2022 achievements broaden Foresight’s horizons for 2023 in exciting ways
By David Fontain, CEO, and Co-Founder Foresight Insurance
In creating Foresight, my co-founder Peter Grant and I set out with a fundamental belief that high-risk workplaces can be made safer and more cost-effective through tech-enabled workers’ compensation coverages and solutions. We believe in a future where workplace injuries will be a thing of the past.
I’m proud that Foresight is proving these underlying beliefs. At the outset of a new year, we are well on track to achieve our mission—building insurance as a force for good, and becoming the workers’ compensation insurer of the future.
2022 was Foresight’s best year yet. We exceeded vital financial and front-door metrics as well in streamlining and enhancing insurance and tech competencies that positions the business ahead of our peer competitor group—all while getting more workers home safely at the end of their days.
In this update, I’m pleased to share a snapshot of recent results, learnings, and a look ahead to what 2023 will bring.
A purpose-driven mission to reduce claims helps drive growth
A key study conducted in 2022 showed us that we are demonstrating a groundbreaking 17% claims frequency reduction for our clients in as little as one policy year, using our tech-forward coverage and services. These results sparked and continue to drive sales among customers hungry for innovation, as companies who struggled to effectively contain their insurance costs flocked to Foresight in droves.
Our brokers have responded, too—recognizing that our appetite for safety-critical businesses are opening new doors and eliminating unnecessary insurance costs for many of their clients. They are sending more business to be quoted to our underwriters than ever before. We saw our submission volume climb by 60% ($298M) in 2022 over 2021 figures.
Solid groundwork laid throughout 2021 coupled with an appetite expansion and additional geographic territory filings positioned us for a 60% new business submission increase. As we have just opened for business in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina at the end of 2022, and are preparing for filings in New York and Colorado in 2023, we anticipate this upward trend to continue in 2023.
When it comes to broker relationships, another way we gauge how we’re doing is the quality of accounts or how much “top drawer” business our best broker partners submit. Large deal accounts—particularly those in the $400,000-to-multi-million premium segment—are usually sought after by all carriers at the table, and the broker and client have no shortage of options to choose from. It is notoriously difficult to convince large account clients to move their business from a legacy carrier with which they have been insured for a number of years, let alone to a newer entrant in the market.
Our data shows that Foresight’s dedicated broker partners are educating their clients about our value proposition and true differentiating experience and Safesite capabilities, and moving large deals to Foresight at an impressive click, which has resulted in a notable increase in our average deal size over time. In December ($677K), which was one of Foresight’s best months of 2022, we had an average deal size that was triple the previous month ($232K) and double the next best month (October, $301K).
Large accounts have the added benefit of increased Safesite engagement and frequency reduction, with service expenses offset by significant improvement in policyholder costs, so these are highly desirable wins for Foresight.
Leaning into learnings
In 2020 and 2021, Foresight’s tech-forward approach in an innovation-starved space drew interest from hundreds of brokers across filed territories, and appointment growth occurred rapidly. The interest and pace of growth continued in 2022.
Brokers are the lifeline of our business. To ensure we are aligning ourselves with the best broker partners, we routinely review and optimize our book so that appointed relationships are submitting business that fits our stated appetite and meets our underwriting standards. This meant strategically non-renewing misaligned partnerships. But as you can see above, we continued to steadily grow with the right partners rather than shrink our agency footprint overall. As further proof we are growing where we want to be, we tracked a 28% increase in brokers with Foresight policies, and a 240% growth in premium across our top ten broker partners. We remain keenly interested in new partnerships in all 15 states where we do business.
Exceeding plan through focus, fundamentals, and teamwork
Tech-enabled insurers have certainly enjoyed their time in the sun as media darlings of the business press—like many companies in the sector, we knew well before spring that 2022 was not going to be one of those years. Fortunately, as an MGU-first, Foresight was mindful of our obligation to foremost serve our brokers and insureds. There is no doubt that in tough economic climates, safety in core industries like Construction, Manufacturing, Agribusiness is more important than ever.
Behind every great company are great people, and the teams of people at Foresight and Safesite stepped up throughout 2022, pushing harder than ever towards getting quotes out the door, and working creative solutions for complex and large account clients. Getting more workers home safe to their families at the end of a shift is what drives the people at Foresight and Safesite.
We offer a singular point of contact for both our brokers and insureds—something many customers coming from legacy carriers cite as a breath of fresh air. The Operations, Product, and Data teams work together around the globe to ensure Underwriting and Safesite colleagues have ample support. The Marketing team customize materials for brokers and end users like landscapers, farmers, and plumbers, so that they can better understand how Foresight and Safesite go hand-in-hand to keep workers safer—even for higher ex-mod business.
By December, Foresight was celebrating results that spoke for themselves—and how the collective team stepped up for the business and our customers.
In 2023: Your vision. Our Foresight.
An insurance reporter asked me at the end of December about the relationship between tech and growth, and that is something we have—given a lot of thought to. Since the early days of insurtech, the ability to present compelling technology has been like rocket fuel for growth, but in any sound insurance practice, that tech needs to support underwriting profitability to stand a chance against incumbent carriers. Safesite has been fantastic at effectively improving our insureds’ risk profiles over time, by lowering claims frequency and improving safety and compliance. This also creates a stream of proprietary data, providing a much deeper understanding of risk, which in turn our underwriters incorporate into their pricing methodology.
The name “Foresight” conveys the ability to see and perceive what is yet to come: emerging risk, opportunity, something as of yet out of reach but not impossible to manage. Foresight has managed to grow profitably even in uncertain times, charting a course we believe we can replicate. We look forward to sharing the future of Foresight with all of you in the months to come.
In this new year Foresight will enter new territories, deliver new cross-sell capabilities and product innovations, and continue to enhance the core competencies at the heart of our mission.
With 2022 in the rear view, we’re focused on a bright 2023 and beyond, with new ideas for how we can keep more of our clients safe at work, help more of our policyholders keep their businesses sustainable through improving safety and compliances, and help our broker partners succeed. With team members working around the globe, you can bet someone at Foresight is always dreaming about how we’ll change the game for our customers next.
Foresight thanks you for being on this journey with us. Be on the lookout for more amazing things to come from us in 2023.