3 building blocks for using new commercial lines tech

Technological breakthroughs in commercial lines are helping brokers win over Canadian business owners seeking insurance coverage.

Brokers can do three things to stand out in this crowded, competitive market. They can standardize their data capture, simplify their quoting and submission process, and consider expanding their access to more insurers.

Opportunities knock

It’s a good time to be a commercial lines broker.

This statement may sound counterintuitive, since recent times have been challenging for insurers’ loss results, as risk profiles changed throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic. Natural catastrophes also created capacity pressures from reinsurers. And the regulatory environment continues to evolve.

Given strained profitability margins and historically inefficient workflows, brokers might be tempted to focus more on personal lines and leave the headache of commercial lines to someone else.

However, small businesses need brokers. Nearly 1 million, or 75%, of Canadian businesses had fewer than nine employees in 2022, according to StatsCan. That means many small business owners are spending most of their waking hours focussing on their businesses. They can’t waste time when shopping for insurance.

Speed of response isn’t the sole answer for selling insurance to these busy commercial clients. Successful brokers will use their time effectively to provide knowledge, understanding and choice on how to best meet a client’s insurance needs.

Better yet, organizations like the Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO), insurers and tech vendors have all done foundational work to improve commercial lines workflows. The industry-wide work is beginning to transform how brokers manage commercial policies.

For example, technology solutions based on the Commercial Lines Data Standards and Minimum Data Set developed by CSIO and its member companies have cut average insurer quote response times to 14 seconds, per a November 2023 CSIO press release. This compares to days or weeks to obtain multiple quotes. That’s created extra time for brokers to spend with their commercial accounts.

And that’s just one way brokers can take control of their commercial lines books of business.

Let’s dig into the three steps brokers can take to overcome market challenges and win in commercial lines.

Standardize data capture

Nobody likes data entry – especially when it’s redundant. Nor do they like time-consuming back-and-forth emails and phone calls that stall opportunities. Commercial lines workflows have required these manual and inefficient processes for too long.

Fortunately, things are changing. Collaborative data capture platforms can now provide a dynamic TurboTax-like experience for brokers and their commercial customers or risk managers to fill in information one time. Then, data-mapping technology automates application completion and imports data to the broker’s quoting application for easy submission and quoting.

The best part? The captured data is consumable within the broker’s management system and reporting solutions, and accessible via APIs to be used by insurers or other third-party applications.

Simplify quoting and submission

Easier and more efficient data entry for applications? Check.

But what about the processes for submitting business to multiple insurers? Today’s quoting applications let brokers generate submissions and receive quotes faster. Regardless of whether a piece of business lends itself to real-time quotes, brokers can submit risk information to multiple underwriters without having to track and follow up on email submissions. They also don’t need to visit insurer-specific portals.

This removes friction and expense from the process. Furthermore, once the risk is placed, a broker can endorse, renew, cancel or reinstate policies directly from the application knowing the data in their system is complete and accurate.

Get access to more insurers

Efficient workflows don’t mean anything if brokers aren’t connected to enough insurers to receive competitive quotes.

As new risks emerge and the complexity of risk increases, business owners are seeing higher premiums and seeking advice on their options. Being able to offer choice through access to multiple insurers allows brokers to elevate their role as trusted advisors by proposing multiple coverage options.

How to win in commercial lines

Brokers looking to grow their commercial books should adopt technology that enables the ‘one-to-many’ strategy.

That may mean acquiring a data capture platform, allowing the broker and/or customer to enter information once and using that captured data to populate many other applications. Or it could mean using a submission and quoting application that enables brokers to send information once to many insurers.

Either way, working smarter, not harder, will always help brokers demonstrate their value proposition. Or, in other words, win in commercial lines.

Steve Whitelaw is senior vice president and general manager at Applied Systems Canada.

This article is excerpted from one appearing in the April-May 2024 print edition of Canadian Underwriter. Feature image courtesy of iStock.com/gerenme