Is instant quoting the future of cyber insurance and broker-carrier relations?

By Aaron Davidson, CEO, Relay Platform —

For better or worse, the cyber environment is a place of constant evolution. On one hand, that evolution means tremendous innovation. However, those leaps forward are unfortunately opening the world up to increased threats of cyberattacks.

For businesses, this increase in cyber threats has resulted in a corresponding increase in the need for more comprehensive cyber coverage. However, as more attacks make headlines and businesses clamor for increased cyber coverage, premiums fluctuate wildly.

In 2021, Aon predicted that cyber insurance rates would climb between 20% to 50% throughout the year. Now in 2023, premiums increases have slowed down, remaining around 20%. Regardless, these premium increases have caused a significant spike in requests from policyholders to shop for alternative quote options.

To keep up, brokers will need to explore solutions that will allow them to not only manage but also grow their quote volume capacity and ultimately commissions.

Instant Quoting: The Broker’s Ultimate Solution?

API-enabled instant quoting is an electronic approach to quoting that reduces a broker’s time spent manually chasing quotes. But are instant quotes the broker’s North Star for thriving in this hardening cyber insurance market?

Regarding the benefits of instant quoting tools, one of the primary perks offered to brokers is the ability to handle a higher quote volume than a manual approach. By leveraging APIs, these tools can quickly access and integrate data from multiple sources — including connecting brokers with carriers and reinsurers — and provide accurate quotes in a matter of seconds.

This connection gives brokers easy and real-time access to quote information. As a result, they can generate quotes at much higher speeds than possible with manual quote production, leading to a higher quote volume and ultimately higher hit ratios/commissions for the broker. Likewise, this automation ensures that quotes are consistently accurate, delivered without delay, and compliant with regulations.

Instant quoting tools can also help both brokers and carriers to more effectively manage their relationships with customers. By providing customers with quick and easy access to quotes, these tools can increase engagement and help brokers and carriers to build stronger, more long-lasting relationships with their clients.

These tools provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, helping brokers and carriers to better understand and anticipate their clients’ needs. Insurance data and analytics can also be used to optimize business processes and identify areas for improvement. Overall, adopting API-enabled instant quoting tools is a key step toward creating a more efficient and customer-centric insurance industry.

That said, not all instant quoting systems are created equal. Many lack the ability to integrate with a broker’s agency management system. In addition, instant quoting systems often only take one aspect of the submission process into consideration — the API-enabled quote retrieval — and neglect the more traditional email submission workflow.

As a result, brokers may need to spend time manually inputting the information from their instant quotes back into their agency management system, as well as managing the many other related processes outside of the solution. The ideal platform should eliminate double entry by providing the capability to seamlessly integrate instant and traditional email quotes into a unified submission workflow.

Choosing the Right Instant Quoting Solution

Luckily there are best-in-class systems available today that can help brokers receive both instant and email quotes.

When picking a platform that suits your business, look for those that meet the full spectrum of your instant quoting needs. In particular, look for solutions that seamlessly manage transactions end-to-end across all sizes/complexity of risk and all coverage lines without compromising your organization’s traditional workflows.

Take proposal generation, for example. Ensuring your prospective clients have access to the latest information is critical in the fast-paced world of cyber insurance. Nothing can be more frustrating than having to manually copy and paste information from various formats into customer-facing proposals. The right instant quoting platform should be able to help you automate these processes, thereby maximizing efficiency.

Innovation plays a crucial role in the insurance industry, as it helps carriers and brokers to better serve their customers, improve their operational efficiency, and stay ahead of the competition. The use of API-enabled instant quoting tools is just one example of how innovation can drive significant improvements in this sector.

As the industry continues to evolve and adapt to changing customer needs and market conditions, the value of innovation will only become more important. By embracing new ideas and staying at the forefront of technological advances, insurance brokers and providers can ensure their long-term success and continue to deliver the best possible outcomes for their customers.=

About Relay

Relay enables real-time digital panels of carriers and MGA-MGUs that substantially increase success rates for agents and brokers. The solution unifies application questions, compiles instant and manual quotes into a Competitive Differentiation Table™, and delivers a configurable, analytics-powered Smart Client Proposal™ designed to better meet the needs of commercial clients. Our “I5” solution excels at Cyber, Professional Liability and Specialty Lines in particular, and is rapidly expanding. We facilitate billions in coverage across insurance and facultative reinsurance every year. With a rapidly growing client base in North America, Relay also counts among the few Lloyd’s accredited London market e-platforms. For more information, please visit www.relayplatform.com.

Source: Relay Platform