The question UK insurers should be asking about insurtech isn’t “Do we trust them?”

It’s something else entirely.

I spend a lot of time speaking with insurers, innovation teams, and insurtech founders across the UK. And there’s a consistent pattern that shows up in almost every conversation.

The technology is rarely the problem.

The ambition is there and the use cases are certainly compelling. The business case often stacks up, yet deals still stall.

Not because the insurer doesn’t believe in the solution, but because they can’t get comfortable with what happens if it goes wrong.

We’ve moved past “vendor risk”.  This is about dependency risk

By April 2026, the regulatory direction in the UK is clear.

This isn’t just about due diligence anymore. It’s about accountability.

Regulators are no longer asking: “Have you assessed your third parties?” They’re asking: “Can you continue operating if one of them fails?”

That’s a very different standard.

And it’s particularly relevant in insurance, where a single SaaS platform or AI-driven service can quickly become embedded in an important business service like underwriting, claims, fraud detection or customer servicing.

Once that happens, it’s no longer just a supplier, it’s a dependency and dependencies need to be managed differently.

This is where most insurtech partnerships hit friction

Insurtech start-ups are built to move fast. They’re cloud-native, API-first, increasingly AI-driven.
They iterate quickly, deploy continuously, and operate with lean teams.

That’s exactly what makes them valuable. But it’s also what makes insurers nervous.

Because when you strip it back, the real concern isn’t: “Does this work?” It’s: “What happens if this disappears?”

And in a SaaS or AI context, that question gets complicated quickly because you’re not just relying on code, you’re relying on infrastructure, data pipelines, integrations, model behaviour and operational knowledge.

If the supplier fails, you don’t just lose access, you risk losing the ability to operate the service at all.

So the question needs to change

I often reframe it like this: Instead of asking: “Do we trust this start-up?” Ask: “If this start-up fails, do we have a viable path to continuity?”

Because trust is subjective. Continuity is something you can design. And once you shift the conversation in that direction, things start to move.

Why traditional approaches fall short

Historically, this is where organisations have leaned on contract language, SLAs, or in some cases, legacy software escrow structures.

But most of those approaches were built for a different era.

They assume static software, on-premise environments and clearly defined handover points

But that’s not how modern insurtech works because today’s platforms are dynamic, cloud-based, and increasingly AI-driven. The value isn’t just in the code, it’s in the environment that runs it.

So, if your continuity strategy only accounts for source code, you’re solving yesterday’s problem.

Where modern software escrow changes the conversation

This is where I think software escrow has evolved in a really meaningful way.

Done properly, it’s no longer just about “holding something in case of failure”.

It’s about answering a much more important question: Can we actually keep this service running if we need to?

Modern software and SaaS and AI escrow, particularly when it’s structured around real-world environments, can support that.

That means capturing more than just code, aligning with how the service actually operates, the data involved and supporting recovery, not just access

And when you extend that into managed continuity and recovery models, you move even further away from theory because you’re no longer saying “We’ll give you the materials,” you’re saying: “We’ve thought through how this continues”

That’s a very different proposition, especially for regulated insurers.

This is what “enterprise ready” actually means in 2026

There’s a lot of talk about insurtechs becoming “enterprise ready”.

In my experience, that doesn’t mean becoming slower, heavier, or more like a large incumbent.

It means being able to answer one question convincingly: If something goes wrong, what happens next?

If you can answer that clearly, procurement moves faster, risk teams get comfortable sooner and as a result deals close more easily

And for insurers, it unlocks something equally valuable: The ability to adopt innovative SaaS and AI solutions without increasing unmanaged risk

The bigger shift

It’s clear that the UK market is moving toward greater scrutiny of third-party dependencies, placing more emphasis on continuity and recoverability, an increased focus on AI assurance and a much lower tolerance for “single points of failure”

At the same time, the pace of innovation isn’t slowing down. So the challenge isn’t whether to work with insurtechs. It’s how to do it in a way that stands up,  commercially and regulatorily speaking.

From where I sit, the organisations getting this right aren’t the ones avoiding risk.

They’re the ones designing for it.

And increasingly, that’s where modern software escrow, particularly SaaS and AI-focused, continuity-led approaches is playing a much more central role.

If you’re thinking about how to make insurtech partnerships more resilient, without slowing them down, I’d be happy to continue the conversation. At The Escrow Company, we’re seeing first-hand how modern software and SaaS escrow can bridge that gap, particularly for cloud and AI-driven services.

Nathan Hopkins, Chief Revenue Officer,

The Escrow Company 

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