CASE STUDY
ÉTUDE DE CAS
How upcover scaled compliance at half the cost with Vanta
"Building with AI raises the bar on security. I wanted to get ahead of that by pairing a public Trust Center with SOC 2 compliance so we can back up what we're building.”
TL;DR
- Challenge: Enterprise customers began requiring SOC 2 on contractual deadlines, but with no CISO, upcover's leadership team was staring down multi-hundred-question audits from more and more customers.
- Solution: upcover adopted Vanta's automated compliance platform and Trust Center to pursue SOC 2 Type 2 certification and build a security posture a small, cross-functional team could manage in-house.
- ROI: upcover cut potential compliance costs by about half compared to the quotes they got from Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and consultants; satisfied increasingly stringent security requirements from prospects and customers; and built credibility for its AI-forward digital platform with verifiable security credentials. No dedicated security hire necessary.
The company
Digitizing commercial insurance for 70,000+ businesses across Australia
upcover is an AI-native commercial insurance broker and Managing General Agent (MGA) that digitizes commercial insurance and risk management and matches companies with the right coverage through an AI-powered platform that works with a local and global network of insurance partners and underwriters. upcover focuses on supporting small, mid-market, and technology businesses, and has served more than 70,000 businesses so far.
The challenge
New markets with stricter security requirements threatened to cap growth
When upcover started expanding, including into different markets, from allied health, and into different segments, like mid-market and enterprise, the security stakes rose. Enterprise customers, for example, started requiring formal SOC 2 certification with specific contractual timelines, and upcover was facing extra scrutiny given its AI-forward positioning.
What upcover tried first: upcover first tested the value of using engaging MSSPs and security consultants to guide them through SOC 2 readiness, but the quotes were about twice the cost of an automated platform. Worse, some of the deliverables turned out to be boilerplate that upcover could produce in-house.
upcover’s pivot point: As upcover expanded, new enterprise customers were increasingly running multi-hundred-question security audits. upcover didn’t have a security leader on staff and instead had just a small leadership team juggling compliance on top of their normal work without a platform to rely on. That meant increasing amounts of manual work, which was unsustainable for the company’s growth plans.
Why upcover chose Vanta: upcover targeted SOC 2 Type 2 certification first because it measures compliance over a sustained period, making it especially useful for building trust with enterprises. When upcover looked for options to support the process, Vanta stood out because the template library made in-house compliance possible. Once upcover determined Vanta provided a faster path to certification than consultants did and that the total cost was about half as much as MSSPs and consultants estimated, the decision was easy.
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The Vanta impact
Unblocking enterprise deals and enabling growth, all without adding headcount
With Vanta, upcover can treat compliance as an ongoing operational function rather than a reactive scramble. Even with a lean cross-functional team, they can manage SOC 2 readiness and maintain continuous visibility between annual enterprise audits entirely in-house, with Vanta functioning as the security hire upcover didn't need to make. Here's how upcover deployed Vanta:
With Vanta, upcover is no longer in a reactive position or stuck with burdensome manual work. upcover's enterprise customers run annual audits, and Vanta's continuous monitoring will keep the team audit-ready around the year so that the team doesn’t have to scramble before each review cycle.
