How can tech best help small business insurance brokers?

While much of the recent InsurTech innovation has been brought to bear on Personal Lines products, there are huge overlooked opportunities for enhanced efficiency and accuracy in the more complex Commercial Lines market.

Brokers need to get answers for their clients quickly, and they need the tools to better manage their time and relationships. And while they are under intense demands and competition, to date, there are no InsurTech companies that have focused, or have succeeded, in meeting their needs.

Related: The state of insurance technology in 2018

The challenge at hand

The toughest part of being an insurance broker is the mastery of coverage and market dynamics, but tedious data processing is definitely the most annoying. Filling out paper applications by hand, memorizing obscure class codes and waiting for carriers to give written approvals and forms to memorialize a transaction are just some of the areas that slow brokers down.

I can say with certainty that these 20^th century processes will ultimately go away. Some companies, however, are figuring out solutions faster than others.

There are also multiple pain points in the quote process itself. Take pricing, for instance. In a typical online insurance application process, the price ends up being a “grand reveal” at end of an exhaustive question set.

But carriers can be much more forthcoming with their brokers earlier on in the process. An insurer should be able to give greater transparency by offering the ability to give users upfront pricing that automatically updates as information about the risk is entered. If you are not going to be competitive on a class of business, why make a broker spend time filling out a form?

Furthermore, most insurance systems pile on questions during the quote process, and many of them don’t clearly translate into actionable decisions by the carrier. Instead, questions should be targeted, based on the appetite for business and focused only on the pertinent questions that influence pricing and eligibility.

Case in point

One example of the tediousness that needs to be addressed is making midterm adjustments to a policy. This has historically required much back-and-forth between underwriters and brokers.

In designing our approach, we incorporated underwriters’ logic and looked at ways to automate it. We asked ourselves the question: wouldn’t it better if brokers had access to on-demand self-service endorsement capabilities so policy changes can be immediately implemented, eliminating manual and tedious processes?

Breaking down and rebuilding the process takes time and effort, and carriers can be just as busy as their distribution partners. There is still a lot more work to do and a lot more innovation ahead.

Adam Sills is head of Professional Liability and Small Commercial P&C at CapSpecialty, which has developed a new technology platform from scratch that aims to modernize the end-to-end process of handling excess casualty insurance. To reach this contributor, send email to asills@capspecialty.com.

See also:

Agent Study 2018: What technology devices does your agency use?

5 high-tech challenges (and solutions) for today’s independent agents