UK insurance industry honors tech innovators
The UK general insurance (UKGI) industry recognized its top technology innovators at the 2026 Tech and Innovation Awards, hosted by Insurance Times. The event, held at the Royal Lancaster London, honored individuals, firms, and initiatives that are transforming the market through digital innovation and emerging technology.
According to Insurance Times content director Katie Scott, the sector has long been tarnished with a reputation of being slow to adopt new technology. However, Scott noted that although some parts of the market are more open to innovation than others, the evidence clearly suggests that UKGI is making progress – especially when compared to the global insurance marketplace. Scott said the sector is getting stuck in, with some parts making more progress than others.
Awards and Winners
The awards ceremony, presented by comedy writer and standup Geoff Norcott, recognized 18 winners across various categories, including artificial intelligence, counter fraud, eTrading, customer experience, and data analytics. Sunneth Lawrence, senior underwriter at Artio, was awarded the Rising Star in Technology and Innovation for her impressive career trajectory and work in niche and emerging lines of business.
Other notable winners included mea Platform, which won both Best Use of AI, Service Provider and Technology Partner of the Year, and Mind Your Business, which took home the Data Analytics Excellence Award and Innovation of the Year, Broker. Mayowa Fajobi, DevOps engineer at Marsh, was named Technology Champion of the Year for his work in steering industry-wide conversations around cloud-native tech and operational resilience.
Complete List of Winners
The complete list of winners includes:
- Best Use of AI, Service Provider: mea Platform
- Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience: winner not specified, Highly Commended: Hotspot Cover
- Innovation of the Year, Service Provider: Allied Universal Compliance Investigations
- Data Analytics Excellence Award – Service Provider: LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Insurance
- Innovation of the Year, Technology Service Provider: winner not specified
- Counter Fraud Innovation of the Year: winner not specified
- Data Analytics Excellence Award: winner not specified
- Rising Star in Technology & Innovation: Sunneth Lawrence
- Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience, Claims: winner not specified, Highly Commended: Innovation Group
- Project Collaboration of the Year: Crawford and Company and EcoClaim
- Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience, Insurer: winner not specified
- Innovation of the Year, Insurer: winner not specified
- Innovation of the Year, Broker: Mind Your Business
- Technology Champion of the Year: Mayowa Fajobi
Insurance Times extended its congratulations to all winners and finalists at this year’s Technology and Innovation Awards.
