Company history

Yellowblox.com, the insurance communications hub, was created in 2003 by a group of industry specialists who were keen to find a simpler and quicker way to process information in the reinsurance markets.

Thanks to the internet, information in the financial services sector is transferred instantaneously. But the London market remains stuck in the paper age and today, in a scene Charles Dickens might recognise, brokers and underwriters still stagger around carrying mountains of files.

Data management expert Richard Garnett, some underwriter friends and an IT guru working in the insurance industry were brainstorming at home one night when Richard had his Eureka moment:

"We were getting nowhere," recalled Richard "when out of the corner of my eye I saw my friend's two-year-old son carefully building a little structure with yellow building blocks. I thought 'that's it!' Our idea was to create a simple, secure, centralised hub to house all the information which should be so easy that a child could use it. I knew we had to call it Yellowblox."

The group set up Yellowblox.com as a privately-owned, web-based communications hub that is wholly independent of any insurance company. Initially, the system was used by a small number of brokers and underwriters, who quickly found it significantly reduced the amount of time taken to process claims and other contract information. Realising the system had the potential to be a major business success, Richard joined Yellowblox.com full time in 2005.

Since then, Yellowblox.com has experienced 54% aggregate year on year growth in the past two years. More than 100 blue chip companies and industry organisations in the US, UK, Canada, Bermuda and Switzerland now use the system, including Aon, Marsh, Willis, Besso Re, Aspen Re, Benfield, Towers Perrin, Duane Morris, CAMICO Mutual Insurance Company, and Resource Intermediaries.

 "Yellowblox.com has gone from strength to strength and with the adoption of the Acord and the ECF project in the London market, the company is ideally placed to be the system of choice for anyone interested in cost-savings, operational efficiencies and automated compliance utilising electronic solutions in the reinsurance market," said Richard.