Embedded Insurance Meets Horse Racing: How Equine MediRecord Solved a Global Underinsurance Problem
When Finlay Dargan and his brother started Equine MediRecord to help their family's horse breeding business manage paperwork, they uncovered a startling problem: the vast majority of horses worldwide have zero insurance coverage. Horse insurance is expensive, difficult to obtain, and requires cumbersome paperwork, leaving owners exposed to significant financial risk.
In this episode, Finlay joins Paul Prendergast from embedded insurance technology provider Kayna and Anthony Borgman from insurance broker WTW to explain how they partnered to launch an embedded mortality insurance solution for horse owners in the UK. This conversation reveals how vertical SaaS platforms are uniquely positioned to solve industry-specific insurance gaps, and why embedded insurance is poised for explosive growth despite being 3 to 4 years behind embedded fintech.
The Global Horse Insurance Crisis: Why 99% of Horses Are Uninsured
- The vast majority of horses in Europe and globally have no insurance coverage whatsoever
- Horse insurance is traditionally difficult to obtain, expensive, and involves significant paperwork barriers
- For many horse owners, especially trainers managing 30 to 400 horses, the administrative burden makes insurance impractical
- This creates massive financial risk, particularly in horse racing, where individual horses can be worth hundreds of thousands
- Self insurance works for some large operations, but leaves most individual owners and smaller trainers vulnerable
- The problem extends beyond horses: 43% of UK small business insurance claims involve underinsurance (Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters, 2024)
From Paperwork to Platform: How Equine MediRecord Digitized Horse Health Records
- Equine MediRecord started as a solution to digitize medical records for horses, which were previously paper only due to legal requirements
- The company comes from five generations of Irish horse breeders who experienced the paperwork burden firsthand
- They had to work with regulators across multiple countries to change legislation allowing digital records
- The platform tracks medications, vaccinations, treatments, and sends automated vaccination reminders
- Primary customers are horse trainers in racing, which faces the strictest health regulations for integrity and welfare reasons
- Customers range from owners with 1 to 2 horses to large training operations with 200 to 400 horses
- The medical data is considered secret sauce by trainers, critical proprietary information about their training methods
The Technology Layer: How Kayna Enables Fast Embedded Insurance Integration
- Kayna provides the digital integration layer between vertical SaaS platforms and insurance providers
- Instead of 6 to 9 month integration projects, Kayna enables embedded insurance launches in approximately one week
- The platform is insurance line agnostic, whether it's construction company revenue or horse age, it's just data to us
- Kayna works across diverse industries: retail gas stations in the US, construction, field services, and now equine
- The technology is consent driven, allowing platform owners to control their data while enabling seamless insurance quotes
- Kayna's model: an inch deep and a mile wide, partnering with vertical SaaS platforms that serve specific communities with unique distribution and valuable data
WTW's Affinity Insurance Model: Bringing Insurance Expertise to Non Insurance Platforms
- WTW's GB Affinity practice specializes in distributing insurance through organizations whose core activity isn't insurance
- Affinity insurance is a well established distribution method now being modernized through embedded technology
- WTW works with membership groups, vertical SaaS, marketplaces, retailers, and manufacturers
- The traditional insurance buying process is time consuming and requires consumers to input extensive data manually
- Embedded insurance simplifies this by pre populating data from the platform, reducing friction dramatically
- WTW brings the insurance expertise and capacity; Kayna provides the nimble capability to connect the dots
- The partnership between WTW and Kayna existed before Equine MediRecord approached them, enabling faster deployment
How the Embedded Insurance Solution Works for Horse Owners
- Horse owners log into Equine MediRecord and see a new Insurance tab alongside their existing tabs (Home, Horse, Treatments)
- They select which horses they want to insure directly within the platform they already use daily
- Data from Equine MediRecord flows through Kayna's integration layer to WTW's insurance offering
- The solution pre populates information the platform already has, minimizing manual data entry
- Currently focused on mortality insurance as the foundational product
- Launched initially in the UK market, with plans to expand
- The seamless integration means horse owners can get insured without leaving their workflow or duplicating data entry
Future Opportunities: Dynamic Coverage and Micro Insurance for Horses
- Horse values fluctuate dramatically based on race performance, a winning horse immediately becomes underinsured
- Equine MediRecord could trigger insurance adjustment prompts when a horse wins a race, addressing underinsurance in real time
- Expansion beyond mortality insurance to other horse insurance types is planned
- Micro insurance for short term coverage during specific events like horse transportation or travel
- Integration with race data could connect medical records with performance data to create more sophisticated risk profiles
- Finlay emphasizes starting with one product done well, then building upon that foundation
- The key is allowing customers to adopt gradually rather than overwhelming them with options
The Broader SME Insurance Crisis and How Embedded Insurance Solves It
- In the UK, micro SMEs (up to 10 employees) represent 99% of all businesses by volume
- These businesses employ 60% of the private sector workforce and generate 50% of private sector turnover
- Yet 40% of US small businesses have no insurance; similar protection gaps exist in the UK
- The frightening term: unknowingly underinsured, businesses don't realize their coverage is inadequate
- Small business owners don't have risk management functions like large enterprises; they're experts in their field, not insurance
- A business might start with basic coverage, then hire their first employee mid-year without realizing they need employer liability coverage
- Vertical SaaS platforms with payroll functionality can detect this change and alert the business owner automatically
- In construction, 20% of subcontractors cancel insurance before year end to save money, creating liability gaps platforms can address through compliance driven embedded insurance
Why Embedded Insurance Is Growing Now: Infrastructure Finally Catching Up
- Embedded insurance is approximately 3 to 4 years behind embedded fintech in development
- The same challenges embedded fintech faced years ago, embedded insurance is facing now, but the Lego blocks are being put in place
- Carriers and brokers are rapidly building API capabilities and digitizing operations at the backend
- Insurance integration traditionally took 6 to 9 months; modern embedded solutions reduce this to one week
- Hiscox CEO Aki Hussain predicts 15% of their European P&C business will be embedded within five years, a colossal amount
- After embedding payments successfully, platforms look to add banking, payroll, accounting, and insurance to their stack
- For payments, platforms want solutions that work today; for insurance, they want partners with 100-year track records
- The winning formula combines established insurance expertise (WTW, Markel) with fast-moving technology (Kayna)
- Software platforms want the best of both worlds: safety and credibility with speed and innovation
Key Takeaways for Vertical SaaS Platforms and Non-Financial Brands
- If your platform holds valuable data about your customers' businesses or assets, embedded insurance may be relevant
- Look for pain points where your customers face underinsurance, high administrative burden, or compliance requirements
- The embedded insurance model works best when you can offer coverage you can't get off-platform, tailored to your specific vertical
- Start with one insurance product and prove value before expanding
- Partner with established insurance brokers and carriers for credibility, paired with modern technology providers for speed
- Integration time has dropped from months to weeks, making embedded insurance increasingly feasible
- Trust and data control are paramount; customers need to know their proprietary data remains protected
- Consider how changing risk profiles during policy periods could trigger proactive insurance adjustments
You can download the whitepaper that we mentioned during the episode here.
<iframe data-testid="embed-iframe" style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/4gOZDus1jyLt1TULOXoDWl?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>