E-TRADING AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO E-TRADING SPONSORED BY. Follow us on insurancetimes.co.uk

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1 E-TRADING Follow us on insurancetimes.co.uk SPONSORED BY AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO E-TRADING SAXON EAST It s a big debate raging at the heart of broker e-trading: should any broker really be using an insurer s extranet? Some brokers still believe they can get better deals namely products and prices - by going via the extranet route. But overall, fiddling around with different extranet sites is wasting time and money when compared to a single key on a software house platform. Another factor in favour of software houses is that it provides multiple quotes from different insurers a great way of showing you are compliant with treating customers fairly. All the information is banked into the broker s software systems, meaning the audit trail of good practice is all there. The FCA is increasingly watching all broking activity, but software house e-trading is a way to play safe with the regulator. Finally, using a software house is more than just something that can produce multiple quotes on a policy; it s a customer relationship management platform that can bring quality service to customers. It s clear that software houses are vital to the success of brokers trading across the UK. All this wouldn t have been possible without Polaris s solution. It s quite possible that in the near future brokers will have even more choice of quotes, as MGAs join the panels on software houses. More products are likely to be traded on software house solutions, such as cyber. And those products that comparatively speaking have only recently taken off on e-trading - such as mini-fleet, professional indemnity and directors and officers will continue to see increased volumes. Finally, there is likely to be larger and larger sized premiums transacted online via software houses as brokers embrace the technology. Since its foundation in 1993, insurer and broker-owned Polaris has gone from strength to strength. As the e-trading market continues to grow, you can be sure Polaris will continue to play its integral role. InsuranceTimes April

2 Follow E-TRADING Bridging the gap for e-trading Polaris s knits together insurers with the e-trading platforms offered by the software houses Benefits to brokers include a standard question set, and only having to key in client details once There s a wide panoply of different e-trading platforms for brokers to choose from when seeking cover for commercial clients. Just about every major insurer has its own extranet portal and a number of brokers offer their own B2B sites where brokers can obtain insurance for their clients. Alongside these there are also a number of broker software houses (SWHs) offering platforms where brokers can contrast and compare offerings from different insurers. But there is one thing that brings this last category of solutions, SWH platforms, together: Polaris UK s solution. Developed by Polaris, an insurance industry collaboration between insurers and brokers set up to promote common e-trading standards and cost-effective processes, is a commercial insurance e-trading solution for brokers, insurers and software houses. But where really differs from all the other commercial e-trading options is that it is integrated. What this means is links the SWH e-trading platforms directly with insurers own rating and underwriting engines in real time. As a result of this brokers only have to fill in a single question set and in return, will receive prices and terms from each insurer instantly. It enables brokers to trade online more efficiently and cost-effectively in a secure environment delivering real-time risk assessment and pricing by insurers for comparative quote systems. It offers brokers an alternative to the confusing maze of individual platforms and double-keying, presenting a unified set of questions and procedures that smooth the broker s path to the best insurance policy for their clients. is now integrated into all the major e-trading platforms and offers full-cycle functionality, point of sale documentation and referrals, as well as a live-chat function. It is used by a growing community of brokers, with currently more than 1,200 individual broker businesses obtaining quotes and placing business through it every month. Last year saw handle more than 100m gross written premium, with more than 200,000 policies placed and more than 4 million quotes processed. That beat even Polaris s own projections. Just last May, Polaris sales and marketing manager Phil Nunn pointed to the expansion of policies offered through, with the traditional package products of Shop, Office, Tradesmen and BROKER VIEW NEIL GRIMSHAW BA(HONS) FCII DIRECTOR, RAVENHALL RISK SOLUTIONS Administering SME business electronically has created efficiencies and saved brokers time. But insurer extranets are not efficient and nor do they enable a fair analysis of the market. To achieve the latter brokers need to use their integrated broker e-trading solution. From just one set of keyed data they will get multipleinsurer quotations returned, which avoids wasting time keying data multiple times into individual insurer extranets. And integrated broker e-trading solutions provide quote information from each insurer, displayed alongside each other in a consistent format, enabling effective comparisons to be made. The system we use here at Ravenhall Risk Solutions, which was developed by Applied, has saved our business time and has helped us to provide a better service to our clients. We are able to efficiently broker SME business through Applied s integrated solution and we secure even greater efficiencies at renewal, when we can re-broker business at the stroke of a button to a growing panel of insurers. As brokers we have to embrace new technology and help drive efficiencies at insurer and broker level. With Applied s integrated commercial e-trading solution we are able to free up two of our most valuable resources - time and money - whilst still delivering true broking to our clients, who also expect us to deliver exceptional customer service. 2 April 2017 InsuranceTimes

