We spoke to Tony Fehily, MD of Greenlight, about how the move to Open GI’s (OGI) technology has seen a strong partnership develop and create the optimal conditions in which Greenlight can grow its business and enhance its customers’ journey.

Future proofing business operations and looking for the right ‘digital blend’ to strengthen customer service, Greenlight Insurance Services (Greenlight) selected Open GI as its preferred technology partner. Over the last eight years, the partnership has grown to become a strong collaborative duo, with Greenlight going live on OGI’s latest broking platform, Mobius, in early 2022.

Founded in 1996 by Managing Director, Tony Fehily, the specialist car insurance broker is like no other. Offering cover, service, and technical knowledge for a wide range of cherished and modified cars, all the team at Greenlight are themselves car enthusiasts, as well as qualified insurance professionals. Cars are, quite simply, the heart and soul of Greenlight.

Greenlight prides itself on delivering a personal customer experience to its customers. Over the last 18 months, the broker has used a range of innovative techniques to help build its brand in the market. One of these included great success with social media, which saw video hits accelerate to over 1,000,000. This is a broker who has built a solid foundation of customer loyalty – and at the same time used the power of technology to grow.

At Greenlight we have extensive experience, a common interest and empathy with the niche area we operate within. We lead the underwriting process, as well as product building from a systems perspective and work with a number of Polaris schemes. Because our business is so niche, we struggled to find a technology partner and solution that could work for us. We tried alternative solutions, but we found that there were compromises and we needed to adapt to a solution. As a result, we engaged with Transactor and spoke with the team there. The platform presented to us at that time just seemed to fit perfectly, offering us the right footing for our digital journey.

When Open GI acquired Transactor in 2017, we saw a positive shift with our partnership. The account management support, coupled with the tech innovation plans Open GI had, really excited us at Greenlight. We are always keen to branch out with new technology to evolve our business and with the support of our Account Manager we started to push the technology boundaries.

What works for us at Greenlight is the relationship we have with OGI. The people behind the scenes are fantastic, and as we are a people business too – it’s a perfect fit. OGI not only guide and support us, but they also listen to our values and support us every step of the way.

With 13,500 customers, managed on an individual, bespoke basis, a lot of labour-intensive work goes into maintaining those valuable relationships. But a number of OGI’s solutions have alleviated processes and time-consuming tasks.

Early into our relationship with OGI, we were also introduced to Ratings. This has made such a positive difference to managing our schemes and responding to market demands. The fact this technology allows you to adjust pricing information, at the touch of a button, provides a game changer for us.

Recently we have also worked with OGI’s machine learning specialist, Machine Learning Programs, to analyse our data at point of quote. The information that has been provided to us has meant we can be even more sophisticated with our pricing. We now have a deeper understanding of the market and customer base, enabling us to make better informed decisions. Machine learning has helped us do that. I find it inspiring how technology and data can really help move us forward.

Over the last few months, our digital journey has started to really take shape – and that has become possible thanks to OGI. We’ve been introduced to a range of digital solutions, and OGI’s Digital Elements has caught our attention.

In the market we trade in, some of our customers prefer to do everything online. So, for example, if a young driver has modified their car, then they are more likely to want to update us online – not over the phone. This year, OGI’s solutions will equip us with a new digital angle for our customer journey; will be able to become more adaptable, flexible, offer our customers a level of autonomy with 24/7 access to our products and services but still be able to offer a personable customer service. This is very important to us at Greenlight – our customers are like family to us!

We’ve been so enthused by the technology that’s out there, and what OGI has to offer. The past couple of years have been hard for our industry. We’ve all needed to adapt and grasp the opportunities technology has presented for the broking community.

For Greenlight, moving to Open GI’s latest cloud-native broking platform was an easy decision to make. It’s intuitive UI and easy navigation makes it easy to operate. It’s in the cloud and offers us maximum security. In summary, Mobius does the job for us – it makes our broking journey easy, and it gives us the bandwidth to focus on our customers and offer that added-value service. We’re excited to see how Mobius will help our business grow and we’re energised for the future.