Two Models, One Firm — Brightwell Insurance

You are the CEO of Brightwell Insurance plc, a £1.2bn UK broker-led motor & home insurer with a slim 6-point underwriting margin (94% combined ratio). A digital-direct entrant — Swift Cover Direct — is 18% cheaper, has passed 600,000 customers, and is draining your under-35 future book. Over four board quarters you decide whether to run a second, direct-digital business model alongside the broker core; how far to separate or integrate it (Markides' separation-vs-integration dial); how to resource it with the ~£45M build budget and scarce digital talent and management attention; and how to manage cannibalization, broker channel conflict, and the board's hard 97% combined-ratio ceiling. Wrong strategies underperform for the reasons Markides predicts: launch with no structure and the core P&L quietly starves the venture; over-separate and you forfeit 38 years of pricing data, capital and brand; refuse the second model and you protect this year's margin while conceding the future; ignore the broker network (88% of premium) and a revolt destroys the core faster than the disruptor ever could; tolerate unlimited cannibalization and you mistake value transfer for value creation. A live scorecard tracks combined profit, combined ratio vs the 97% ceiling, cannibalization rate, new-model growth, and an organizational-conflict index, so the board defense in the final round is fully computable. For executive education, MBA strategy electives, and senior leaders of incumbents facing business-model disruption.