Insurance and Recoveries Analyst

About Ember

We're building the future of public transport, convenient, affordable, connected and zero-emission. Our goal is to make it easier and more enjoyable to get from A to B with Ember than it is with your own car.

Ember is a tech company, not a traditional bus operator. We've built a platform that coordinates our entire operation, everything from monitoring vehicles and controlling chargers to selling tickets and calculating ETAs. This allows us to use electric buses more intensively than anyone else in the world, leading to a massive reduction in emissions. It also helps us provide a much better passenger experience, with innovative features like demand-responsive stops.

We're growing consciously, and now operate the largest intercity network in Scotland. In addition to our Edinburgh HQ, we have more than 10 hubs around the country which provide our drivers with rest facilities and our vehicles with charging. The challenge is to scale this 100x whilst staying lean, increasing efficiency and delivering an even better product experience. We've recently raised equity from some of Europe's leading climate VCs and are looking for mission-driven individuals who want to get on board and help take us to the next level.

The role

We operate over 100 vehicles across all corners of the country and we're growing fast. At this scale, how we handle incidents matters. A clipped mirror on a single track road, a shelter caught on a tight turn, someone reversing into us at a stop. Each one needs investigating and reporting before taking a position and in many cases recovering money.

It would be easy to hand all of this work to a third party claims agent, however we'd rather own it, understand it and integrate it into our own system the same way we have done with our charging, our vehicles and our ticketing. Done properly it means better evidence, faster resolution, robust learnings and lower cost.

This is a newly created role, reporting to the Head of Finance. You'll shape how it works, and you'll work across the business with our operations team, city leads, mechanics and drivers. You'll also deal directly with our insurer and work closely with our Learning and Development Specialist on turning what you find into training.

What you will do

We're still a scale-up, and your role will be broad. At a minimum it will include:

• Investigating incidents properly. CCTV from multiple angles, telematics, photographs and a clear account from the driver.

• Stating our position on liability. Writing the notification that goes to our insurer, indexing the evidence and saying plainly whether we accept, reject or partially accept responsibility.

• Recovering our own losses. Identifying the third party and their insurer, costing the damage with our mechanics and pursuing it through to payment.

• Challenging what we shouldn't be paying. Making the case, with evidence, where we don't believe we were at fault and following it through until it's resolved.

• Dealing firmly but empathetically with the other side. Councils, landowners, other operators, and members of the public who aren't formally trained in this topic.

• Finding the patterns. Plotting incidents by location, cause and vehicle, and taking the findings to city leads and driver development so changes are implemented.

• Getting into the data yourself. Querying our operational database directly using SQL to pull the incident, vehicle and route data you need, then interrogating what comes back rather than waiting on a report from someone else.

• Building the learning process and feedback loops. There isn't one yet, so you'll have a lot of freedom in how you design it.

• Driving our annual insurance renewal. Building the Ember specific analysis and the market view that we take to our underwriter and approaching other insurers to test terms. You'll own the analysis and work alongside the Head of Finance on where we take it.

Start dates and timings

We're growing very rapidly and are looking for the right candidate to start as soon as they are available.

Diversity and equality

At Ember, we support diversity across our team and customers. We work to ensure every employee feels respected and able to give their best, whether temporary, part-time or full-time. We're happy to offer flexible working patterns where they make sense, are compassionate when it comes to time off and offer enhanced maternity and paternity leave.

Read more about our approach in our Equal Opportunities Policy.

What's on offer

As well as a salary of £35,000 - £50,000 per annum, depending on your skills and relevant experience, you'll also have access to share options. We'd consider going above the range for an exceptional candidate.

How do I apply?

Apply using the form, providing a CV and a cover letter explaining why you're right for this opportunity.

We want to be upfront about one thing. This is a long term role, not a route into something else at Ember. We're looking for someone who wants to own this area, get genuinely good at it and build a career out of it. Please use your cover letter to tell us why it's this role you want.

You don't need relevant experience. We value potential and the skill-set you bring far more than a CV that already matches, and we'd rather teach you the insurance and claims side than hire someone who does it the conventional way.

At a minimum, you should be:

• A strong communicator. Much of this role is making an argument to someone who has never met you, in writing and on the phone. Short, factual and clear, and it needs to land first time.

• Forensic and methodical. You enjoy working through evidence and you notice the detail that changes the answer.

• Willing to hold a position. You'll regularly tell an insurer, a haulier or a council that you disagree with them, and then back it up.

• Numerate and organised. Dozens of open matters at once, some with legal deadlines attached.

• Comfortable with AI tools. You automate the boring part rather than doing it by hand for a year.

• Keen to learn how to work with data properly. You'll become familiar with our database and write your own SQL queries against it, and you'll need to be able to interpret and challenge the results rather than take the first answer. You don't need to be able to do this on day one, but you do need to have the desire and capability to learn it.

• Road-savvy. You'll be forming a view on fault from dashcam footage, so you need a working knowledge of UK road layouts, signs and priorities, and the judgement to spot what a driver should have seen. A full UK driving licence is useful evidence of this, though not essential.

• Good with people across the business. The evidence sits with drivers, city leads and mechanics, none of whom report to you.