Insurance Times reveals 2026’s Tech and Innovation Awards winners

Last night, Insurance Times hosted the best and brightest technology innovators in the UK general insurance (UKGI) industry as they assembled in the Royal Lancaster London (17 September 2026) for the 2026 Tech and Innovation Awards.

Presented by comedy writer and standup Geoff Norcott, best known for starring on Live at the Apollo and Eight Out of 10 Cats, the glittering event recognised the individuals, firms and initiatives transforming the market through digital innovation and emerging technology.

During the evening, attendees indulged in a drinks reception and three course dinner before 18 awards were handed out across a variety of categories, covering focus areas including artificial intelligence, counter fraud, eTrading, customer experience and data analytics.

Addressing the audience in an opening welcome, Insurance Times content director Katie Scott said: “The sector has long been tarnished with a reputation of being a digital dinosaur, hesitant to embrace future focused change built upon technology, with an adoption pace rivalling that of snails or sloths.

“And although some parts of our market are more sprightly than others when eyeing innovation, the evidence clearly suggests that UKGI is getting stuck in – especially when compared to the global insurance marketplace.”

Notable accolades

Among the evening’s highest honours, Sunneth Lawrence, senior underwriter at Artio, was awarded this year’s Rising Star in Technology and Innovation for her “impressive career trajectory” from joining the insurance market as a graduate at Aon in 2019.

Judges said that Lawrence ”has not shied away from challenging herself with getting under the bonnet of niche and emerging lines of business, such as intellectual property and carbon credit lending, while her peers describe her as tenacious, enthusiastic and a true asset to our industry”.

Notably, some firms received double recognition, with mea Platform winning both Best Use of AI – Service Provider and Technology Partner of the Year, while Mind Your Business took home the Data Analytics Excellence Award and Innovation of the Year – Broker.

One of the most stand out accolades of the night went to Mayowa Fajobi, DevOps engineer at Marsh, who walked away with Technology Champion of the Year for his work ”steering industry-wide conversations around cloud native tech and operational resilience”, while mentoring up and coming developers and ”acting as a Bame role model”, according to judges.

Read on to see the complete list of winners:

Best Use of AI – Service Provider

• Winner: mea Platform
• Highly Commended: FraudOps

Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience

• PremFina

Best Use of AI

• Winner: ManyPets
• Highly Commended: Hotspot Cover

Innovation of the Year – Service Provider

• Winner: Allied Universal Compliance Investigations
• Highly Commended: Pikl

Data Analytics Excellence Award - Service Provider

• LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Insurance
• Highly Commended: SambaSafety

Innovation of the Year – Technology Service Provider

• Winner: Percayso Inform
• Highly Commended: mea Platform

Counter Fraud Innovation of the Year

• Shift Technology and Covéa

Insurance Startup Award

• Native

Data Analytics Excellence Award

• Winner: Mind Your Business
• Highly Commended: ManyPets

Rising Star in Technology & Innovation

• Sunneth Lawrence, Artio

Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience – Claims

• Winner: Alps
• Highly Commended: Innovation Group

Innovation of the Year – MGA

• Winner: Bondaval
• Highly Commended: Testudo

Project Collaboration of the Year

• Winner: Crawford and Company and EcoClaim
• Highly Commended: Ki

Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience – Insurer

• Aviva

Innovation of the Year – Insurer

• Hotspot Cover

Technology Partner of the Year

• Winner: mea Platform
• Highly Commended: RDT

Innovation of the Year – Broker

• Mind Your Business

Technology Champion of the Year

• Mayowa Fajobi, Marsh

Insurance Times extends its congratulations to all winners and finalists at this year’s Technology and Innovation Awards.