Building a more sustainable global supply chain

About Us

Louis, please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came up with the idea for FlyCovr?

My name is Louis Morris and I learned to fly in the Royal Air Force. I’ve since spent ten years in the maintenance, repair and operations side of the global commercial aviation industry. It’s fast paced and ever-changing – you never quite know what you’re going to be working on each day when you wake up, which keeps you on your toes.

I started my company, LGM Aviation back in September 2017, selling commercial aircraft parts for airliners, cargo, passenger and business jets. We also manage the repair and refurbishment of used parts from these aircraft during their regular service life.

Increasingly, since the pandemic, we also manage the logistical side of these projects. That involves shipping engines and high value items such as landing gears across the globe. Our customers tend to be airline or cargo operators, plus a growing number of business jet operators. We also work closely with banks, financial institutions and companies that lease the assets out to operators.

In managing these supply chain projects, we’ve uncovered glaring exposures from an insurance point of view. There’s a huge lack of understanding when it comes to insurance in our industry. Talking with Sam, we began to flesh out the idea of a business to bring a solution to those problems.

Sam, how has your background in financial services helped with this?

I’ve worked in financial services for around a decade in various roles. Ultimately in financial services, what you’re trying to do is understand the customer’s needs and find them a solution.

I’ve worked in nationwide brokerages where you’re searching the market for the most suitable, affordable, and sustainable outcome for each customer. What we’ve discovered here is there are a number of exposures across the aviation market, and many businesses that need support in understanding their exposures and accessing products and solutions.

There’s a number of innovative solutions coming to market – and we’re in the ideal position to bring those solutions to the clients that need them.

You identified a potential opportunity to support the aviation supply chain – how did this evolve?

We spent two years in a discovery phase, talking with people in every corner of the aviation ecosystem. It’s natural to think of airline operators when you mention commercial aviation, but there’s so much more to it. Much more than you see or think about when you’re hopping on your flight on holiday or a business trip.

That includes the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) aftermarket that exists to service those aircraft and keep them in safe operation. There are so many different tiers of the industry. It starts with the original equipment manufacturers that are pouring billions of dollars in research and development for new products. They have warehouses full of raw materials to produce new components. Then there are the repair and refurbishment centres that work on used components and put them back into service.

Parts trading companies like my own then supply those parts and associated services. The logistics providers move the items across the globe to the airline and cargo operators that we’ve talked about. There are also the leasing companies that own and remarket these aircraft. So it’s a huge industry and a very complex, fast moving global supply chain.

Typically the world of insurance is not often considered ‘fast paced’. And I know from working in this industry for the last ten years that it is heavily dependent on insurance and mitigating risks – but there really hasn’t been a go-to solution connecting insurance buyers and sellers.

Unnecessary risk inflates costs and exposures across our supply chain. That’s bad for everyone, as we found in the discovery phase of our work.

How does FlyCovr work in practice?

In our discovery phase we found there were three key areas of frustration.

First is that finding insurance is highly administrative, laborious and time consuming. Yet in this sector you have to move quickly. The second is that insurance is expensive and there’s a certain fear from clients that they don’t need every product. As a result, many businesses just tick the boxes for insurance and cover the bare minimum of requirements.

Third, and probably the most important factor for us, is the lack of understanding. It’s not that people don’t understand their businesses – but that their insurance is complex and it’s difficult to assess what your business requires.

We know that various companies are underinsured. In fact, one business had a £32 million annual policy covering their aviation premises. Yet in the small print, it actually excluded all aviation activity. These are the sorts of things that we’re seeing.

That’s an extreme example but there are clearly these pain points. We are bringing a complete, transparent and simple access point for new solutions. FlyCovr is a marketplace where we combine aviation requirements with aviation insurance specialists.

We don’t advise in that process. We understand the aviation market and we understand your requirements, and we will do the legwork to remove those pain points and identify the right partner to give you the specialist insurance product you need. Often that’s just a very simple click of a button.

Within 40 seconds, you can cover a critical part that you might be transporting across the globe, or we can look into a complete liability product across your staff and premises. We’re here to help remove all those pain points to identify the solutions you need.

Who are your customers?

