Life at Anansi: Meet Jake Mardell, Senior Claims Manager

Next up in our #Life at Anansi series, we meet Jake, Senior Claims Manager here at Anansi. We recently got the chance to chat with him and learnt more about our awesome Claims connoisseur!

Curious? Read on to find out how Jake’s journey into Claims began, what keeps him motivated and his involvement and commitment to Lloyd’s Lab, an innovation accelerator program that brings together insurtechs, insurers, and brokers to test new, innovative solutions.

Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

I was born and raised in Kent, for those that love geography it basically borders Greater London to the South-East of England. I currently live in London and head up the Claims department for Anansi.  

After school, I went straight to work in the insurance space which quickly made me realise that I was in the right place, London, the true hub of insurance. I started out as a Customer Services Representative (CSR) for tifgroup and worked my way up, and after just 6 months as a CSR, I moved into a Claims role.. It was a great experience  and I stayed in that Claims handler position for 3 years. 

After tifgroup, I enjoyed several years as Team Leader and Assistant Claims Manager within a few different companies, until more recently when I felt the need for a new challenge! Which is when I found my way into Anansi’s arms 🤗, and I decided to take the lead on building a new Claims function from scratch.  What really excited me about the role at Anansi was the opportunity to work on an innovative new product with  brilliant people and to also work with Alex, Head of Insurance, who I’d worked with previously. 

Why did you decide to go into Claims and what do you like about this area?

I decided to go into Claims because I see Claims as the shopfront of insurance, it’s the area in which you get the opportunity to provide a great customer experience and retain customers. It also offers a different experience every day, no day is ever the same! 

Claims is the area where insurance is really put to the test. It’s where the most change happens. You get to witness the joy when you are able to help a customer but there’s also the flip side when you’re not able to help them. When this happens, you have to think about ways you could help them in the future, for example, by working with the Underwriting team to improve the offer for the customer. Essentially, as a Claims Manager, you are always thinking of how you can give back to  Policyholders.

Why did you decide to join Anansi and what keeps you excited about your role?

When I first started conversations with the team I could instantly see that it was a great opportunity and that the business idea, embedded goods-in-transit insurance, had huge potential. There is a gap in the market for an insurance product like this, and the idea of joining at such an early stage appealed to me a lot, as I can not only help shape the Claims department, but also the product itself. 

Within a startup environment, you need to wear many hats every day and work together closely with your colleagues to succeed. Right now, for instance, I am not only managing Claims and setting the department up, but I am also helping the Commercial team in terms of business development and account management.   

How did you feel when you heard you were part of the core Lloyds Lab project team? 

Not sure if readers will have checked out our Loyds Lab article, if not you should…it was a big deal!!  We were working with Mentors who are influential within our sector and needed to hit the ground running.

Overall, it was a great opportunity to work on a fast-paced project and work together on a team project having not long joined the Anansi team. The time in the Lab allowed me to work on skills that I might not be exposed to in my day-to-day role, such as public speaking at each of the trade shows, pitches and the final day in the Lab, the Demo Day. 

What were your main responsibilities within the Lloyds Lab accelerator program? 

Honestly, it has been a team effort on a lot of tasks, but the main areas I took ownership for were looking into:

• Subrogation, which is a confusing name, but it’s basically where an insurance company seeks to claw back claim money from a 3rd party on behalf of the insured person.
• Salvage, another cool name! When the insurance company pays a claim for a damaged item but when there’s a chance that it’s repairable and can be sold on, which helps to protect the loss ratio.
• Costs/Savings of parametrically handling claims. One of the main innovative aspects of the Anansi product is that we automate claims assessment based on the data we receive on goods-in-transit, which significantly reduces claim cycle times and it means that the retailer doesn’t have to fill out any long claims forms. It also saves on operational costs  , which will result in a better user experience with instant payouts and no delays.
• Finally, creating the demo for Demo Day. Readers can check out this  LinkedIn post to better understand what the day entailed, but it was essentially a 5 minute video demonstrating the work we’d achieved during our time in Lloyds Lab. 

What was the biggest challenge during the Lloyds Lab program?

For me, it was refining our objective (to develop a goods-in-transit insurance proposition for large retailers) and being able to demonstrate that we delivered on our objective within the Lab time frames, which were pretty tight as the accelerator program was 10 weeks long, so we had to really work at pace. 

What is the greatest value that being part of Lloyds Lab Cohort 9 brought to Anansi? 

The huge opportunity of having mentors with a wealth of experience to guide us through the whole journey. 

Now the question that all our Anansi superstars have to answer….

What three things would you take to a deserted island?

• A helicopter
• A helicopter pilot 
• Some reserve fuel

If you’d like to learn more about #lifeatanansi drop us a line or head over to our careers page to view our open roles.