3 Follow us on insurancetimes.co.uk BROKER VIEW JULIET WILLIAMS ACII GROUP SME DIRECTOR, CIRCLE INSURANCE SERVICES The world has moved on, I was reminded of this recently when meeting up with colleagues I worked with 23 years ago, and the conversation inevitably turned nostalgic. It was important to be on best terms with the typing pool to ensure you could get your client letters or presentations out in the post from dictation to receipt could take up to a week, often having to return documents to the typists for corrections. Communications with insurers involved carbon paper and handwritten memos. Now we have and e-trading, which are instantaneous. Property Owners policies being supplemented by Mini-Fleet and Complex Commercial Insurance (CCI) packages, and he forecast that quote volumes were headed north of 3.5 million for provides integrated access to the following SWH e-trading platforms: Acturis, Applied, Open GI and SSP, as well as a The division of Circle Insurance I created, SME insure 360, covers all our 7 offices. The efficiencies of e-trade enable us to spend the time saved getting to know our clients better and to assess their risks more thoroughly, and we can use the technology to obtain appropriate cover quotations without having to re-key information. E-trading, especially e-trading via, enables policies to be re-marketed at the touch of a button, reaching a large number of insurers who can offer reduced rates and often enhanced cover along with policy extensions which can benefit the client. SME insure 360 deals with premiums ranging from 50 to 10,000 effortlessly by utilising e-trade. The capabilities are improving constantly and Polaris is working with brokers, software houses and insurers on developing and futureproofing question sets, so that risks that are currently dealt with manually can be e-traded. The benefit to brokers is huge, with time savings, mistakes being minimised, as risk details only need to be keyed once, and referral queries using live chat. panel of market-leading commercial insurers including Ageas, Allianz, Aviva, AXA, NIG, QBE and RSA. The solution also provides access to a range of specialist and niche products, such as PA&BT, D&O, Professional Combined, Cargo and Working From Home. Recently, launched its Live-chat service providing a consistent Live-chat experience for brokers and insurers. This provides the benefit of a real-time, audited exchange for referrals and associated underwriting queries alongside the existing benefits of streamlined product and price comparison, reduced administration and time-savings and of course much less paperwork! HOW IMARKET WORKS Risk Data Risk Data Risk Data The only real-time commercial e-trading solution integrated with your broker system Single keying of risk data leading to significant administration and time saving Access to a comprehensive range of products from the UK s leading commercial insurers Multiple comparative quotes including endorsements and quote conditions Referrals, Premium Overrides, Live-chat Live-chat directly with underwiters with ability to save chat to policy record Full cycle functionality including point of sale documentation Supporting brokers compliance needs through: Industry agreed data capture that is considered a fair presentation of risk by insurers Regular Polaris Good Customer Outcome reviews of integrated platforms & products InsuranceTimes April

