London, 12th August 2026 - UK insurance provider 1st Central has renewed its collaboration with Shift Technology, the leading AI platform for insurance, reinforcing its long-standing partnership focused on enhancing the business’ motor insurance fraud detection capabilities.
The renewed agreement confirms the continuation of the existing scope and an extension of real-time fraud detection capabilities, designed to help 1st Central identify suspicious behaviour earlier and support its fraud teams with clearer, prioritised insights.
1st Central leading the charge in adopting innovative AI capabilities
As part of this collaboration, 1st Central becomes the first insurer to adopt Shift’s “Chat to Network” capability, a new AI-powered feature that allows investigators to explore fraud networks more intuitively.
By enabling handlers to perform semantic queries across the dataset, including links to market intelligence, this feature accelerates and reinforces network investigations, helping to rapidly identify patterns and connections indicative of potential organised insurance fraud.
“Renewing our collaboration with Shift reflects the confidence and strong relationship we have built over time,” said Paul Priestly, Counter Fraud Director at 1st Central. “Their technology continues to support our fraud strategy, and the introduction of new capabilities such as Chat to Network presents exciting opportunities to enhance the way our teams investigate and respond to emerging risks. These developments will help us work more efficiently, uncover insights more quickly and strengthen our ability to detect fraud, helping us protect both the business and our honest customers from the impact of fraudulent activity.”
The renewed contract also includes the option for 1st Central to deploy additional fraud monitoring capabilities, designed to identify unusual patterns of user behaviour such as atypical access times or transaction activity, adding an additional layer of protection as operational complexity increases.
“1st Central has innovative technology at the heart of its proposition” said George Robbins, Head of UK markets, at Shift Technology. “Being selected as their long-term AI partner, and launching Chat to Network with them as our first customer, reflects a shared commitment to practical, explainable AI that delivers real value to fraud teams.”
Shift Technology works with insurers worldwide to help them prevent fraud and make better decisions across the policy and claims lifecycle, using AI built specifically for insurance.
About Shift Technology
Shift delivers AI agents that transform insurers' most critical work. By combining deep industry expertise with unrivalled data resources, Shift provides proven results that have earned the trust of hundreds of the world's leading insurers. Our insurance-grade AI is accurate, explainable and secure, empowering human experts to act with unparalleled speed, complete confidence and a renewed focus on the people they serve. Learn more at www.shift-technology.com/en-gb
About 1st Central:
1st Central is a leading UK-based personal lines insurer, providing motor and home insurance to 1.4 million customers. 1st Central acts as the intermediary and policy administrator between the insurer and customers, is ranked as ‘Excellent’ on TrustPilot, and was highly commended in Defaqto’s Car Insurer of the Year 2025 awards, securing its place among the UK’s top five car insurance providers. Policies provided via 1st Central are underwritten by 1st Central Underwriting.
Both 1st Central and 1st Central Underwriting are part of 1st Central Group, which delivers market-leading insurance, underwriting, and distribution services using technology and data to reduce risk, tackle fraud and deliver great value products. The group has over 1,000 employees with offices in Guernsey, Gibraltar, West Sussex, and Manchester. 1st Central Group was awarded Best Insurance Employer at the 2024 British Insurance Awards, and runner-up in 2025. 1st Central Group was also ranked 22nd in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in the UK for 2024.
Media contacts:
Shift Technology
Safia Danger - Public Relations Europe
safia.danger@shift-technology.com
1st Central - FleishmanHillard UK
FirstCentralMedia@fleishman.com
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