Key Highlights
Straight to hx at launch, no spreadsheet phase
Three specialty underwriting cells launched simultaneously
Day-one proof of credibility with capacity providers
About RB Jones Global
RB Jones Global is the underwriting business within the H.W. Kaufman Group, a privately owned, third-generation insurance group backed by long-term family capital. It launched in London with a UK SME business and is now building out a series of specialty underwriting cells, starting with structured credit and aircraft financing in London, and property, construction and energy across the Middle East and Asia from the DIFC. RB Jones Global had the chance to build its pricing and actuarial infrastructure from scratch.
The Challenge for RB Jones Global
No historical data, and no time to wait
As a startup MGA with no trading history, RB Jones Global couldn't hand capacity providers the usual evidence: years of performance data, triangles of what they'd written in the past. RB Jones Global saw an opportunity in that constraint. Half the industry sits on years of data it can't access because it was never captured properly. RB Jones Global could leapfrog established competitors by capturing every submission, including declines, from the start, and building IP faster than businesses that had been writing for years.
"We're a startup, and therefore we don't have loads of historical data, so capturing that data and building up the IP that data gives you as quickly as possible is critical."
Alice Boreman
Chief Actuary
The credibility gap
RB Jones Global was asking major carriers to back a new name with delegated authority. A business plan and senior hires got them into the room, but capacity providers wanted to see operational maturity.
"Capacity providers expect data and analytics and transparency in reporting. Clients expect agility and speed of execution."
Edward Kelly
Group COO
How hx Helps
One workflow, not a set of disconnected tools
RB Jones Global set out to give underwriters a single environment to work within. Underwriters work inside the policy admin system and are routed directly into hx at the point of quoting. They cannot proceed without going through it, which keeps pricing at the center of the process rather than a step that gets skipped. Every model draws on external datasets through APIs: Moody's climate modeling, credit data, and discount rates, all surfaced inside the rater at the point of decision.
Data capture built in from day one
Capturing data was designed into the workflow from the start, rather than added once the business was already writing. hx's data ingestion agent is what makes it work: underwriters drag and drop broker submissions in, and the data is cleaned and used to populate the model automatically. What mattered most to Boreman was capturing the risks the team would ultimately decline. Rather than force manual entry for business they were never going to write, the agent captures those submissions the moment they arrive, so the data exists to learn from later.
Delivered against the odds
RB Jones Global kicked off with hx in October 2025 with one target: five fully integrated pricing and underwriting tools by January 2026, each connected to the policy admin system and external data sources on day one. Most people they spoke to thought it couldn't be done on that timeline.
Five models went live at launch, across all three cells. RB Jones Global delivered on the timeline it had promised its capacity providers. For a business building new relationships, that mattered as much as the models themselves. "We have initiated partnerships with multiple capacity providers," Kelly says. "It's absolutely crucial that we deliver on time and on our promises, and with hx we did so."
A proof point for capacity providers
The hx platform was the baseline RB Jones Global needed to be taken seriously entering the market, and it became RB Jones Global's strongest argument in conversations with carriers. The team demoed the models across the market, showing capacity providers the integrated workflow and the quality of data they'd be receiving. For an industry where, in Boreman's words, "the biggest challenge in delegated authority underwriting is they get terrible bordereaux every quarter," this was the evidence that RB Jones Global would operate differently.
Capacity providers responded in two ways. The first was comfort: carriers nervous about backing a startup venture gained confidence from the infrastructure RB Jones Global had built. The second was envy: carriers wanting the seamless workflow RB Jones Global's underwriters would have. Both, Boreman says, were the feedback that made her proudest.
Faster, more confident underwriting
For Dan Hearn, an aircraft finance underwriter, the change is concrete. Before RB Jones Global, reviewing a complex transaction meant pulling three or four systems and data points together into a Word document: slow, error-prone, and with no audit trail. Now it sits in one place.
"The key ability it gives me is to move quickly with an informed decision, as opposed to spending days to weeks gathering information. I can look at it live, get what I need, and make a decision."
Dan Hearn
Aircraft Finance Underwriter
Underwriting the harder risks
Speed is only half of it. Because every relevant data point sits in one model, Hearn can take on transactions he'd otherwise have to pass on. "One of the key things hx gives us is the ability to review complex or less typical transactions," he says, "and therefore make a confident decision as an underwriter on how we want to progress, or if we want to progress." For a specialty MGA whose edge is writing the risks others find difficult, that reach matters as much as the turnaround time.
Attracting talent
The investment has also helped RB Jones Global recruit. "Young actuaries in the market increasingly want that hybrid actuarial-technology role," Boreman says. "Being able to say we'd invested in this technology has been a helpful way of attracting talent." Kelly puts it in more straightforward terms: "The platform is instrumental in attracting the type of talent that we want. Top talent expects you to provide the tools and analytics for them to thrive."
The hx Difference
Buy, not build
RB Jones Global was clear from the outset about what kind of company it was. "We're an insurance startup, and we're really clear on that. We're not a technology house," Boreman says. "Our design principle throughout has been to buy, not build, but to work with really excellent partners." Rather than divert scarce resource into standing up its own pricing and underwriting framework, RB Jones Global chose a handful of strong partners across the technology it needed, and put pricing at the center of that stack.
Why hx
RB Jones Global came to the decision with direct prior experience of hyperexponential. Boreman had led the London-market pricing work at EY, knew both what the platform could do and how it was delivered, describing it as "the one really credible partner out there."
Three things mattered most for a startup building from scratch. Her actuaries needed to own and update the models themselves, without going back to a vendor for every change. The platform had to integrate with RB Jones Global's policy admin system and its external data sources. And she wanted a partner that would build alongside the team, not just hand over software.
"It was really important that my team were able to own and maintain the models going forward. For us to work seamlessly with the underwriters and respond to their feedback, we needed to be able to do that quickly."
Alice Boreman
Chief Actuary
To hit the timeline, the hx delivery team built alongside RB Jones Global's actuaries, with ownership transferring in-house as the models came together. hx's existing relationships with data partners like Moody's let integration work begin before RB Jones Global had finalized its own contracts, so the team could build in parallel rather than wait.
Built to extend
The build was modular by design. Components built for the first five products carry forward rather than being rebuilt each time, so each new underwriting cell starts from a foundation rather than a blank page. RB Jones Global is already building the next wave of underwriting cells for 2026 and beyond. As data accumulates from the submissions captured since day one, the models will sharpen, and Boreman plans to fold in hx's expanding agentic capabilities, including Portfolio Intelligence, as they mature.
