Industry Moves: Ed Rochfort Joins IMS Group as Chief Product Officer

Ed Rochfort, co-founder and Managing Director of Carrot Insurance, part of Trak Global Group [TGG], is to join Group company IMS as Chief Product Officer.

Rochfort’s appointment coincides with TGG’s decision to extend the IMS brand internationally across both its Insurance and Mobility b2b divisions. This move reflects ongoing changes in the market, in which shifting patterns in mobility – such as the rise of ride sharing, car clubs, and connected car technologies – are converging with the evolution and digitisation of motor insurance.

IMS, the Canada-based telematics company acquired by TGG in December 2018 and which was formerly known as Intelligent Mechatronic Systems, will be rebranded with immediate effect as ‘IMS – Insurance & Mobility Solutions’. Consequently, Trak Global will cease to operate as a trading brand in Europe, but Trak Global Group will remain as parent company to both IMS and Carrot Insurance (Carrot).

Nick Corrie, Chief Executive Officer for TGG, said: “We want a single b2b brand that speaks with a unified voice to our diverse customer base – and as we enter a new decade, it feels like the perfect opportunity to make this change. At the same time, having co-founded Carrot, Ed’s move into the newly created Chief Product Officer role at IMS will unlock eight years of unrivalled market experience and insight, and put it straight into the hands of our North American customers.”

Rochfort said: “US insurers have a real appetite to harness our learnings from the development of Carrot, from the driver scoring algorithms that have been engineered from real-world collision and claims data, to how we’ve been able to drive engagement, behaviour change and improved loss ratios through leveraging the power of rewards for good driving. I’ll be helping IMS customers in insurance and mobility to access our capabilities and build solutions that deliver game-changing outcomes.”

IMS recently announced that the usage based insurance technology platform, that underpins Carrot in the UK, would be made available to its customers within North America.

Many of IMS’s insurer customers are located in the US and, as a result, the company has also confirmed that it will be opening a satellite office in Boston, a centre for US telematics technology and with a strong insurance heritage.

Ed Rochfort is set to be replaced in the UK Carrot role by Norrie Erwin, a highly-experienced broking executive who started working with the company last year.