Who's behind this
Steve Smart helped run the legal side of one of the world's largest insurers. He knows precisely how a claim gets refused — and how to argue it back. smarterclaims is built on what he learned.
Steve Smart has spent more than forty years in general insurance — and he's seen it from every side. He started on the broking floor at Lloyd's of London in 1980, working as a broker and underwriter, before qualifying as a solicitor and practising at Dentons.
In 1999 he became General Counsel for AIG in the UK, where he spent a decade on the senior management team of one of the world's largest insurers — running its legal, compliance and company-secretarial functions, advising the UK board, and then serving as Chief Executive Officer of the UK group's consumer-lines distribution business.
His standing in the industry runs wider than any one company. He chaired the International Underwriters Association's Legal & Regulatory Committee and has served as a Committee member of The Bank of England's Financial Markets Law Committee. He is a regular insurance-claims voice on LBC's Money Hour.
Across those four decades, Steve watched the same disputes come up again and again — and built the library of arguments that smarterclaims now runs on.
Thousands of genuine insurance claims get refused every week — not because there is anything wrong with them, but because of a technicality, indecipherable small print, or a box that wasn't ticked. Insurers have teams of specialists to help them minimise claims exposures, using an array of tactics and legal tools. Most honest people don't make insurance claims regularly, so when they do need help they have little experience in how insurance works, which makes them vulnerable. This has only got worse now that most products are bought online — meaning there's no one on your side if something goes wrong.
Many people simply give up, and this has always troubled me.
The truth is that a great many of these refusals can be put right — if you know which arguments to make, and how to make them in an articulate way. That knowledge has always existed. It has just never been on the consumer's side of the table.
The aim of smarterclaims is to rebalance this inequality by giving you just the right amount of know-how, just when you need it, to argue your case effectively. I've taken forty years of understanding about how these disputes really work — the excuses, the arguments that can overcome them, all underpinned by the law and the Ombudsman decisions behind them — and built it into a tool that writes your case for you, for a fraction of what it would typically cost. I can't promise you'll win every time, but you'll stand a better chance if you know what arguments to make and how to make them.
— Steve SmartSteve doesn't read your case — the system is built so he doesn't have to. Here's how forty years of experience ends up on your side.
Steve has documented the refusal patterns that come up again and again across the various types of consumer insurance product — and for each one, the arguments worth making and the law and Financial Ombudsman decisions that back them up.
He reviews and updates the library so the arguments stay sharp.
When you drop in your refusal letter, the system matches your case to the right pattern, picks the arguments that fit, and drafts the letter — applying Steve's know-how to your specific situation.
You review the analysis before you pay for the service. You send the letter yourself. Steve's expertise is in every output, so his diary is not a bottleneck.
In the media
Steve is a frequent commentator on consumer insurance — most often on LBC — explaining how claims really work and what people can do when one is refused. Two recent segments:
February 2026
What your car, travel and home policies actually pay out when belongings are stolen from a vehicle — the surprisingly low contents limits, the exclusions for an unlocked car or items left on show, and where home cover can step in. Plus simple steps to protect phones, tech and valuables before anything goes missing.
April 2026
With jet-fuel prices nearly doubling and flights being cancelled, Steve sets out your rights: why an airline can’t raise your fare once you’ve booked, what the Denied Boarding and Package Travel rules entitle you to, and how FCDO advice against travel decides whether a travel-insurance claim is paid.
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