iPMI Global Speaks with Chris Carter, CEO, ExpatInsure

The International Private Medical Insurance (IPMI) sector has long been defined by legacy giants, complex policy jargon and traditional corporate packages. As the modern expat demographic shifts towards digital nomads, independent professionals and micro-multinationals, the industry is being forced to rethink. 

In this exclusive iPMI Global Interview, we sit down with Chris Carter, CEO of ExpatInsure, to discuss the company's growth, how it is using technology to strip the complexity out of buying cover, and why the model of the bloated corporate expat package may finally be coming to an end.

Please introduce yourself and your background in the international private medical insurance market:

I have spent the last decade at a large international insurance carrier, latterly as its Chief Digital Officer, and before that held a number of retail-focused insurance roles at organisations including Barclays and the Post Office. My background therefore sits at the intersection of large-scale insurance, digital and consumer retail — which is precisely the gap ExpatInsure is built to close.

The premise is straightforward: serve the customer better. We put comparison and choice at the heart of the proposition, making it quick and easy to compare cover while demystifying the jargon the industry is built upon. We are also one of only a handful of brokers licensed across the US, the UK and Europe — and that matters in a market defined by movement. People relocate, local policies do not move with them, and they find themselves back at square one. International cover is about protecting the customer for today and for tomorrow.

You've spoken previously about completing successful seed rounds and targeting further funding. How is that fundraising progressing, and where will that capital be most aggressively deployed to scale ExpatInsure globally?

There's real momentum, and honestly the most exciting part for me is what the capital lets us build. We started ExpatInsure to demystify a genuinely complex market, and that is exactly where the investment goes. Our technology is already in development, helping our own brokers find the right policy with the right coverage — and over time we will open that same capability up to customers, so they can see what our brokers already see.

We have also been fortunate to attract a brilliant leadership team from right across the industry — a board with veterans from Bupa and AXA, and advisers from Cigna and other leading names in the market. Without giving away the whole playbook, everything we are funding comes back to one idea: assisting the customer. The technology is there to make our brokers faster and sharper, so that broker and tool together help each person find the cover that is genuinely right for them.

You've emphasised that the future of ExpatInsure lies in capturing the entire expat journey — before, during and after a move — beyond just health insurance. What does the ideal 'expat ecosystem' look like for your brand, and what new product lines or strategic partnerships are next on the horizon?

We see ourselves as present across the entire expat journey — matching the right cover to the visa someone is applying for, adapting as the make-up of their family changes, and working alongside trusted partners such as private bankers, immigration lawyers and visa consultants to support the wider needs that arise along the way. Health cover is our entry point; the horizon is about thoughtfully adding the adjacent lines and partnerships that support the rest of that journey, rather than simply widening the shelf.

Our platform does the heavy lifting of finding prices, but that is only ever the first step. We rarely place the cheapest policy, because the right policy depends on the individual's circumstances — pre-existing conditions, visa requirements, stage of life, budget and how they see their life unfolding. Our role is to make those trade-offs clear, so the customer can make an informed choice that genuinely fits them.

The ideal ecosystem is a genuinely symbiotic one. We speak to thousands of customers, and we feed what our data is telling us back to our carrier partners — helping them build more creative, more relevant policies that sit closer to what customers are really looking for. The more value we bring in that direction, the more we would hope to see it reflected in how closely, and on what terms, carriers choose to work with us. Done well, everyone wins — the customer most of all.

ExpatInsure has prioritised customer experience by using technology and a ‘Jargon Buster’ to simplify a notoriously complex industry. How exactly is your platform using AI to map users to the correct policy, and how do you ensure the human touch isn’t lost in a digital-first broker model?

It starts with understanding the individual. Our platform takes someone's circumstances — their family, where they are moving, any pre-existing conditions, their budget and how they see life unfolding — and maps that across the whole market, narrowing thousands of permutations down to the handful that genuinely fit. The Jargon Buster sits right alongside it, translating dense policy language into plain English so people understand what they're actually buying. Today that capability supports our brokers; over time we will put more of it directly into the customer's hands.

Internally we use the word 'Assist' to describe this — what our AI and agentic tools do, as distinct from what our brokers do. Anything that is manual quoting or administrative heavy lifting should be handled by technology rather than human capital, which frees our people for the work that genuinely needs them.

On the balance between digital and human, two years in we are very clear about where each belongs. Technology removes friction and does the legwork; our brokers bring the judgement, reassurance and human conversation that matter most to the customer. The two work best together.

