In this episode of The Insurindex Podcast, host David Melvin is joined by David Morris, Director of Underwriting at IQUW for a deep dive into how IQUW achieved the 2025 Gracechurch Underwriting Service Quality Marque.
Founded in July 2021 as a private equity-backed company, known as Syndicate 1856, IQUW was created with the aim of shaping the future of underwriting by combining human expertise with the smart use of data. Over the past four years, it has established operations in both London and Bermuda.
During the episode, Morris discussed the Gracechurch Underwriting SQM, describing it as a “recognition of a strategy.” He explained further that driving technology and innovative initiatives is at the core of what IQUW does, with relationships also playing a key role.
Morris detailed how IQUW has brought in experienced underwriters who already had established relationships within the market. He further explained that IQUW had learned from “multiple different stakeholders” while augmenting their approach with technology and data to support them.
Morris also delved into the company’s biggest operational changes over the last 12 months that helped improve their service, attributing this to a combination of factors. For example, building out teams and making investments in technology that can track how quickly they’re responding to brokers.
A big part of IQUW is the people. Morris expressed how the company made efforts to organise practice and training sessions on data origination, creativity, data, and analytics to get their employees up to speed.
Morris also said that “service mentality” remains core to everything that IQUW does, which makes them stand out in a competitive market. Tune in to hear how IQUW has managed to finetune their practices in service, which helped them to achieve the Gracechurch SQM.