4 Follow E-TRADING What lies behind the e-trading screen Polaris managing director Martin McLachlan looks at the benefits to brokers of e-trading using the solution How does help brokers? One of the great benefits of is that from within your software house platform, and that could be Acturis, Applied, Open GI or SSP, you can access and the services and products from the UK s leading commercial lines insurers. So from within a -integrated broking system, a broker can obtain, for example, multiple motor fleet quotes from a number of insurers from a single data submission. And it is an auditable process. When a broker is using the combination of and an integrated software house system, he or she can show that a broad marketplace has been reviewed and not just one or two insurers extranets. Also, with, the broker types the information into the software house system only once; it s then available as part of the client record and for accounting purposes. Compliance support, cost-effectiveness and having all the information in one place is a compelling business proposition for brokers. How does work? allows brokers to obtain quotes, place new business and handle both MTAs and renewals from within the broking system. The -integrated broking system assembles the data for transactions and sends this over to the insurers systems, receives insurers responses, records these and supports the broker in handling insurance transactions. The combination of the broking system and promotes efficiency, reduces errors and supports compliance. Without, the brokers would have to go to multiple extranets. In that case, you d get your quote from, let s say, three insurers. Next you print each quote out so you ve got the terms and conditions; you do a comparison of them on paper; you compile an analysis report; you then prepare a client report, send it to the client and file it for later audit. So the combination of a good broking system integrated with supports compliance and saves a lot of time Is just technology? We live within a tightening framework of law and regulation. It s not just doing the due diligence, but being able to prove that you ve done it, and that s where the systems come into play because you can legitimately say, Well, you asked me, Mr Regulator, how did I comb the market? Well, I got quotes from six insurers, I chose this insurer for these reasons. That s all documented, and here s the cover comparison that the system supplied. So the broker has a much easier process there than he would do if he was dealing with dozens and dozens of pieces of paper from extranets. How are you getting the message across? We run workshops with brokers from all the integrated software houses, where both the software house and insurer teams are present and provide brokers with an update on current services and future plans. Polaris also holds broker-only forums which help us develop the e-trading Standards and functionality. These events have been enormously powerful because as a community we re learning more and more about the most effective way to e-trade and the broker workshops are a useful mechanism for practitioners to say, Could you do this slightly differently please ; or alternatively, Could we have more of this, or that feature s missing. I m pleased with the trajectory we re on. We have over 1,000 brokers seeking quotations from regularly, and we will be adding between 400 and 600 new brokers in The growth is there, it s coming along, there have been some brokers who have been reluctant, but there s a widening appreciation that the cost model no longer supports the manual way of doing things, and that to stay in the game with any modicum of profit, you have to do it electronically. How do you gauge the impact of? We continuously review the broking systems and insurers products. We ask, Do these work together to produce a good customer outcome? That s useful because we can say to insurers, Look, this is a good product, but the fundamental problem is these error messages, or these terms are not clear, or you re not providing such and such. And we can say to the software houses: Would it be more helpful, for example, if the broking platform was demonstrating information in a particular way? Good customer outcomes support is a major focus for Polaris going forward, and we re using as one means of delivering it. What myths about would you like to dispel? One of the myths is that it s easier to use extranets. But as I ve already said, if you have to go to four or five insurers extranets all with different layouts and navigation - and fill in four or five data captures, it becomes time consuming and error prone. It s a lot easier to fill in a single data capture which then goes to 4 April 2017 InsuranceTimes

5 Read more online at insurancetimes.co.uk those four or five insurers and they can give you a real time response. Also, some brokers will say, We know the market and whom to go to for a quote. But their information may be dated. After all, it s a dynamic market and the insurer who s top this month might not be top next month. keeps up with changes to terms and conditions in real time, so it s easier to keep up with who s offering the best policies. And prices aren t cheaper on insurers extranets. All of the insurers have said that their pricing and terms and conditions are all sourced from the same rating engine. So, come via the software house and you will get optimal pricing. What s in the future for? Very simply more products, more insurers and enhanced facilities. On the facilities front, a single, consistent live-chat service is being integrated into all the software house systems. If a broker has a question about a trade code, for example, then irrespective of what system they use or which insurer they want to chat to, the broker can use the live-chat facility, have a chat with the insurer, make sure the code is right and then a record of that chat is appended to the broker s record on the system. So both the broker and insurer know what that dialogue resulted in. And that s quite a powerful facility, it s beginning to be extremely widely used. We regularly review the performance of with brokers, software houses and insurers so that we can jointly enhance the service for example, by reducing referrals. We are also looking to analyse management information more thoroughly to understand where we need better processes or new products. Currently, we re communicating with brokers through the press and through conferences like BIBA. We also run broker workshops, where we invite brokers who haven t partaken of e-trading to come along together with e-trading veterans. Case studies are important because if a broker realises that there is a benefit here, then they will pick it up. And we have to make it easier for a broker to register with, and we re doing more and more of that through collaboration with the software houses. We have also recently launched a dedicated broker area on the Polaris web-site where brokers can get the latest news on new products and functionality, upcoming broker workshops and forums and contribute to the Good Customer Outcomes reviews by joining our GCO Broker Review Group. EXPERT VIEW DEEPAK SONI DIRECTOR OF COMMERCIAL INTERMEDIARY E-TRADING, AXA INSURANCE THE JOYS OF LIVE CHAT AXA are dedicated to working in partnership with our brokers to provide access to competitive digital SME insurance. Broker feedback in 2016 enabled us to make enhancements to our Retailers, Mini-fleet and Business Choice products, and we will continue to enhance our products in We also recognise that to help brokers trade effectively means thinking innovatively and providing support through as many digital mechanisms as possible. The live-chat solution allows our underwriters to respond to broker queries in seconds. In late 2016 AXA Connect became the only insurer to offer livechat to all brokers trading SME insurance online via Acturis. We are now working with other integrated software houses to extend our offering in Although our products are traded online, we understand brokers require support to trade effectively online. So AXA have invested heavily in our digital underwriters, of whom more than 85% are either CII qualified or studying toward a qualification. This ensures our teams can have quality conversations when discussing risks. We ve also aligned our teams to ensure brokers are advised by product experts who are empowered to trade on such risks. InsuranceTimes April

