You might think insurance is a cost, you might wait until someone forces you to buy it.
That’s rational. Calls to insurance broker calls don’t close deals with customers. Paying policy premiums don’t generate revenue. If you’re allocating capital between engineers who build features and insurance that sits idle unless something goes wrong, engineers win every time.
Until they don’t.
The alternative to understanding insurance isn’t ignorance you can afford. It’s expensive ignorance you discover at the worst possible moment. When an investor’s due diligence checklist includes questions you can’t answer. When your largest customer demands indemnity limits your policy doesn’t provide. When a breach happens and you realise your “cyber insurance” excludes the exact scenario you’re facing. When liquidators pursue directors personally and you discover Side A cover wasn’t actually independent of company solvency.
You can approach insurance three ways:
Option one: Buy the minimum required to satisfy whoever’s asking for it this week. Optimise for cost. Assume it won’t matter because nothing will go wrong. This works until something goes wrong, which it will, because you’re operating a business at scale with employees, customers, data, products, contracts and regulatory obligations that create liability whether you acknowledge it or not.
Option two: Delegate it entirely to brokers and assume they’ll handle it. This works if your broker understands the risks of a high growth company or the sector you are in and is incentivised to optimise for your interests rather than their commission. Most don’t and most won’t be, because the incentive structure rewards selling you standard products quickly, not spending time explaining why standard products leave gaps in your specific situation.
Option three: Understand how insurance actually works before you need it. Know what underwriters scrutinise so you can present your risk profile effectively. Know what claims handlers look for so you don’t inadvertently void coverage when managing incidents. Know which policy terms matter and which are negotiable. Know what “adequate protection” actually means for a company at your stage with your risk profile.
Simplify Stream exists because option three doesn’t currently exist anywhere else in accessible form. Insurers write for legal defensibility, not founder comprehension. Brokers are incentivized to close placements, not educate clients. Industry publications assume you already understand the foundational concepts.
We provide the missing layer: educational content about commercial insurance for UK high growth technology and life sciences companies, written from the underwriting and broking side, with no products to sell and no commissions to earn.
Just clear explanations of how insurance actually works, what underwriters actually scrutinise, what claims managers look for, and what practical steps preserve coverage when things go wrong.
Why This Matters More Than You Think
High growth companies operate in a world where insurance transitions from optional to mandatory at specific points. Not legally mandatory. Commercially mandatory.
Try raising Series A when you can’t answer investor questions about D&O coverage. Try recruiting experienced non-executives when you can’t show them policy terms protecting their personal liability. Try signing your first enterprise contract when the procurement team requires £5 million cyber liability and you have £1 million. Try completing M&A when buyers discover your clinical trial insurance doesn’t actually cover the regulatory violations they’re most concerned about.
These aren’t edge cases. They’re operational realities for companies that need to scale. The question isn’t whether insurance matters. The question is whether you understand it well enough to avoid discovering coverage gaps when deals are already in motion and timelines are compressed.
Getting it right means deals close without insurance surprises, incidents are managed with expert support, and contracts align with actual coverage. Getting it wrong means valuation adjustments, extended due diligence, claims denied on technicalities, and operational decisions made without understanding the coverage implications.
The difference is knowledge. Simplify Stream provides it.
Why These Policy Terms Exist (And Why They’re Not Negotiable Until You Understand Them)
You’ve probably seen these and wondered why they’re there:
Aggregation clauses that seem designed to reduce payout. Terrorism exclusions in policies that have nothing to do with terrorism. Supply chain cover that doesn’t respond when your supplier actually fails. Clinical trial policies with participant limits that don’t make obvious sense.
None of this is arbitrary. These terms exist because specific catastrophic events reshaped how risk is understood, priced and transferred. Understanding why they exist is the only way to negotiate them effectively.
September 11, 2001 changed how insurers count exposures. A single terrorist act created thousands of simultaneous claims that insurers initially thought were separate events. The industry lost $40 billion and fundamentally restructured how aggregation works. That aggregation clause in your policy exists because of this. It’s not going away. But you can negotiate its application to your specific risk profile if you understand what underwriters are actually protecting against. 9/11 changed how terrorism and aggregation are treated and prompted new treaty reinsurance structures; the event reframed how underwriters count and aggregate exposures.
