Financial Services & Insurance Vertical Workshop

Cumulus Vertical Workshop · Thursday 25 February 2027 · virtual, full day

Find the Secure AI revenue in financial services.

A full-day working session for Ingram Micro Microsoft partners. How insurers, brokers, lenders and advice firms make money, where AI could help, who signs the order, and how to reach them. Included with Cumulus Practice and Executive. £500 per MSP for Community members, up to 2 seats.

Microsoft co-op funding. Subject to eligibility, you may be able to claim back up to 100% of the £500. We give you the invoice and the proof-of-execution paperwork the claim needs. Check with Ingram that you qualify before you rely on it.

£500Per MSP, not per person
2Seats included
Full dayVirtual, run once
Up to 200Named UK insurers, brokers, lenders and advice firms
Financial services and insurance vertical workshop for Ingram Micro Microsoft partners: a full-day session on how insurers, brokers, lenders and advice firms make money, where AI can help, who signs the order and how to reach them. You leave with the workshop slide deck, 200 named UK financial services target accounts, and tools and templates. It costs 500 pounds per MSP for two seats, and is free for Cumulus Practice and Executive members.
The principle

You sell the same technology to every industry. You cannot sell the same business case to every industry.

The same Microsoft work sells differently to an insurer than to a manufacturer, because their money is made and lost in different places.

A submission arrives from a broker with something missing. The case is opened, then it waits. Somebody chases, twice on average, and while it waits it is capital and capacity tied up with no income against it. The broker places the risk elsewhere. Nobody records that as a cost, because nothing was spent.

Down and Across  ·  the Vertical Business Outcomes Consulting Method

Commercial consulting goes deep into one sector. Technology implementation works largely the same way across all of them. Both matter, and they are bought by different people.

Financial Services
Professional services
Legal
Healthcare
Retail
Manufacturing
Understand the business
 
 
 
 
 
 
Redesign the work
 
 
 
 
 
 
Build the case
 
 
 
 
 
 
Implement
 
 
 
 
 
 
Run and support
 
 
 
 
 
 
Vertical · deep in one sector
Commercial consulting
Bought by the CEO, COO, CRO, CFO and CIO.
They need measurable business outcomes.
Horizontal · same across every sector
Technology implementation
Bought by the head of IT and the IT team.
They need IT policies and change management.

Secure AI adds a business conversation above the technical one. Neither is better. An MSP needs both, and needs to know which one it is in.

Answers: I already know Microsoft, so why do I need a financial services workshop? You already sell across the horizontal. This workshop builds the vertical.

This is how Cumulus reads the sector. It comes from our own model and from interviews with people who run these firms. Treat it as a pattern to test on your own customers, not a fact.

The problem

Being brought in after the business decision has already been made.

That decision gets made in a conversation about the customer’s business, not their IT. This workshop is about how to get into that conversation.

Before the decision
We only hear about it when they ask us to quote.
After the build
We built exactly what they asked for, but there was no next conversation.

Whoever leads the commercial conversation writes the requirement everybody else quotes against. A requirement written without you leaves you competing inside somebody else’s decision, often on scope and price rather than business value.

Step 1 · know the sector

Three numbers a financial services board watches.

Most technical sales conversations do not begin with these. If yours does, you have a much stronger reason to speak with the people who answer for the economics.

Expense ratio

30 to 38%

The cost of acquiring and servicing business, as a share of premium or income. It is in the annual report, so you can read it before the meeting. The Lloyd’s market reported 35.6% for 2025, up from 34.4% the year before (Lloyd’s Full Year Results 2025). Every new requirement handled without changing the process pushes it up.

One point of it on £142m of premium is £1.42m.

Time to income

12 to 25 days

Days from a submission arriving to the risk being bound and earning. Every one of those days is capital and capacity tied up with no income against it. At the slow end of the band, the broker places the risk elsewhere.

On £142m of premium, one day’s delay holds back roughly £389,000 from earning. Most firms know the days. Almost none have costed them.

