Amazon to offer insurance to UK businesses

Amazon.com Inc  is to start offering insurance to small and medium-sized UK business customers, the technology giant’s first foray into business insurance in the country, broker Superscript said on Monday.

Members of Amazon’s Business Prime programme will be able to buy cover from Superscript such as contents insurance, cyber insurance and personal indemnity insurance, which a Superscript spokesperson said would be underwritten by “major UK insurers”. They will be offered a discount of 20 per cent to current rates as a way of enticing businesses over to them.

More than 50 per cent of customers are prepared to buy insurance from non-traditional players such as big tech or insurance technology (insurtech) firms, according to a recent survey of 12,000 people globally by consultants Capgemini.

“The (insurance) industry needs to bridge the divide between insurers and customers by providing a quick, smooth buying process that is customer-centric,” Cameron Shearer, co-founder and CEO of Superscript, said in a statement.

Amazon’s move into UK business insurance comes after US insurtech Next Insurance said in March it was offering cover to US small businesses via Amazon Business Prime.