TGN1412 / Northwick Park (2006) was a Phase I clinical trial where six healthy volunteers simultaneously experienced catastrophic organ failure from a single dose. Insurers thought they were covering six individual participant injuries. They were actually covering a single systemic trial design failure affecting all participants. Clinical trial insurance changed overnight. The multi-participant limits and protocol review requirements in your policy exist because of this event. They’re not negotiable. But understanding them helps you structure trials in ways insurers can actually price. TGN1412 / Northwick Park exposed gaps in first‑in‑human trial oversight and led to formal expert review and regulatory recommendations that reshaped clinical‑trial practice and insurer underwriting for life‑sciences risks.
2008 financial crisis demonstrated that counterparty risk isn’t theoretical. When insurers and reinsurers become insolvent, policies become worthless. The capital requirements, reinsurance structures and financial strength ratings you’re asked about during placement exist because of this. Insurers aren’t being bureaucratic. They’re ensuring they can actually pay claims when you need them. 2008 financial crisis and regulatory reform sharpened focus on capital, counterparty risk and systemic resilience across insurers and reinsurers.
Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (2011) revealed that supply chains don’t fail linearly. A single component supplier in Japan failing can stop production for manufacturers globally. The supply chain business interruption coverage you think you have probably doesn’t respond the way you expect. Not because insurers are being difficult, but because supply chain failures are harder to insure than direct property damage. Understanding this distinction changes how you structure coverage. The Christchurch earthquake and Tohoku 2011 reinforced the need for improved catastrophe modelling and supply‑chain BI planning.
It’s not just your business. Its how events impact your partners, your insurance partners! Insurers aren’t trying to avoid paying claims. They’re trying to avoid insuring risks they can’t quantify or price. Once you understand what they’re protecting against, you can have productive conversations about what’s actually negotiable.
What You’ll Find Here
Sector specific guides explaining how insurance actually works for clinical trials, SaaS, MedTech, manufacturing and regulated services. Not generic advice. Specific guidance for the risks you actually face.
Practical checklists for critical moments: fundraising, product launches, M&A, incidents, regulatory submissions. The things that matter when timelines are compressed and mistakes are expensive.
Clear explanations of policy mechanics: what’s covered, what’s excluded, what underwriters check, what claims handlers scrutinise. The information brokers should provide but often don’t.
Connections to industry resources including trade associations, government initiatives and professional bodies that matter for high growth companies.
Each article links to organisations worth knowing, with explanations of why they’re relevant to your specific situation.
Connect with people in industry
Each article has links to industry groups, government initiatives, most in the United Kingdom, some overseas. Here’s a small handful of partners and services you need to know about:
Software / Cyber
- techUK: The UK’s technology trade association useful for policy, resilience and sector contacts
- National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC): The National Cyber Security Centre, for guidance, incident response and Cyber Essentials resources for rapid forensic SLAs
- ScaleUp Institute: ScaleUp Institute, for research and support for scaling tech firms; good for outreach to high growth founders
Hardware / Manufacturing
- Make UK: the voice of UK manufacturing; useful for supply‑chain and contingency planning contacts:
- Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA): trade body for manufacturing tech and suppliers; relevant for emergency logistics and supplier networks.
- UK Science Park Association (UKSPA): for companies based in innovation parks and incubators.
Life sciences and MedTech
- BioIndustry Association (BIA): the trade association for UK biotech and life sciences; essential for sector policy and member outreach.
- Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI): HealthTech and medtech industry body; useful for regulatory and NHS pathways.
- UK Science Park Association (UKSPA): connects you to lab clusters and incubators where cold‑chain and rapid‑response services are needed.
Brokers, standards and professional bodies
- British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA): broker network and market access for partner packs.
- Chartered Insurance Institute (CII): professional standards, CPD and technical guidance for underwriting and claims practice.
Jiveen MacGillivray, Editor
Nearly two decades underwriting, placing specialist cover and negotiating claims for complex risks. Now writing the explanations I wish had existed when I started.