How to give your small business clients an online quote in 3 minutes

Intact Insurance has launched its new Commercial Property and Liability insurance Quick Quote, a tool designed to give small business owners an insurance quote on their business in about three minutes.

The online commercial property and liability quoting tool follows the launch of the company’s Commercial Auto Quick Quote in May.

“The beauty of the tool is that we are taking the same experience that we’ve built over the years in personal lines and applying that to commercial customers,” says Chris Reid, vice president of digital distribution for Intact Insurance.

For now, Commercial Property and Liability insurance Quick Quote is available in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. It will be rolled out across the country this summer.

The tool covers all small business risks that Intact covers today. The company defines a “small business” as having one location and one activity (retailers and contractors are among many examples). This definition encompasses more than 80 per cent of Intact’s commercial P&C insurance portfolio.

“This recent addition is aligned with Intact Insurance’s overall technological strategy, aimed at putting the brokerage industry ahead of its competition,” Reid says. “Our commercial lines quoting tools offer consumers the convenience they expect backed by the expertise and advice of a broker.’’

The online tool works through the broker distribution channel. Customers accessing the quoting tool on Intact’s website are immediately assigned to a broker. A phone number is available to contact the participating broker for more information; plus, the broker can access the consumer’s information from the company’s back end so that they can quickly process the business.

A widget will soon be made available to place the tool on the broker’s website, allowing clients access to the tool in just one click. The platform is co-branded; the broker’s sales team can access the leads directly by the broker’s team for follow-up and binding.

Canadian Underwriter invited Reid to comment on whether the various online commercial quoting tools available today might commoditize the small business commercial segment, in the same way that brokers have observed increasing commoditization of the personal insurance lines. For brokers, the concern is whether the direct-to-consumer online model would reduce the need for broker advice.

“I don’t think [the commercial small business line] is going to become commoditized, given the complexity of business, let’s be honest about that,” Reid responded. “There is an element of quickly offering a product and service, but I think for small businesses, there’s no question that the advice component is really important.

“In the short time we’ve launched this tool, we are seeing a lot of entrepreneurs who are just getting started and literally just incorporated. That’s a conversation best-suited for a broker to help them through that process to say, ‘Hey, here’s what you should be thinking about.’”

For educated small business owners who want to understand the insurance process, the goal for Intact was to design a tool that was simple and transparent. After a year of consulting with small business owners, it boiled down information about the insurance product into plain language; forty questions in the quoting process were distilled down to 13.

The customer can now receive a real-time full quote on their business in as little as three minutes. “That’s a big deal for us,” Reid said.

Since the tool is integrated into the company’s underwriting and other back-end systems, the quote likely won’t change much, unless the consumer drastically alters the information they input into the system. The tool is available cross all computer platforms and is completely responsive across computers, tablets and mobile devices.