By harnessing Mendix’s low code capabilities, Stanhope Insurance delivers a streamlined and secure way for customers to insure luxury valuables via a bespoke comparison platform.
A total of 90% of motor insurance and 60% of home insurance purchases in the UK are made through comparison sites. These kinds of platforms are a simple option, ensuring that buyers have a transparent way to compare policies from multiple providers. Insuring new or passed down luxury jewellery is also an important expense – so why had no comparison site offered this service yet?
Stanhope Insurance, an Ardonagh subsidiary, identified this market gap early on, understanding the need for a dedicated comparison site for jewellery insurance. Eager to rise to the challenge, they were keen to not let budget and technology limitations hinder them.
A diamond in the rough: how could Stanhope stand out?
To stand out in a sea of cookie cutter comparison sites, Stanhope wanted to give users a specialist product selection, with cover for engagement rings, necklaces, bracelets, fine art, wine collections, and even items stored in safety deposit boxes. This idea differs from the traditional insurance model, in which personal possessions’ insurance policies are tied to home insurance ones.
Standard insurance marketplaces present users with instant comparison services (to view offers from multiple insurers) and varied cover options (adapted to different risk profiles and user needs). Stanhope wanted to offer this and more, providing buyers with customised underwriting flexibility, as well as a consistent claims process. Most importantly, it was committed to giving customers truly bespoke policies, granting them access to coverage that wasn’t available before.
One of the secret ingredients to meeting all of these requirements was identifying a cost-effective, rapid to prototype, deploy, and manage platform to create a user-friendly, high-responsive, easy to integrate and secure comparison website.
Low code proved to be the easiest way for Stanhope to fulfill their ambitions of creating this market-first comparison website. Low code platforms are an emerging technology, which support a less intensive and traditional software coding approach to bespoke application development. The technology relies on pre-built components and drag-and-drop tools, allowing for highly-configurable and less manually intensive building of applications. It is a very visual process, thus accelerating the time to upskill developers, and simplifying it for a wider range of users.
Stanhope worked alongside Ardonagh’s Advisory Technology team to build a digital comparison site in under three months. The team chose to use Mendix, a Siemens business, as a platform, to streamline their application development. Together, the businesses worked on accelerating the development of this niche client-facing application.
Making the cut: navigating the low code process
Stanhope and Ardonagh utilised Mendix’s application development capabilities. It was able to create a prototype in nine weeks and launch in 12 weeks, significantly reducing time to market while maintaining high quality standards.
The agile tech team efficiently designed, built, and deployed the platform, ensuring that it’d mesh well with existing back-office PAS and insurer data feeds. It was also designed to connect to support systems like Hubspot and Google Analytics, which are key to customer relationship and lead management. While offering clients a user-friendly experience, the platform processes underwriting decisions and executes security checks in real-time.
Given the project’s ambitious timeline, the team adopted an agile, DevOps-driven approach that enabled rapid iteration and continuous deployment. Key technical innovations included:
- Visual application modelling
- Leveraging and enhancing application component accelerators
- AI-assisted development
- Rapid application prototyping
A cut above the rest: incredible results
In February 2025, Stanhope Insurance, with Mendix’s help, officially launched its site. The numbers speak for themselves. Stanhope experienced close to a tripling of policies sold in comparison to the same period last year.
Customer feedback campaigns continue to paint a glowing picture of Stanhope’s offering and website. Client reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and many satisfied users highlight the website’s efficiency, calling it ‘very straightforward’, ‘simple to navigate’, and ‘easy to understand’. This sentiment is echoed by another client, who says that ‘quick quotes from multiple insurers [..] were listed side by side with simple ticks and crosses so you could see what their policies included. Very helpful to make a decision.’ Many clients also compliment the team’s knowledge, commitment to protecting valuables and family heirlooms, and efficiency.
What’s even more exciting is that this application has recently been shortlisted as finalists in the UK Digital Technology Leadership awards due to its intuitive, sleek design coupled with the rapid, responsive delivery enabled by low code. It has proved to be a success, enabling Stanhope to continuously evolve their online offering to delight customers throughout the website journey.
Lauren Dally, Director of Application Delivery at Ardonagh, said: “We chose to build the solution on Mendix because we saw that, using low code, we were able to rapidly respond to changes a customer has. We’ve been able to make edits within the matter of a few days and can easily deploy it online.”
Matthew Ashton, Director of Stanhope Insurance, adds: “We have received excellent feedback from clients. What they love about the platform is that it is simple and easy to use. We’re definitely seeing the impact that the technology is making on our customers, and it has been extremely encouraging. One client even chose to insure 19 items via the platform.”
Daniel Wardell, Leader, GTM UK&I at Mendix, said: “It is exciting to see how our different clients use our services. Insurance is something that people buy with the hope of never using; therefore, it is not an industry that people seek to innovate. In this instance, our low code offering is not only helping establish a new and growing insurance player, but also helping British consumers an easier way to insure the things that are important to them.”