Cost per customer

The back book

Total cost to serve divided by policies or accounts in force. Boards discuss new business. The money is in contracts written decades ago, on systems nobody wants to touch.

Ask about the back book and you are talking to them about the thing nobody raises.

Which kind of firm are you in front of

Five kinds of firm. One method.

All five take on risk or money for somebody else, under a regulator, so one model covers them all. What changes is where the cost hides.

The financial services sector model
General insurance
Insurer or MGA, 200 to 2,000 people
How they lose money
Submissions waiting on brokers. And claims paid that should not have been.
Life and pensions
Long contracts, large back books
How they lose money
Servicing contracts written decades ago. And suitability paperwork produced by hand.
Specialist lending
Bridging, asset and commercial finance
How they lose money
Cases stalled in due diligence. And a decision that takes days a competitor does not need.
Wealth and advice
Advice firm or network, 50 to 800 people
How they lose money
Suitability files rebuilt for every review. And adviser time spent on assembly.
Broking and claims handling
Broker or third-party administrator
How they lose money
Chasing both ways at once. And the same complaint rebuilt from three systems.

Which one you are in front of changes the examples, not the method.

Answers: will this cover the firms I actually sell to? The worked example is a commercial insurer taking broker-introduced business, because that is where the queue is longest.

The method

The 4-Step Vertical Business Outcomes System, applied to financial services.

One method, applied to a different sector each month.

The Four Moves  ·  the 4-Step Vertical Business Outcomes System

Step 1

Know the sector

How these firms make money, the numbers their board watches, and where cost, capacity and capital get trapped.

Step 2

Open the door

The customers you already have, the firms worth targeting, and how to get a meeting with the person who signs. This is not a cold-calling list.

Step 3

Find the AI opportunity

Where AI could make them more money, free up time, or cut risk. Then how a customer moves through the four steps, starting with a free assessment.

Step 4

Build the case

How the work should run afterwards, what it is worth, and how to prove it if they ask.

Know the sector → open the door → find the AI opportunity → build the case

Answers: what will the day teach me to do? Sector knowledge, then trusted access, then a customer opportunity, then a commercial case.

Step 3 · find the AI opportunity

Where the opportunity sits in a regulated firm.

Five places to look. They are not equal, and the biggest one is usually not where you start.

Financial services AI opportunity map
High value · low difficulty
Submission triage
Reading, structuring and routing what arrives. The largest block of underwriter time, and none of it is a decision.
High value · low difficulty
Evidence chasing
2.4 chases a submission, half of them done by underwriters because brokers reply to a named person.
Medium value · low difficulty
Complaints handling
Rebuilt by hand from three systems every time, against a clock the regulator sets.
High value · medium difficulty
Renewal prompting
The cheapest income in the business, and the one that is nobody’s job. Firms hear from a customer at renewal, by which time they have shopped around.
High value · high difficulty
Leakage detection
Usually the biggest prize, and usually the one they cannot start. A cause is recorded on about one claim in eight, so the pattern cannot be found.

The one worth most is often the one they cannot build yet. Telling them apart is the job.

Answers: where would I actually start? Sizing any of this in a customer’s own numbers is what the Secure AI Business Case & Process Design does, not the workshop.

Who answers for the economics

Who you need in the room at the customer.

These vary by sector. In financial services they are usually:

Chief Executive

Answers for the expense ratio

And the plan. Ask what one point of it is worth to them, and let them do the sum.

Finance Director

Answers for the management accounts

Understands the figures faster than anyone else in the room, and will check yours.

Operations Director

Answers for cost per customer

Knows exactly where the hours go. Nobody ever asks them about it in money.

Risk or Compliance Director

Decides what may be built

Every step has to be explainable years later to somebody who was not there. Get them into the room early, not into the sign-off.

The alternatives

How MSPs usually get ready for a sector.

All three are sensible. Here is where each one stops being enough.

Read a market report

You get the size of the market and the growth rate.

Where this stops working.
It cannot tell you what one firm loses while a case waits on a broker, or whose job that number is.

Send the team on Microsoft training

Your engineers learn the product properly, and usually for free.

