By Matt Wall
Publication Date: 2026-09-22 07:30:00
The UK insurer’s long investment in cloud technology and artificial intelligence is now changing how employees work and customers are served.
When John Davison talks about insurance technology in 2008, he does not sound nostalgic.
“It was rubbish,” says the Chief Information Officer at 1st Central. “The systems that you bought were clunky. Some of them were still green-screen. They didn’t integrate very well. They didn’t handle large data sets very well.”
That weakness was precisely why 1st Central was founded. Price comparison websites were expanding rapidly and generating vast amounts of customer data, yet many insurers lacked the tools to use it effectively. The founders saw an opportunity to build a data-first insurer.
Founded in 2008, 1st Central has since grown to around 1.4 million customers, predominantly in motor insurance. Its leaders believe the technology foundations built over those 18 years now put it in a strong position for the next AI-driven wave of…
