Mark Cunningham, Managing Director: PriceHubble: Is your data useful or useless? (403)

Introduction

In this episode, Matthew Grant speaks with Mark Cunningham, Managing Director at PriceHubble, about how insurers can move from fragmented data to genuinely informed decision-making.

Despite decades of investment in data and analytics, many insurers still lack a clear understanding of the assets they are covering. Mark offers a candid view of where the real problems lie, and why improving outcomes starts not with more data, but with better data.

He introduces a simple but powerful framework, seeding, signalling and selling, which reframes how insurers should approach risk. From establishing a reliable baseline of what is actually on risk, to identifying meaningful signals and acting on them, the model highlights the gaps that continue to hold the industry back.

The conversation explores the practical challenges of property data, including inconsistent addressing standards and the underuse of unique identifiers such as UPRNs. Mark explains how solving these foundational issues unlocks a far richer understanding of exposure, enabling insurers to assess risk with far greater precision.

Looking ahead, the discussion turns to emerging pressures. Mark shares analysis suggesting that up to 500,000 UK properties could become effectively uninsurable within the next decade due to the combined impact of flood and subsidence. It is a stark example of how climate risk is becoming financially visible and why insurers need to rethink how they model long-term exposure.

The episode also highlights missed opportunities across the wider financial ecosystem. Despite working with similar data, insurers and mortgage lenders remain poorly aligned, creating friction in customer journeys and limiting the potential for more integrated risk assessment.

Mark also reflects on where generative AI is already making a difference, from reactivating historical leads to improving customer interactions and product recommendations. The impact is less about transformation and more about strengthening existing processes in practical, measurable ways.

At the heart of the discussion is a consistent theme: better decisions depend on better foundations, and the industry still has work to do to get the basics right.

In this conversation, Mark shares:

• Why data in insurance is either useful or useless, and the risks of relying on anything in between
• How the seeding, signalling and selling framework helps structure better risk assessment
• Why many insurers still do not fully understand what they have on risk
• How UPRNs can act as a common language for property data, and why adoption remains limited
• What new data sources are revealing about construction risk and evolving exposures
• How combining climate perils and property economics points to a growing insurability challenge
• Why insurers and mortgage lenders are still not aligned, and what that means for customers
• Where generative AI is delivering practical value today across operations and distribution

Mark’s recommendation:

• Book: The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss

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