CFC Underwriting on being data led to accurately assess IP insurance risk

Maddi Brown is the Intellectual Property Practice Leader at CFC Underwriting Ltd, heading up the Intellectual Property Underwriting Team.  With 15 years of experience in Intellectual Property insurance, 7 of those years at CFC, she explains the huge changes the industry has experienced and how Cipher has helped to be data led to accurately assess IP insurance risk and bring it into the mainstream.

How has the Intellectual Property Insurance Industry changed?

When I started, traditional lines of insurance were always the key assets of most companies.  Most businesses would think about office insurance or professions insurance but now, the importance of intangible assets is top of mind. They’re what you are left with when you get up and leave your office. When you boil it down, the value to your business is really the people and the product – so how do you think about protecting those?

The market’s starting to open up and there are more providers for IP insurance, which some wouldn’t think is a good thing, but actually it is. The more competitors that we get in the market, the more people are talking about it, and that’s good all around. Our next challenge will be to make sure that the quality is still there as the market gets busier.

How has Cipher helped to accurately assess Intellectual Property Insurance risk?

Cipher provides us a snapshot into current position of the client and that adds real comfort into the exposure. Cipher also adds historic data, as well as the ability to look at technology sectors and areas, so that we can then find out where the client sits.

Also Cipher provides us with dispute litigation data, which is really key to understanding the exposure and the risk for that client. Understanding the exposure by territory e.g. US and Global litigation data, is also really useful for us. The clarity of the data is what I find the most important thing with Cipher, how we can access it and use it, and get to that key information quickly.

How has Cipher data helped you increase confidence in the risk class?

Cipher has allowed us to give comfort in what we’re doing, why we’re presenting terms and why things are set at certain level.  It’s allowed us to add reassurance to the data, the way that we’re rating and the structure that we’re providing, and that that’s made a massive difference to who supports us.