FlyCovr exists to serve anyone that is active within the global supply ecosystem. Core customers of ours will be anyone defined as an aftermarket service provider across the sale or refurbishment of components. Logistics providers and freight forwarders active within that space are also key clients.

A major aspect for us is also the digital side. The big tech platforms for CRM and ERP systems will also benefit from our services, because a major part of what we do includes digital integrations and APIs.

What products can we expect to access through FlyCovr?

Both digital and traditional, complex coverage products will be available to our customers through the FlyCovr platform. But our showcase product, which is an industry first, is all-risk coverage for goods in transit, which can be insured within 40 seconds. That is absolutely game changing technology and offering, thanks to our launch partner, Loadsure.

We know that 60% of freight in the US alone is without insurance or underinsured. So there’s a massive requirement for this.

How does it work for more complex insurances?

A large part of what we’re doing is trying to remove the complexities. So we have grown a panel of insurance providers who specialise in each of these areas.

We won’t bore you with in-depth descriptions of different complex insurances – that’s exactly why we have an independent panel. We’ll be developing this panel as we go into the market, but our whole role is to remove that legwork, understand your requirements and put you in contact with specialist aviation insurance underwriters who can advise on exactly what you need.

How do customers access and work with FlyCovr?

One of the leading frustrations is how laborious and administrative insurance can be. With us, It’s simple. Visit FlyCovr.com and register free of charge, and you have instant access to our solutions. That’s the instant digital solution where you can get quotes immediately, or, provide us with more information and we can go out to our specialist partners and find the right solution for you.

We are an independent platform providing distribution into the aviation market through different aspects of the supply chain. We are always on the lookout for innovative insurance solutions and products that can support our customer base. We welcome anyone that wants to discuss their new solutions for this market and potentially get on our panel.

How is FlyCovr supporting LGM Aviation and its customers?

FlyCovr is a fundamental part of our business moving forward. And what I mean by that is it is embedded into our processes, from the minute a customer comes to us with an enquiry.

LGM Aviation is acting as the blueprint for the cover product. We’re trying to redefine and change how people think about and buy insurance. Via FlyCovr, there is now the opportunity to get one-off coverage for a one-off shipment. It’s Pay as you Go. It doesn’t need to be on every shipment, so customers can opt in or opt out.

But if our mission is to redefine and improve our supply chain at the highest level, then we want to be at the forefront of our customers’ minds from the start, not as an afterthought or a financial loss.

So for LGM Aviation, it’s now embedded in our sales process. It’s digitally embedded in our ecommerce store, Lgmaviation.com. Like I said, it’s going to be fundamental moving forward. Insurance should not be an afterthought or an omission. Having that instant access to solutions is so valuable.

We were working with a customer in Singapore recently on a maintenance task, where an engine had to be sent off to Dallas for an emergency shop visit. The clock was ticking. Everyone wanted the problem solved as fast as possible. No one had budgeted for this very expensive shipment to move that engine from one side of the planet to the other. And, of course, the first question we asked was whether there was insurance.

And the answer was no. With engines, before FlyCovr you couldn’t just go get one-off coverage for an engine because the risk to the underwriters is too high. You would have to go through the motions of securing a 12 month contract and all the questions and admin that goes with that.

So when we say this is an industry first, we really mean it. We now have the ability to provide customers with instant access to one off coverage for high value shipments like that. We’re not forcing it on anyone, but LGM Aviation will be using this on all of our shipments to protect our cash flow and our P&L. And it’s only right that we give our customers the same access that they can choose to use or not.

What would you say to a customer who is considering talking to FlyCovr?

Having been through what the whole world has experienced in the last two or three years, we have to expect the unexpected. And we already know there are risk exposures across the global supply chain. For many reasons, businesses are underinsured.

Our fundamental aim is to drive awareness of that exposure. FlyCovr is here to help provide education around all the different products. Moreover, you can come to us, we’ll understand what you need and identify the right specialists for you. That way you will have any exposures covered with all-risk insurance.

Just pay us a visit and sign up for free. It will cost you absolutely nothing, but it could save you a tonne of time in administration and reduced premiums.

All-risk insurance for goods in transit

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Meet our friendly knowledgable team

Flycovr Events and Trade Shows

Meet our friendly knowledgable team

Flycovr Events and Trade Shows