Commercial insurer · SME underwriting
Business risk for commercial insurance underwriting
The problem
Underwriting a £500-£50k commercial line for a UK SME wants Companies House data but the cost has to fit the line size. The mainstream business-information vendors price for enterprise. Underwriters end up making decisions with a partial view — turnover from the proposal form, no in-life signal.
How Stratum fits
The business-risk endpoint returns an A-F score + 12-month insolvency probability + per-factor breakdown (the underwriter sees which factors moved the score). Per-quote cost fits commercial-line economics. Daily-monitor option flags in-life changes for renewal-time pricing.
One request
# Request
curl https://api.stratumapis.com/v1/business-risk/00445790 -H "x-stratum-key: $KEY"
# Response
{ "riskScore": "B", "insolvencyProbability12Months": 0.04, "factors": {"filingStatus": "current", "chargesCount": 2, "directorChanges12m": 0}, "sectorBenchmark": "above-median" }Set $KEY from your dashboard.
Frequently asked
Does this work for the bigger SMEs (turnover £5M+)?
Yes. Filed accounts let the score factor in turnover + asset growth + employee count where the company is required to file (typically once turnover crosses £10.2M or staff >50). Smaller SMEs filing micro-accounts get a coarser score; the response flags `accountsCategory: "micro"` so the underwriter knows.
Can I get the score history over time?
Roadmap. Today: poll daily + cache the diffs. The score-history endpoint will land in the next quarter.
How do you compare to Creditsafe / D&B?
Same Companies House data foundation; less premium than D&B's global coverage but for UK SMEs (the bulk of commercial-line risk) the depth is comparable. PAYG pricing means underwriters can run a check on every single quote without hitting a per-month minimum.