One market, properly understood.
CDL chose insurance. John W. Lowe in Warrington became its first broker customer.
1977—2027
Our FirstFifty Years
Fifty years of ideas, enterprise and people—and the work that made CDL what it is today.
Tom Hogg raises a glass at Strata House, 2006 · CDL archive
1977 · Year zero
Around thekitchen table
A company built from the work it won.
Scroll to enter the archive
CDL at 50: 1977–2027
The story opens with an archive photograph of Tom Hogg and colleagues at Strata House in 2006.
1977: Around the kitchen table
CDL began with Tom and Jessica Hogg, practical software work and a determination to build the company from the work it won.
1982 · Dependable by morning
Paper became data.
Fozzy collected rate changes overnight so brokers could begin each day with current information.
1986 · A faster answer
A price in seconds.
CDL’s first quotation engine turned rating rules into software while the customer waited.
1989 · Insurance by telephone
Ready for the call.
Telebroking joined the live conversation: rates, questions and documents all had to keep pace.
The whole transaction connected.
Laser-printed documents, card payments and BACS brought more of the policy journey into one system.
The market began to speak digitally.
Business EDI moved structured insurance information between brokers and providers.
1998 · Turning point
The browser became the branch.
For the first time, a customer could enter their details, receive a price and buy cover online.
2000 · The platform
Built for what came next.
Strata was designed to carry multiple channels, brands and partners—and to keep changing with the market.
A new route to market.
CDL launched its first aggregator service with The Bike Insurer and expanded its direct-to-consumer capability.
2006 · Rooted in Stockport
A platform. A home. A memory.
Strata House opened in 2006, named for the platform and in memory of co-founder Jessica Hogg.
National brands came live.
Tesco Bank and Hastings joined a growing community operating on CDL technology.
Customers gained control.
Self-service journeys let people manage more of their insurance on their own terms.
Success invested locally.
The CDL Fund formalised support for charities and community projects around Stockport.
Change arrived every six weeks.
A continuous delivery rhythm replaced long waits with regular, dependable improvement.
Product and culture grew together.
Ageas launched four brands, CodeWorks opened, and CDL set down the mission and values guiding its next chapter.
2015—2022 · Customer by customer
Live services moved to the cloud.
The seven-year migration began with Tesco Bank and reached its final client move in 2022.
Scale demanded new answers.
Swinton went live and Hummingbird extended how CDL could serve high-volume digital insurance.
A campus built around the work.
ServiceWorks expanded the Stockport campus and brought more teams together.
Data became a company discipline.
A shared data strategy turned information into a more deliberate product capability.
Intelligence moved into service.
Recommendation pilots began; the final client completed the move to cloud.
2023—2027 · Fifty years
New tools. Familiar standards.
Everyday delivery continued. Task-focused assistants arrived. Through every change: understand the work, keep a person responsible, judge the result.
Continue the story
Three ways into fifty years.
Read the full company history, move through the photographic archive, or return to the founding years with Tom and Jessica.