Having held senior roles at a global carrier, you know how the giants operate. Your current mantra is ‘fail fast.’ What has been an agile start-up allowed you to do in the IPMI space that the legacy carriers simply cannot manage?

Agility, for us, means failing fast and focusing only on the things that make a real difference. We're not risk-hungry, but we do carry a slightly higher risk appetite than the incumbents — and, crucially, we sit firmly on the side of the customer.

That mindset runs right through the team. Every one of us has lived abroad, so we genuinely feel the pain of trying to find the right cover in an unfamiliar market — and we've built ExpatInsure.com around solving exactly that. The site lets people compare the market online, quickly and clearly, and our job is to make that experience delight the customer every single time. A large carrier, managing enormous scale and complexity, has a much harder time turning on that kind of focus — which is exactly where a company like ours gets to complement what they already do so well.

Heavily padded corporate expat packages are shrinking, with modern consumers demanding cost-effective, custom solutions that mirror domestic policies. How are you helping insurance carriers evolve their underwriting to meet this leaner, more budget-conscious demand?

This is where our data becomes powerful. With tens of thousands of customer transactions now recorded and transcribed, we are building one of the most sophisticated market-research data sets in the industry — a clear, real-time picture of what expats actually want and where current products fall short.

That insight is one of our real strengths — and it's one we're genuinely keen to share. We love getting round the table with our insurer partners and helping them shape the next generation of expat-friendly policies. The most appropriate, relevant products that are good for the carrier, good for us and above all, good for the customer.

With global visa healthcare requirements becoming stricter and more fragmented (such as those in popular hubs like Thailand), consumers are feeling overwhelmed. 

How is ExpatInsure adapting its localised guides and tech tools to help expats navigate shifting regulatory compliance seamlessly?

We're already well ahead here. ExpatInsure.com publishes the healthcare and visa requirements for every country, and we work hard to keep that as up to date as we possibly can — it's one of the areas where AI is helping us do a markedly better job, staying on top of changes as they happen.

We're always clear that we can't guarantee an outcome — requirements shift, and acceptance isn't ours to give — but our commitment is to be as current, accurate and easy to use as possible, so the customer can move forward with confidence.

ExpatInsure launched with a strong presence in the UK and US, with an expanding regulatory footprint in Europe. Which regions do you currently view as the highest-growth corridors for IPMI, and why?

We are hyper-focused on our core markets — the US, the UK and Europe. They're where demand is deepest, where the individual segment is most underserved, and, crucially, where we hold the licences to advise properly; being authorised across all three is rare, and it's a genuine advantage. We keep an eye on the GCC, but we regard it as heavily competitive and not our sweet spot for now. Asia is highly fragmented and already well served by a number of capable brokers, so it isn't in our sights at this stage.

Beyond that, we see complementary opportunities — the SME segment, additional lines of insurance, and the growing number of people who are deciding to move somewhere permanently, and so are looking for local cover rather than genuine international cover, particularly across many of the golden-visa countries. These are a smaller, complementary parts of the model, though. High-net-worth individuals still make up the majority of our clients, and the cover our current carriers offer is a perfect fit for them.

You've been vocal about pushing insurance carriers towards better service and more transparent pricing. What is the number one change or innovation you are currently demanding from your underwriting partners to improve the end-user experience?

For me it is less about better service and more about working together in a better way. We work with some excellent carriers who are super responsive — in some cases we effectively have a hotline to them — and we really enjoy getting round the table to talk about how broker and carrier systems can connect more closely.

What we are really after is straight-through processing wherever it's possible, and we need carriers alongside us to make that happen — we're even building our own tools that carriers can use to help enable it. It is the single most important shift for the broking model over the next three to five years: it widens a carrier's distribution reach, lightens their workload and gives the customer a faster, smoother experience. The insurers who embrace it will be the real winners.

Managing a healthy work–life balance and avoiding 'rabbit holes' has been one of your biggest personal successes. What advice do you have for other IPMI founders on scaling a business aggressively without sacrificing personal well-being?

My dog might have a view on the rabbit holes, actually — they say owners end up resembling their dogs, and we are both at our happiest out running. In all seriousness, though, the honest answer is balance. I have three passions — my family, my running, and the business — and the discipline lies in keeping them in proportion.

I will not pretend there is no tension; there always is. But two things have made the real difference: taking regular breaks, properly, and surrounding myself with an exceptional team. Having advisers on hand for the bigger strategic questions means I am not carrying everything alone — and that, more than anything, is what makes scaling sustainable.