Business Insurance Solutions Ltd (BISL) is a Top 30 UK Insurance Broker (2025), specialising in SME insurance. It supports tradespeople, van drivers, and commercial vehicle customers through its own websites, price comparison sites, and partnership channels. Trading since 2009, the business began as vancompare.com before developing into a brokerage with multiple trading brands including Van Compare Direct and Van Line Direct.
With around 150,000 policies in force, commercial vehicle insurance sits at the centre of BISL’s business. Around 95% of its book is van-related, with customers ranging from builders and electricians to plumbers, carpenters and other self-employed professionals who rely on their vehicles every day.
Speaking about the partnership, Lance Testa, Director at BISL, explained how the business needed an insurance partner who could support customers who fall outside standard appetite. Granite Underwriting’s experience in non-standard motor insurance, combined with its broker-first approach and willingness to develop practical digital solutions, made it a natural fit.
The Challenge
BISL’s model is built around high-volume digital acquisition. Customers arrive through vancompare.com, comparison sites and affinity partners expecting fast, competitive quotes. However, commercial vehicle risks do not always fit neatly within standard market appetite.
Some customers have previous claims, motoring convictions, unusual usage requirements or other factors that make cover harder to place. Quotability is a critical part of BISL’s proposition, with majority of customers able to receive a quote when they come through the journey.
As Lance put it, Granite Underwriting “bridged a big gap by allowing us to offer a sensible price to customers we had drawn to our website,” helping BISL support customers who may otherwise have been harder to place.
Before moving to Granite Underwriting’s broker platform, BISL managed many of these opportunities manually, selecting, reviewing and referring risks individually. This created a process that was operationally heavy and difficult to scale.
The Granite Underwriting Approach
Granite Underwriting stood out for its accessibility, transparency and willingness to do things differently, working with BISL to replace manual referrals with a more effective digital route for suitable non-standard commercial vehicle risks.
At the centre of this approach is Granite Underwriting’s broker portal. This solution helped BISL identify risks that meet insurer criteria and refer them to Granite Underwriting and brought more non-standard cases into a smoother digital process, enabling faster decisions while retaining solutions for more complex cases.
For BISL, this ease of engagement was a key part of the relationship.
The Results
The impact was significant. From August to October 2023, after the technical solution went live, BISL’s new business premium with Granite Underwriting grew 100-fold.
Lance Testa, Director at BISL, said the pace of that growth “speaks for itself”, adding: “Your contribution to our growth cannot be understated. It is huge.”
Granite Underwriting is now BISL’s second-largest wholesale broker. For BISL, this demonstrates how the right technical solution, supported by strong underwriting capability and open collaboration, can create meaningful growth outside a traditional aggregator route.
Technology and Partnership
The partnership shows the practical role technology can play in specialist underwriting. For a high-volume broker like BISL, speed, reliability and clear communication directly affect quote conversion and customer outcomes.
Moving suitable risks into Granite Underwriting’s broker portal reduced manual handling and gave both teams a clearer, faster route for progressing non-standard commercial vehicle cases.
Granite Underwriting’s continued investment in its portal and planned automation for mid-term adjustments, cancellations and renewals is focused on removing friction from day-to-day trading.
Looking Ahead
The partnership between BISL and Granite Underwriting demonstrates what can be achieved when broker insight, specialist underwriting and digital investment work together.
By combining BISL’s scale and customer insight with Granite Underwriting’s specialist knowledge and investment in technology, the partnership has created a more effective route for non-standard commercial vehicle risks, supporting growth while helping more customers access suitable cover.
Since then, Granite Underwriting has launched its ICE back-office system and new ICE broker portal, providing enhanced functionality. Further development is planned as new business trading transitions onto the ICE platform, creating additional opportunities to improve API integration and trading efficiencies.
As the commercial vehicle market continues to evolve, partnerships like this are helping set the benchmark for non-standard insurance. With shared ambition and a commitment to practical innovation, Granite Underwriting and BISL are showing how complex risks can be supported at scale.
