P&C Insurers: A Better Quoting Experience is Possible

In property & casualty insurance, first impressions are crucial. In order to win the trust and the business of prospective customers, insurance companies need to prove right away that they can provide service that is efficient, reliable, and transparent. As the first point of contact between insurers and their insured, quoting is especially important for winning customer loyalty. In an ideal world, it would be a seamless experience that immediately engages new customers. 

The current state of quoting in P&C insurance, unfortunately, is far from this ideal. Too many insurers sabotage their chance at a good first impression with a quoting experience that is slow, tedious, and overly invasive. Instead of developing a relationship built on trust and understanding, customers become frustrated with their insurers before they have even signed a policy. This problem has become especially acute in recent years, as new technological advances have pressured insurers to deliver faster and faster quotes. To better serve their customers from the first point of contact, insurers need to invest in a different kind of quoting experience – one that is fast, yes, but also accurate and transparent. 

The Quoting Revolution 

In order to build a better quoting experience, insurers must understand the problems with the existing system. Decades before the rise of smart and digital technologies, quoting remained stagnant. Agents would ask customers a series of questions about property condition, improvements, existing permits, and potentially dozens of other factors related to overall property risk. This process always threatened to be time-consuming, invasive, and overwhelming for the insured. Moreover, the entire process lacked transparency. Even when customers finally did receive a quote, it was unclear how it was created from the questions asked. At its best, this quoting process was opaque. At its worst, the quotes just seemed arbitrary. 

In response to these frustrations, new solutions have begun to emerge in the P&C industry. Innovative insurance startups like Hippo and Lemonade now promise instant, hassle-free quotes to customers entirely online. Other insurance companies large and small have followed suit, leading to a fundamental transformation of customer expectations. The ability to generate an instant online quote – with minimal input required from the customer – is quickly becoming a requirement for P&C insurers. Modern homeowners and businesses, raised on the instant gratification of digital technologies, expect the same level of convenience from their quoting experience. 

What can Insurers Do? 

Not every insurance company has the time, budget, or resources to build a direct-to-consumer quoting experience like Lemonade or Hippo. This does not mean they need to rely on outmoded methods. Instead, insurers should consider the advantages of working with a third-party insurtech partner. As we have noted before, this kind of company can complement the wider operations of an insurer by hyper-focusing on solutions to specific business problems. One such problem is the quoting experience.  

When seeking out the right insurtech partner to enhance your quoting experience, you should ensure their product meets the following qualifications: 

• Pre-built and transparent: Depending on the size and needs of your company, a good quoting product should require little to no IT resources on your end. On the other hand, it is also important to know the methodology for producing quotes. Look for the low-lift product, but always make sure to check under the hood as well. 
• Easy to integrate: An insurtech solution is only ever as powerful as it is accessible. If underwriters and agents are forced to learn a brand new, time-consuming tool, in all likelihood they will simply revert to their old methods. Your new quoting experience should be able to easily integrate with your existing workflows – perhaps even with your core system. 
• Fast and accurate: It is clear that speed is essential for customers in their quoting experience. However, an inaccurate quote is worth very little no matter how quickly it is delivered. Make sure that your quotes are built on a foundation of strong property intelligence, sourced from a trusted provider (such as Betterview.). 

In the P&C insurance policy lifecycle, every piece matters. A positive, painless quoting experience can establish a strong relationship that can last for years. At the same time, an invasive and time-consuming quoting experience can have the opposite effect. As an insurer hoping to compete in the modern landscape, you should be aware of the importance of quoting to overall customer satisfaction; and you should consider whether your current quoting experience could be improved.  

The new direct-to-consumer quoting experience from Betterview will soon be available as an add-on to all users of their Property Intelligence & Risk Management Platform. Reach out today to learn more!