LifeSearch Awards 2026 - Tom's Closing Speech

On Wednesday 15th April, we had the pleasure of hosting the LifeSearch Awards 2026. It was a fantastic day, and we hope everyone who attended enjoyed it as much as we did.

Below is the transcript of the closing speech, from our fantastic Founder, Tom Baigrie: 

Hello,

Many of you will know that at heart I'm an old ham actor, so my talk will be, like the rest, littered with quotations from the bard, but delivered as if they were just my own!

A small prize for the first to tell me accurately afterwards how many I use in total!

Back in the 70's one studied lots of Shakespeare at school and my final Shakespeare set work was King Lear. Imagine 20 adolescents massacring the text line by line, in broad South African accents.

I wondered (in that moment) why Mr Gardiner was so insistent I read the part of Edgar when we got to the storm in the 3rd Act, until I saw my line coming and got to bark, ‘Poor Tom’s a-cold!’ in my mother’s Scottish accent over and over again.

I loved it of course.

But Poor Tom is not cold now. I’m filled with warmth this afternoon. Alison and I are incredibly proud of where Debbie and ‘the Chiefs’ have got LifeSearch to.

We are enjoying a purple patch - leading the online market in speed and conversion, while our adviser teams break records for protecting families properly.

Shareholders took a mighty investment risk in 24 and 25 to reshape our business, and as we look into this next era – one I fervently hope will be an FCA-encouraged  phase of genuine growth – our bold risk-taking is paying off in spades.

You know, in a deeply uncertain world, British people need protection more than ever.

I first protected a family - that of Bipichandra Manubhai Patel - when the only tech available was a phone, a rate book, and a typewriter. I made my way through the arrival of the PC, mail and the internet, and steered LifeSearch through online-trading, PPC and price comparison. Not to mention 9/11, the GFC, Covid and well, right now.

I know from that long experience that a machine-learning future will prove better for LifeSearch and all of protection distribution, not worse.

We will do more, faster, with less, and that will cause us to grow, not retrench. We aren’t shrinking from tech enablement; we are already growing into it.

Last year we wrote 10,000 policies a month, this year it’s 14,000.

Of course, I am now merely ‘a very foolish, fond old man,’ but 28 years ago, when I was more … 'There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,' I set out with LifeSearch to rewire an industry that seemed more interested in price gouging than people.

Meeting many times with the FCA these last few months, I watched those economists slowly realise that nowadays protection really is a remarkably caring, ethical industry.

That rewiring impetus is now driven by many practitioners especially the PDG (which LifeSearch initiated with Searcher-alumni Kevin Carr), and BIBA, the Access to Insurance teams and even the ABI. Truly, 'Corruption wins not more than honesty’.

Which brings us to the AI Challenge: Ethics vs. Efficiency.

The machines have the potential to simplify and speed-up everything, but in the rush to optimise, we must not become 'blinded by the mind's eye.’

AI can serve a customer in seconds, but can it feel for one? My challenge to all of you here, but particularly our insurers, is this: Don’t let your innovation outpace your integrity.

When an algorithm identifies a vulnerable customer, does it see a drop in potential profit - or a human being in need of extra care?

If we use AI to sell faster but fail to sell better, we are merely automating the failures of our collective past.

‘Action is eloquence’, it is not enough to claim 'ethical AI’. It must be in your sales prompts; your claim handling; in the way we treat the bereaved or disabled when the machine says 'no,' but the human heart would lead the mind to find a way through.

I am just an old protection pioneer. I may be ‘twice a child’ in this digital age, but I know our man was right: 'No legacy is so rich as honesty.'

So, let’s make sure that when we meet next year, we aren't just talking of cutting jobs or boosting margins.

Let’s boast again bout our growth about how many more families we protected properly, and how much faster we paid their claims.

Thank you.