The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has opened its flagship growth programme to a category of firms it had kept out for months: companies it alone supervises, rather than those jointly overseen with the Prudential Regulation Authority. Insurtech Urban Jungle is among the first admitted under the new track, marking the first time a solely FCA-regulated insurance business has gained access to the Scale-up Unit’s tailored supervisory support.
FCA Widens Scale-Up Unit to Solo-Regulated Firms
The regulator named ClearScore, Modulr, Teya, Urban Jungle and Zilch, spanning payments, consumer finance, credit information and insurtech, as the first firms regulated solely by the FCA to take part in the Scale-up Unit. The programme’s guidance page was updated to reflect the launch of pilot for solo-regulated firms. The application window was narrow: the FCA opened applications for solo-regulated firms to join the Scale-up Unit pilot in May, and Applications closed on 22 June 2026, leaving supervisors roughly seven weeks to assess the field before naming the five firms admitted.
Why the First Cohort Had No Insurance Firms
The gap was structural, not incidental. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves MP, announced the launch of the FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA) Scale-up Unit, the stated goal was to provide growing financial sector regulated firms across the country with tailored support and guidance to help them test ideas, grow and succeed in the UK. But the entry route initially ran through dual regulation: Six firms, jointly regulated by the FCA and PRA, were announced as the Scale-Up Unit’s first cohort in February — Allica Bank, ClearBank, Monument Bank, Nottingham Building Society, OakNorth Bank, Zopa Bank — a slate of challenger banks and a building society with no insurer, broker or managing general agent among them. Growth-stage insurtechs operating purely as intermediaries or carriers, without a banking or payments licence, simply had no route into the scheme until the rules changed this year.
Eligibility Criteria and the Application Window
The solo-regulated track, detailed on the FCA’s application page, sets a higher bar than plain authorisation. A firm must be already regulated by the FCA and has been in operation for at least 3 years, and demonstrate that average income growth is above 20% over a 3-year period and is projected to grow at this rate. Scale can substitute for pure growth speed: applicants also qualify with gross annual revenue of over £100m and/or has achieved an investor valuation of over £250m. Together, the three tests are designed to separate firms with genuine scale-up momentum from earlier-stage start-ups that might otherwise overwhelm a resource-intensive supervisory programme. For younger managing general agents and insurtech underwriters still short of a three-year track record, those thresholds mark a target to grow into rather than an immediate opening.
What Scale-Up Unit Support Actually Looks Like
The FCA is careful to frame the programme as a supplement, not a shortcut: it states It is not intended to be a substitute for discussions regulated firms would typically have with existing supervision team contacts. Announcing the expansion, the FCA’s Jessica Rusu said: “High-growth firms play a vital role in driving economic growth across the UK.” When the first, dually regulated cohort joined in February, PRA executive director Charlotte Gerken called it a milestone: “Welcoming the first cohort to our Scale-up Unit is an important milestone. It shows our commitment to helping firms grow in a sustainable way.” Rusu added at the time: “We look forward to working with the first cohort as we deliver on our strategy to support growth and UK competitiveness.” The unit sits on a broader base of regulatory engagement: Since the FCA launched its innovation services, it has supported more than 1,000 innovative and growing firms, and a preparatory exercise tested demand before the solo-regulated pilot opened — Between July 2025 and March 2026, the FCA engaged with 15 firms across asset management, wealth management and payments as part of an Early and High Growth Oversight pilot.
What’s Next for Growth-Stage Insurtechs
For UK insurtechs still short of Scale-up Unit thresholds, the FCA’s other innovation channels remain the nearer-term route. a sandbox cohort that put artificial intelligence tools through supervised testing offers a working template for engaging supervisors ahead of full authorisation pressure, and a claims-handling review launched under the Consumer Duty framework signals where scrutiny is already landing on the insurance side of the FCA’s remit. Insurers should also note that regulatory attention isn’t limited to growth support: a parliamentary inquiry gathering evidence on insurance pricing practices is running in parallel, underscoring that expansion incentives from the FCA come alongside continued scrutiny elsewhere in the book. Urban Jungle’s admission signals that solo-regulated insurance firms are now squarely within scope for tailored supervisory support — the open question is how many more growth-stage carriers, brokers and MGAs can clear the revenue, valuation and income-growth bar to follow.
