in construction – where timelines are compressed, risk is layered and clients increasingly expect fast, flexible service without compromising on quality or coverage. In a recent interview with Insurance Business, Martin Parker, head of construction underwriting at Markel, and Richard Brooks, Markel’s broker development director, sat down to discuss exactly what brokers need to understand when trading digitally – from evolving market regulations to balancing technological innovation with human expertise to the role of climate resilience – and how these intertwining elements are paving the way for change across the board.

Markel is a leading specialist insurer, serving regional brokers and UK SMEs. We are proud to empower, support and protect over one million UK customers with specialist insurance, tax and legal solutions. We’re specialists and have provided sector-specific solutions for over 30 years. In that time, we’ve established a strong reputation for technical excellence, product innovation and service excellence in the broking community. Whether it’s access to 24/7 legal advice, tax and R&D support or a debt-recovery service, we understand the day-to-day challenges facing our customers. We put people first because we believe in the power of relationships and doing what’s right.

Find out more

“At Markel, we ensure that everything we trade in the open market is recreated as a carbon copy through digital. We want to make that journey as easy as possible”

Richard Brooks, Markel

Balancing technology with human expertise

Published June 26, 2025

Specialty

Best in Insurance

Resources

Risk Management

News

RSS

Sitemap

About us

Conditions of Use

Cookie policy

Terms & conditions

People

Specialty

Best in Insurance

Resources

Risk Management

News

RSS

Sitemap

About us

Conditions of Use

Cookie policy

Terms & conditions

People

Specialty

Best in Insurance

Resources

Risk Management

News

RSS

Sitemap

About us

Conditions of Use

Cookie policy

Terms & conditions

People

“Now there’s real opportunity and potential for digitising construction insurance”

Martin Parker, Markel

“Every industry is embracing technology wherever it can – and brokers are no exception,” explained Brooks. “At Markel, part of our aggressive growth ambitions from 2026 to 2030 – when we believe we’ll have doubled in size again – is to bring every product that we have to digital platforms.” This adoption of new technology is reflective of the sector at large. According to recent data, 73% of brokers have already adopted a digital strategy, marking a 16% increase year on year.

“At Markel, we ensure that everything we trade in the open market is recreated as a carbon copy through digital,” added Brooks. “We want to make that journey as easy as possible – and I believe that most of our brokers share that same ambition. Many offer different, and probably quite optimistic, percentages as to how much business they would like to trade digitally, with most having ambitions to get upwards of 80% of their SME customers onto a platform over the next three to five years.” And Parker agrees: as he told IB, when discussing digital trading in the construction sector, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a class of business that’s been around for a while. In fact, it’s effectively brand new.

“And from a complex product perspective, that means the market is underserved. Markel’s foray into contractors combined eTrading means we’ve seen a shift in the number of insurers that will follow us and the number of MGAs that are looking to digitise. From here, construction insurance products are going to increase steadily. eTrading just wasn’t an option more than four, five or six years ago outside of the typical tradespeople product. Now there’s real opportunity and potential for digitising construction insurance.”

At Markel, their mission here is straightforward – make digital trading not just equivalent to open-market routes, but better. “Our raison d’être is to make sure there’s absolutely nothing to differentiate between what you can obtain from us in the open market and from digital,” noted Brooks. “The best thing about all of the products that we bring to market is that they’re modular, they’re highly flexible and they’re always combined products.” It’s this tailored and super-amenable approach that’s proven to be especially valuable in construction – an industry that rarely fits into tidy underwriting boxes. “Professional Indemnity (PI) is a great example,” added Brooks. “Markel has a PI combined policy. So, while the jumping-off point for the client might be PI, we can also help brokers add a whole suite of other requirements that the customer might have – such as property, business interruption or legal expenses.” The friction many brokers face today lies in having to assemble disparate products across different platforms, wasting time and increasing the chance of cover gaps – especially when PI is offered only as an add-on. In a sector already burdened by overlapping exposures, that gap can leave policyholders stranded between disputes involving multiple insurers. Markel’s solution is clarity in design: one data entry point, one quote, all needs addressed. “If you have to go onto a single platform,” Brooks explained, “then you can actually accommodate all the clients’ needs in one piece of data entry and one quote – which I think is very powerful.”