6 Follow E-TRADING The future of e-trading Insurers set out the current benefits of e-trading through Software houses detail future plans to add business lines to their platforms INSURER VIEWS AGEAS Supporting our Customer Ethos, gives access to competitive quotes through a panel of quality insurers supporting low expense requirements due to single key and back office links. Benefiting policyholder, broker and insurer alike, the continuous improvements programmes, innovation work, Good Customer Outcomes reviews and live chat service are supported by insurers at director level. Increasing ability to support deals with premium flex codes, commission flex and other functionality and undertaking regional broker workshops increases broker engagement. From an Ageas perspective, increasing traffic means it is something we can invest in with the knowledge that there will be a good return given the total overall size of the wallet and supports our low expense base requirements due to the increasing functionality for each software house. The availability of data/mi means we can take a more targeted approach in terms of focusing pricing. AVIVA At Aviva we want to provide our broker partners with the choice to place small business insurance in a way that suits them. To support this, we are pleased to offer a range of products through, enabling brokers to quote on our range of covers for their clients, giving them a comparison against the rest of the market. This allows them to focus time and effort into getting the right level of protection for their client, growing their book and winning new business. Robert Ledger, head of commercial digital development, UKGI RSA RSA believes there are significant benefits in trading electronically via for both brokers and insurers alike. For brokers the key benefit is in access to comparative quotations from a panel of insurers across a range of small commercial products. With no re-keying and no need to visit multiple insurer web sites this offers a real saving in time and effort. For insurers gives the benefit of trading through a single, consistent, process with a large number of brokers across some of the leading software house platforms in the commercial market. QBE QBE is an advocate of as it has allowed QBE to expand our e-trading distribution footprint by making it easy and swift to deploy products to various platforms and reach out to more brokers. The product standards ensure brokers can use a more consistent question set yet and so driving broker adoption whilst still allowing insurers to differentiate their proposition. It has encouraged commercial lines e-trading by lifting many access barriers for both insurers and brokers and opens the doors to further capabilities in the future Dave Greaves Head of SME. 6 April 2017 InsuranceTimes

7 Read more online at insurancetimes.co.uk WHAT SOFTWARE HOUSES OFFER EXPERT VIEW DAVID MARTIN DIRECTOR OF SME AND CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS, ALLIANZ INSURANCE THE BENEFITS OF POLARIS GOOD CUSTOMER OUTCOME (GCO) REVIEWS As an industry we recognise that it is vitally important that we present our services in a way that the customer can understand and produce products that respond in the way customers expect that is why the Polaris Good Customer Outcomes activity is so pivotal. It supports this aim by ensuring brokers have confidence in their integrated e-trading platform and that the insurer products available on it are presented in a consistent and understandable format. Whilst all broker software houses (SWHs) test their systems, and, all insurers test their own e-traded products, the Polaris GCO process focuses on how these two elements behave when they come together in a comparative environment. The Polaris GCO team undertakes the broker journey on each SWH platform. They check that the way the questions are asked encourages the accurate disclosure of risk information. They then review how the product information provided in the quotes is displayed, supporting the broker in advising their customers accordingly. The review also checks the quality of the quote information returned by individual insurers products, which is vital in a real-time world. The aim is to ensure the quotation returned is accurate, transparent, and provides the information in a way that the broker system can display. If it is apparent that either the SWH system or an insurer s product can be improved to help ensure good customer outcomes, these observations are shared with a panel of broker experts. They validate Polaris observations and recommend how the improvements should be implemented. Polaris shares these observations with each SWH and insurer in order to get the recommendations implemented. Outcomes are then shared with BIBA, FCA, and brokers more generally in order to get their feedback, demonstrating clearly that our industry is proactive when it comes to achieving good customer outcomes and confidence in the e trading environment. This work is vital to the success of e-trading, as we seek to ensure the relentless focus on price is balanced with the best understanding possible of the protection being provided to cover the customer s insurance needs. We have been encouraged by the level of engagement from the industry on this work and are making good progress on protecting customer outcomes so if you would like to find out more about GCO, or join one of the broker review panels, just go to polarisukltd.org/page/. InsuranceTimes April

8 The only real-time commercial e-trading solution integrated with your broker system Used by a growing community of over 1200 broker businesses Full-Cycle Functionality, Overrides, Referrals, POS Documentation, & Live-Chat Distributing a comprehensive range of products from the UK s leading commercial insurers Integrated with the UK s leading broker platforms