KBIS Insurance is the largest independent equine insurance provider in the UK and featured in the first edition of Postcode News 25 years ago in 1995! We recently talked with Guy Prest, Managing Director at KBIS, to learn more about the history of KBIS, the relationship with AFD and what the future holds.

Major household names in the Insurance sector rely on the accuracy of their customer data. Many have chosen AFD Software to validate the address data essential to their quotation and policy and risk systems.

KBIS Insurance is the largest independent equine insurance provider in the UK and featured in the first edition of Postcode News 25 years ago in 1995! We recently talked with Guy Prest, Managing Director at KBIS, to learn more about the history of KBIS, the relationship with AFD and what the future holds.

KBIS was first established in 1986 as a specialist bloodstock insurance provider under the trading name of Kershaw Bloodstock Insurance Services. In 1991 the company was acquired by current owners Guy and Liz Prest, who expanded the business to include insurance cover for the riding and competition horse.

KBIS continued to grow their portfolio of services to include horsebox insurance, liability insurance and specialist equestrian property insurance. This growth has not detracted from its core focus of providing a service that is both personal and efficient.

As equestrian insurance is a highly specialised field, all of the thirty staff have equine experience or are experts in their areas of insurance, ensuring that all customers can speak with someone who truly understands their requirements (just as we do with postcode software at AFD!). It is this focus on understanding and pleasing the customer that has helped KBIS become the largest independent equine insurance provider in the UK.

When we asked Guy to cast his mind back to 1995 and his journey with KBIS and AFD he commented; “We built our own customer and claims management system in 1992. Having used the system for a few years, we identified the requirement to quickly and accurately capture the address details of clients and incorporated AFD’s address validation in 1995. This has been in place ever since and throughout those 25 years, we have always been well served by AFD.

In 2016 we bought in new software to manage customers and their claims for certain parts of the organisation but found the system average at best. This led to the decision to put all our years of experience into a new, bespoke system that would give us exactly the functionality we needed as a business.

Paracode was designed and built from the ground up to continue to bestserve our customers and the organisation well into the future. We succeeded in our aims, and the result is a system that is highly adaptable with deep, customisable options that do not require development resource.

AFD was again chosen to continue to provide the address validation functionality in the new system. This was a very easy decision – there has always been a good relationship between our organisations and we know from years of real life experience that the solution delivers.

We soon realised that the system we had developed would not only benefit KBIS, but all insurers across the sector struggling with the limitations of currently available systems. We have therefore decided to launch Paracode as an insurance specific customer and claims management solution. As part of the system package, AFD will provide the address validation element to all users, delivering fast, accurate data entry.”

“Make Happy Customers” is a key focus of all the team at AFD Software, having longstanding relationships with many of our customers is testament to this focus. We look forward to celebrating another 25 years of successful business with KBIS, providing them and all our customers with excellent service and innovation in the years to come.

www.kbis.co.uk