E-trading and the future of mid-market commercial insurance

The advent of e-trading has been revolutionary for the commercial SME insurance space. Affording brokers access to portals where instant quotes can now be issued has allowed brokers to meet their customers increasingly demanding expectations in today's digital economy.

Most recently, insurer partnerships with Policy Administration Systems (PAS) have alleviated the requirement to rekey customer information into insurer portals. This has effectively provided commercial brokers in-system aggregators reducing the time and effort required to place an SME risk.

However, if a risk is mid-market or even larger in size, the process reverts to something reminiscent of 1686 and Edward Lloyds coffee shop! Inefficient methods of data exchange, lots of re-keying and significant frustration from both sides makes the open market broking of commercial insurance risks a real dinosaur. The Chartered Insurance Institute's research paper, The Future of Commercial Broking, indicates that broking technology has the potential to be a strong enabler of change in the industry. However, the software vendors that have done so much for the SME sector, are a source of inertia and that one of the barriers to innovation is that they run closed systems and frustrate business models with a technology capability unable to integrate in the customers' best interests.

The CII believes that technology opportunities exist but that they are not being fully exploited and that 'front-end' experimentation is the answer. A successful commercial insurer of the future, will accept the rise online data exchange as a way to improve risk management and to avoid re-keying. Hence, insurers will focus on partnering with the broker as a means to superior, more insightful risk data and compete through excellence in pricing and risk selection.

Upsurance's marketplace aims to fill the gap left by the current participants and remove inherent inefficiencies by digitising the trading of mid-market commercial insurance. Through the automation of mundane processes and the optimisation of communication and data exchange, brokers can deliver better, faster and more profitable insurance solutions for their clients. One of the key modules to our marketplace is a proprietary Risk Matching algorithm. In simple terms, a broker's client risk details are automatically matched with the detailed appetite rule of our MGA and insurer's partners. This allows us to do some exciting things which we think you'll agree makes your life an awful lot easier:

- Conversion Ratio: by knowing precisely which risks insurers will underwrite, remarketing efforts are significantly more efficient, and risks are not sent to insurers who don't have the appetite. This increases conversion ratios whilst requires less time.

- Driving Revenue: portfolio analysis indicates how much business could be placed with other insurers. This includes portfolio transfer negotiations or exposure mitigation.

- Transparency: ultimate clients require demonstration on market consideration. We support this by providing end-to-end transparency to reinforce the customers' perception of the broker as a true partner leading to better customer retention.

If you'd like to learn more about Upsurance and how our marketplace can help your business, please get in touch at hello@upsurance.com.

Sources: Chartered Insurance Institute’s research paper, The Future of Commercial Broking https://www.cii.co.uk/media/9224195/future-of-commercial-insurance-broking-report.pdf