Reflecting on 5 years at Marshmallow: Fraud, Underwriting & Ops Excellence

A lot happens in a year here. So how does five years feel?

From the depths of covid, to the rise of AI — the world has moved on leaps and bounds since 2020, and the same goes for Marshmallow.

To find out more about the journey we've been on, we spoke to some of our longest tenured people about their experiences — where they started, how their roles have developed, and what they've learned from 5+ years at such a fast growing company.

Your Marshmallow journey

Hi team! You've all had the opportunity to take on a variety of roles over the last 5 years. Tell us a bit about your Marshmallow journey.

Anna: I was very lucky to find Marshmallow during the lockdown in Summer 2020 when I had lost my first graduate role due to Covid redundancies and the job market was looking pretty bleak. I applied for a role as a Fraud Operations Executive.

I thought fraud investigation sounded really interesting, and suited my inherently nosey personality! The gamble paid off — fast forward over 5 years later and I've been lucky enough to work all across fraud prevention at Marshmallow. I'm now the Fraud Risk Manager where I own and lead our fraud detection strategy.

Katie: I heard about Marshmallow through Give a Grad a Go in the summer of 2020 when they put me forward for a Customer Happiness Executive role.

The role felt like something that would either keep me busy as we drifted in and out of lockdowns, or somewhere I'd love and stay for years. That was almost 6 years ago, so I suppose we know how that played out.

My first impression was that Marshmallow felt very young and energetic, and that leadership truly believed in the mission. That certainly still rings true.

Within Customer Happiness, I fell into underwriting. After we became a full insurer in January 2021, I became the go-to underwriting expert in operations and acted as a bridge between the two departments.

When a Junior Underwriter vacancy came up around six months later, it felt like a natural next step given how much I was enjoying learning about underwriting and risk. I went for it, got it, and ultimately grew to Underwriter → Senior Underwriter → Underwriting Manager.

That growth came through a combination of hands-on learning, being trusted to give things a try, and my CII studies, which I'm still working on today.

Jamie: Similar to Katie, I interviewed through Give a Grad a Go and joined in June 2020.

I had worked at a start-up before Marshmallow, and I can confirm the lead-up experience into Series A felt incredibly different. At Marshmallow, I didn't even realise it was happening until the week before it got announced, whilst in my previous workplace I had to work near 18 hour days just in the lead up.

At that point I realised I had joined a very promising company which really cared for its people. Even though it was Covid, the company was still energetic, and we were all thrown into the deep end!

My journey has been Customer Happiness Exec → Customer Happiness Lead → Ops Excellence Lead. I had the opportunity to set up and lead the Ops Excellence function in January 2024 with Peter, and I still work in Ops Excellence, but now sit within the AI Automation team with more focus in that space.

The company culture

What did you like about Marshmallow's culture when you joined? How has our culture stayed the same, and how has it evolved?

Anna: My experience at Marshmallow has always been that people are trusted to do their best work and also trusted as subject matter experts in their area. This means that regardless of title or seniority, if you have something to say, your idea is welcome and encouraged.

Particularly when I was new and quite junior, I found this very empowering in doing my best work because I knew it would be well received and respected.

Katie: When I first joined, I didn't meet anyone in person for months; everything was virtual. Yet somehow there was still a friendly, excitable culture being built in spite of that. By the time we eventually started to go into the office, everyone knew everyone by name.

We've grown too much for that now, but Marshmallow still seems to have a real skill for hiring brilliant people who genuinely want to do a brilliant job.

Throughout my time here, people have been trusted to think for themselves. We're encouraged to chase ideas, follow instincts, and prove our concepts. That autonomy has always felt like a core part of who we are.

It's what makes us so different from traditional insurers. Where others move slowly and cautiously, we're willing to experiment and try things that haven't been tried before in this industry. That feeling hasn't gone anywhere.

Jamie: Marshmallow really lived and breathed its values and mission, and today that still shows up in everyone's day to day work ethos. Failures were looked at as a lesson to grow from, and not an issue to suffer in.

The autonomy and independence I was given at such an early stage in my career is proving to be invaluable, and a lot of that remains true today.

Everyone at the company had a voice and all ideas were heard — this has become more challenging as the company grows but I still feel the access to communicate with senior leadership is there like it was in the early days.

Marshmallow has always pushed us to be bold, experiment, share ideas, collaborate and take ownership of our growth. There are a lot of success stories at the company especially for people who have navigated between departments and continued to thrive.

Your favourite company values

Which one of our values resonates most with you, and how does it show up in your day to day work?

Anna: We have a low ego. People are respected regardless of title which has created a culture where anyone can share feedback and their opinion.

I really see this from working closely with product teams who are built up of lots of different roles — engineers, data, operations — where everyone is needed for their expertise to ship changes as quickly and effectively as possible.

Katie: 'We maximise impact, fast'. Underwriting is an area often associated with caution and slow-moving decisions, but I'd argue it's actually where this value matters most.

We insure people to drive cars. No one expects to be in an accident, but it does happen. And a single moment in a customer's life — one collision, one claim — can have repercussions for the business for years.

That's the nature of underwriting risk: the decisions we make today have a long tail. You can't quickly unwind an underwriting call because there's always a claims lag. The impact of what we decide now might not fully reveal itself for a long time.

That's precisely why maximising impact matters so much in this space. Every decision carries long-term consequences. You have to balance a disciplined approach to risk with a genuinely commercial mindset, and getting that balance right is a mix of data, experience and knowing when to challenge market norms.

So when I think about this value, it's not about moving fast for its own sake. It's about making considered, high-impact decisions with conviction.

Jamie: We maximise impact, fast. To ensure we can deliver on our strategic pillars and be commercially minded, it is important that we drive our automation rates up with Marsha (our in-house AI automation tool) and make sure it has the commercial capabilities to perform as well as human agents. This requires us to build quickly on the pieces that will maximise the most impact.

What you've learned

What has 5 years at Marshmallow taught you?

Anna: To embrace and enjoy change. Every year at Marshmallow has looked different, whether that's a new fraud problem to solve, new products, new colleagues, new responsibilities. Some weeks the plan you have on a Monday is completely turned upside down by Friday.

Learning to see that unpredictability as part of the fun and as an opportunity to grow has been my biggest lesson from working in such a fast-paced, ambitious environment.

Katie: Marshmallow is where I found my career. I barely knew what an underwriter was before I joined and knew very little about insurance.

I came in through a graduate jobs platform, took a customer-facing role during a pandemic, and ended up here managing underwriting, studying for my CII qualifications, and genuinely loving the work I do. I'm still learning and finding it super interesting.

This all happened because Marshmallow gave me the space to be curious, to follow something that interested me, and to grow into it at pace.

Jamie: Young companies constantly evolve and adapt, whether in growing or stagnant periods. Enhancing your skills allows you to continue to bring value during these periods and changes.

Don't sit in silence if you feel your career is stagnating. Be open about your motivations and pain points, discover the opportunities and drive towards it.

A big thank you to Anna, Katie and Jamie for sharing their Marshmallow journeys.