Blagrove Underwriting Agency

Blagrove Underwriting Agency Ltd (BUA) is a Managing General Agent for commercial motor insurance in the UK, and a sister company of Direct Fleet Insurance who operate the IT platform through which all of BUA’s business is processed. Since November 2025, I have acted as their Director of IT and Chief Security Officer on a part-time basis.

Projects I have led or delivered include:

• New priority system for development tasks, allowing developers to focus on delivery
• Improving system security, including designing and rolling out Multi Factor Authentication
• Writing policies, e.g. for data retention
• Designing bordereaux for capacity providers
• Improving operational resilience and disaster recovery through an additional location with a different provider
• Negotiated significant discounts on IT services
• Reallocated developers to better meet the needs of the business
• Skills audit of developers to identify gaps and training requirements
• Achieving Cyber Essentials certification for the business
• Setting up regular meetings to improve communication between IT and other parts of the business
• Ensuring that developers get familiar with all parts of the system so that key person dependencies are minimised

Although my role is primarily one of overseeing the IT development, I am involved in technical discussions and development, and have led workshops to share my technical knowledge with other developers.

As this is a regulated industry, I have been approved by the Financial Conduct Authority for the duration of my directorship as holding the role: SMF3 Executive Director. My FCA reference number is: PXW01619.