Parker shares this vision, while also emphasizing the need to keep human expertise deeply embedded in all processes. “Our intention is to digitise as many products as we can, and to ensure they remain identical whether offered manually or digitally. But there’s still a need to balance that automation with the expertise that we have from an underwriting perspective.” And sector sentiment certainly chimes with Parker here. While innovation and investment in tech are key to success in the field, they can never be used as a viable replacement for the human touch. According to recent data from RDT, 88% of insurers believe that AI should always augment, not replace, human decision making – with further research from Genpact adding that while 55% of customers feel neutral about their insurance provider using AI, a staggering 25% actually view it negatively.

Shift in new regulations

And the need to balance human expertise with innovative tech is especially acute now, as regulatory changes continue to reshape the market landscape. The rollout of the Building Safety Act 2022 – designed to increase accountability across construction – is further pushing underwriters to rethink both risk and process. With major changes continuing through 2024 and repercussions being felt in 2025, insurers are adjusting underwriting practices in response. “There’s massive implications on a heightened liability for a number of different parties,” Parker added. “In addition to a mandatory reporting record, keeping much tighter controls on what are deemed to be higher-risk buildings is important.” For Parker, the upshot is straightforward: underwriting needs to get sharper, and that begins with better data. “From an underwriting and digital trading perspective, underwriters need to be asking more questions to get every single risk detail they possibly can at initial quote stage.”

And Markel’s own developments reflect that logic. “The question set is quite exhaustive,” Parker added, referring to the newly launched contractors combined product. “It’s a full contractors combined question set, which should, in theory, capture all of the relevant information that a broker would need to obtain from a client to then pass on to the underwriter, for the underwriter to quote.” Brooks built on that point, highlighting the delicate balance between automation and human support here.

“We pride ourselves on our people’s expertise. Whilst the digital ambition is all around efficiency and making the process as seamless as it possibly can be, particularly with construction where there are so many regulatory complexities, you should only take the journey so far. For all those cases that it’s sensible to refer, then our proposition’s backed by a team of experts who are geared towards providing a very quick referral service. However, if it isn’t the right way and perhaps an open-market policy still makes sense, then, again, it’s a seamless journey back into our team of experts.”

Continuous education in climate risk

Looking beyond regulation, the construction sector faces pressure on multiple fronts – from rapid government-driven house-building initiatives to a sharp rise in climate-related exposures. These risks are shaping how underwriters build products – and how brokers should advise clients. Here, Parker sees the broker’s role in environmental risk as one of continuous education. “The broker’s key role in this is education,” he told IB. “Education in terms of what underwriters now expect. Most of what we do is UK based – and certainly flood exposure by mapping is a key consideration. We model that regularly – there’s certain tools and data-enrichment capabilities that we use to help us manage risk for climate exposure.” Parker added that construction clients are increasingly deploying climate-conscious materials and risk-management features on site – choices that influence how risk is priced and how policies are built. “Permeable paving and smart drainage systems are examples of risk features that have implications from an underwriting perspective, that would need to be fed back from the broker to the client as part of that education element.”

The future of eTrading in a complex construction market

Insurers invest in tech and digitisation

of brokers are currently investing in AI to improve client-facing processes or plan to in the next 2–3 years

53%

of brokers are currently investing in data analytics

92%

of brokers currently either invest in APIs or plan to in the next 2–3 years

84%

Source: Applied Systems

Customers prefer human touch to AI

of customers prefer to receive insurance guidance from a human rather than AI

88%

of customers reported challenges in understanding the details of their coverage

Complicated claims processes were an issue for

28%

of respondents

23%

Source: UserTesting

So, what should brokers be looking for in a digital trading platform today? For Brooks, it comes down to two things: credibility and flexibility. “It’s having the confidence that where you have the option to select from a particular carrier, your best chances of success, the customer will be well served digitally; there’s an expert name behind it. Markel’s credentials in this sector go back many years – so the policy has been carefully crafted to make sure there’s really wide risk-acceptance criteria of activity and turnover. We never like to talk in terms of our digital offering being limited by premium, only by activity, which I think is a common misnomer in the market.” Ultimately, it’s about confidence in the sector – confidence that digital doesn’t mean diminished. “Does the proposition offer all the flexibility that clients in the sector are going to need? If you pick Markel, be confident in the fact that we built it to have as wide an acceptance criteria as possible,” Brooks emphasises. Start eTrading Markel's Contractors Combined today.