Diary of an Insurer: Peppercorn AI's Nigel Lombard

Monday

We’re a fully remote team and can work from anywhere. At the moment, I’m working from Portugal for a few weeks. Our team has people based in Wales, England, Ireland, Gibraltar, and one moving to Greece. 

Not only does it allow us to tap into great talent all over the country (and world), but as a start-up that is aiming to change the insurance model by significantly reducing operating costs, a remote approach means we’re practising what we preach. 

Today is supposed to be a day off, as it was my birthday yesterday, but I end up working in the morning because we’re in the throes of closing an investment round (stay tuned) and there were a few important meetings I needed to be involved in.

Tuesday

This morning is spent in meetings with a few potential prospects that might be interested in our SaaS proposition, Pipr. 

The prospects themselves shall remain nameless, but included a one to one with a very senior person from a large and successful UK car insurer provider and an evening meeting with a New Zealand based insurance company both of which were very encouraging. 

Throughout the day, I also received updates and photos from the team about our successful presence at an insurtech conference in London, where I’m delighted to say, we were awarded the Celent Model Insurer Award.

Wednesday

This was officially supposed to be a day’s holiday, but a few exciting legal and investor meetings happened today. We’ve had the brilliant news that our investment raise efforts have resulted in us being oversubscribed, which is very exciting because it allows us to recruit more people and accelerate our growth plans. 

While I was online, I also did a few annual test modules from our bank of Financial Conduct Authority online training courses to count towards my CPD.

Thursday

Today, the team held an initial meeting with some pretty senior UK-based people from one of the largest insurance companies in the world. 

The meeting included a demo of Pipr and the attendees seemed highly engaged and were asking lots of questions, which is always a good sign. 

I was also delighted to have a video call with a potential new team member as we bolster our conversational AI design team, something that I love to do. 

This was just an informal chat so they understand our culture first-hand – no blame, experimental and empowered – and ensures alignment and fit. 

We also had an excellent meeting with Microsoft to discuss a closer working partnership, as we host our SaaS proposition on Azure and are integrated on Open AI.

Friday

Officially, this was a Bank Holiday but one of our team perks are that the team can opt to take a Bank Holiday or use it as an additional leave day on a different day instead. 

The policy is designed to acknowledge that not everyone celebrates the same holidays and helps to encourage diversity in our talent pool. 

I’ve opted to work today and caught up with Ice InsureTech’s CEO Andrew Passfield, to discuss a few areas where we’re progressing our partnership, which was announced last week. 

I spend much of the day planning a face-to-face session to get the team together to do some blue-sky thinking – all part of our continuous self-challenging approach to help keep our roadmap fresh and up to date. 

In the exciting and fast-moving world of technology, having this approach is imperative and it’s also something that keeps the team challenged in the right way .

Weekend

Received some great news via email. We’ve just been certified and accredited as a B Corp. This was a long and rigorous process and our team is so proud to have our ESG credentials recognised formally.