Where this stops working.
It teaches the technology. It does not tell you which industry to go after or what to charge.

Use a generic AI deck

You get a list of things AI can do, with examples.

Where this stops working.
A finance director has seen that deck. They want to know what it does to their numbers.

The workshop gives you the part none of them cover. How a regulated firm makes money, where AI could help, who signs the order, and up to 200 target accounts.

You will recognise these

Four things these firms say.

If you have sold into financial services you have heard at least two of them. Each one is money, and none of them sounds like an AI problem.

A case cannot start until the broker sends what is missing.
Underwriters spend the week chasing instead of underwriting.
We pay claims we should not and find out months later.
The back book runs on a system nobody wants to touch.

Their words beat your list every time. The workshop covers what each one costs, and which of them AI can do something about.

What you take away

What you leave with on the day.

Financial services commercial map

The five sub-sectors, the three board numbers, and the eight processes that carry the money.

A priced offer

One opportunity packaged into something your team can price.

Buyer map

Four roles, what each one answers for, and the number each is measured on.

Target accounts

Up to 200 named UK insurers, brokers, lenders and advice firms, picked to match the kind of firm the workshop covers. Enough to start booking meetings.

Opening message

What to say first, and what to ask before you propose anything.

The Customer Ascension Ladder

How to move a customer from a first conversation to an implementation, without asking them to commit early.

The Customer Ascension Ladder

Three priced steps, then the build.

The customer only buys the next step if the last one was worth it.

  • 1 Secure AI Opportunity Assessment Free. Find where Secure AI could create value.
  • 2 Secure AI Business Envisioning Workshop £2,500. One day with the leadership team. Find the business needs, rank the Secure AI opportunities, and agree which one moves forward.
  • 3 Secure AI Business Case & Process Design From £15,000. Four to eight weeks. Build the business case, redesign the process and produce the high-level solution design needed to decide on the build.
  • 4 Secure AI Implementation Your price. You complete the detailed technical design, then build, deploy and integrate it, and run it for a monthly fee.

One day does not make you a financial services consultant. It does let you open the right conversation and work out whether there is a deal in it. If a real opportunity needs deeper work, Cumulus does the commercial side. Your customer stays yours.

Practice and Executive members pay nothing, because this workshop is included. Community members pay £500 per MSP, plus VAT, and that covers two seats.

Eligible partners may be able to use Microsoft co-op funding. Check your eligibility and the claim route with Ingram Micro before you count on the money.

Registration

Book your MSP’s place.

Four short steps. Two seats are included, and you can add the second person later.

Step 1

Your Cumulus membership


Practice and Executive members already have all ten workshops. Community members pay £500 plus VAT per MSP for this one, and that covers two seats.

Step 2

Your MSP


Exactly as it appears in Microsoft Partner Center. Microsoft only accepts a co-op claim where the invoice matches that name.



Your co-op claim needs this. Find it in Partner Center under your account settings, as the Location ID for the address above.


Step 3

Who is coming





We send joining details, your invoice and your target account list to this email.




Step 4

Confirm and book


This goes on the invoice for your 200 target accounts. Not sure yet? Choose “Not decided yet” and tell us before the workshop.

What happens next

1. You pay £500 plus VAT on Stripe, on the next screen. Stripe emails you a receipt. Need four seats? Set the quantity to 2 at checkout.

2. Two business days before the workshop, we email your full invoice for Microsoft co-op, written the way Microsoft asks for it.

3. After the day, you tell us which accounts to target and your list follows within 7 business days.

What happens next

1. Nothing to pay. We confirm your membership with Ingram Micro, then send joining details.

2. After the day, you tell us which accounts to target and your list follows within 7 business days.

Now choose the button that matches your membership.




Ten sectors. One workshop a month. Financial Services & Insurance is the fourth.

Book Financial Services for £500. Or join Cumulus Practice for £3,500 a year and get all ten workshops plus the complete 5P System. Ten workshops bought separately would cost £5,000.

Win the business case before you win the build.