Steven Darrah: Really Honest on ‘changing the narrative around insurance’ transparency

The insurance industry has long wrestled with its public reputation – from concerns over poor claims-handling practices that have prompted recent FCA intervention, to boycotts and protests against fossil fuel underwriting.

Negative perceptions of the industry have far-reaching consequences too, leading some individuals to try rehabilitating its image through their own efforts.

Steven Darrah, founder and chief executive at Really Honest, is one such individual. And, after 16 years in the broker market, he realised “how bad insurance was”, especially as it “struggles to keep up” with customers and technology.

Leaving SJL Insurance in 2018, Darrah founded Fuelled Group with “grand plans of making insurance better”, which included updating the traditional set-and-forget insurance renewal model.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Darrah explains that he set out to build a proposition that “allowed insurance to be managed with tech, so that it would always stay on top of cover and make sure it was right for fast growing companies”.

The broker’s proposition initially featured insurance coverage for tech and scale up companies that were “growing too quick for their insurance requirements across all sectors”, before eventually diversifying into healthcare, food and beverage and professional services.

And, on 16 May 2026, Fuelled Group rebranded to Really Honest, which, Darrah explains, was “born out of a continued frustration with the insurance industry and how it’s still not necessarily a feel-good purchase for the buyer [and] still doesn’t quite work for some people”.

Alongside the rebrand, the broker broadened out its offering to more general commercial insurance, with the rebrand aimed at cementing the broker’s new proposition, as well as doubling down on its “bigger mission” to operate with transparency.

In trying to stand out, Really Honest’s proposition includes a no claims bonus for business insurance customers, replicating the common personal lines practice and promising that every claim-free year earns a discount on premiums.

Darrah adds that claims under £25,000 will not increase the premiums for business customers and that the broker will publish communications between itself and the insurer during any claims process.

He continues: “We disagreed with some of the fundamentals of insurance. Sometimes customers pay £10,000 for insurance, but are then made to pay a £1,000 excess to make a claim on what they’re told they need to make a claim on.

“The exchange discount only pointed one way and that was for car and home insurance – there was nothing in business. So, after interviewing hundreds of founders, we made the decision to create some unique propositions in the insurance industry.”

‘Changing the narrative’

Spotting a gap in the market for no claims bonuses in business insurance, Darrah says that the firm decided to “bake it in via endorsement and proposition” rather than “leaving it as an unknown and have it as a reward system for customers”. The broker operates with most of its loss ratios currently running in the single figures, so felt it could absord any costs related to the scheme.

In cases where a client pays £50,000 premium and makes a £25,000 claim, Darrah notes that Really Honest’s insurer partners see a no claims bonus as a reasonable “trade-off”, since a significant premium has still been collected.

He continues: “When we’re looking at £2,000 or £3,000 premiums, that has become more of a tricky conversation with insurers, but they still get the logic behind it because it’s a one-off claim that the client doesn’t want to make, but they’re needing to.

“So, why are we punishing them for using the thing that we told them they were going to need to use? We’ve backed it up with data with our insurers and they’ve been supportive of us.”

While claims under £25,000 do not incur premium increases, Darrah is also keen to ensure that claims experiences are as transparent as possible, especially because he believes that claims service standards are not improving, but are simply “being hidden better”.

For example, he explains that MGAs are continuing to take “massive profit shares – and those profit shares are still dictating whether or not they pay a claim”.

“They’re justifying it as a carve out in a policy wording and it’s just not fair,” he continued.

“For us, it’s always been about [ensuring] if something’s not right that we should be calling it out. I feel that people don’t like the insurance industry for these reasons and they need to be addressed.”

This was reflected in Insurance DataLab’s analysis of the latest Financial Ombudsman Service data, which revealed that claims-related complaints were the largest category of dispute, accounting for 26,430 cases in 2025 across all general insurance business lines.

For Darrah, claims complaints trends reinforce the need for change across the sector, especially since brokers that rely on the “outdated methods of treating customers fairly and avoiding the tough questions will inevitably get found out”.

Warning that “brokers that aren’t honest will get carved out by tech”, he says it is for that reason that his definition of success for his broker “will be purely based on how successful it is at changing the narrative around insurance”.

Changing this narrative obviously requires growth and the demonstration of financial success. Darrah explains that “the ambition” for the business, which currently employs 20 employees, “would be to get big enough to acquire other brokers and bring them into our culture”.

With the broker’s gross written premium (GWP) currently sitting around the £4.75m mark, he adds that the aim is to double GWP in 18 months and ultimately reach £20m GWP in the next three years.

He adds: “If we could go on a little acquisition spree where we take a broker up north and bring them into the Really Honest culture, completely change the way their clients get business insurance and grow semi-organically in that way, that’s definitely the plan.

“A few things need to fall into place for us to do that but, ultimately, that’s what we’re going to aspire to do.”

Transparency shift

In leading from the front, Darrah is equally as keen to address the environmental, social and governance (ESG) image of the insurance industry.

Certified as a B Corp – independently recognised for meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency – Really Honest has an excluded trade list, prohibiting it from working with fossil fuels, industrial fishing, industrial agriculture and animal farming, non-renewable energy, arms and ammunition and transportation and aviation.

With an eye on the Boycott Bloody Insurance campaign, which is pressuring consumers and businesses to divest from insurers involved in what it brands “unethical” business, Darrah believes that this sort of movement is an important reminder that “transparency” in the industry “needs to be addressed” by insurers.

Indeed, SOS UK’s survey in March 2025 identified that, among those still open to working in insurance, 64% said they would avoid companies that remain uncommitted to reducing fossil fuel underwriting.

Darrah finishes: “The new generation coming through will be buyers of insurance soon, so it’s worth considering these things in the decisions that we make as professionals.

“Really Honest has jumped in with both feet with the name, which is going to hold us accountable to everything that we do. There is no hiding if we make a mistake, we have to own up to it – and we will.”