Australia’s major insurers, including Suncorp, QBE and Insurance Australia Group (IAG) have undergone years of significant technological upgrades that have seen legacy computer systems replaced by faster, more customer friendly platforms. The upgrades have often focused on claims processes and directly sold retail insurance offerings rather than intermediated areas of business.
However, in recent months, IAG says its major intermediated digital upgrades have started impacting brokers for the first time.
“I think probably the big shift for us since we last spoke [in November], is extending into the commercial space,” said Neil Morgan (pictured), IAG’s chief operating officer.
The commercial space includes all of IAG’s insurance offerings sold through brokers with its CGU and WFI brands. “We made a big strategic call to do retail first, but we're far enough through that now having done the migrations with NRMA,” he said. “So this is the time for commercial to get on the same journey.”
He said two parts of the first “capability” have “just gone live.”
The first change is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help ingest the information being received from brokers for a client’s insurance quote. “When a broker requires a quote from IAG, it comes in all different formats,” said Morgan. “There might be thousands of locations [for data] on there.”
He said, until now, interpreting that data and then forming a quote was a lengthy process that could take days. “But the ingestion engine that we’ve put in place using AI, has taken that from days to literally hours,” said Morgan. “That then allows an underwriter to focus on the deep underwriting challenges.”
He said the aim is to be able to do this “straight through processing” wherever possible.
The other initiative is the recent launch of a broker dedicated digital policy centre called PolicyPlace. “That's our new policy administration system for commercial,” said Morgan. “Putting that in the hands of brokers and our underwriters means there's a far more seamless digital experience for brokers.”
At this stage there is only one product - CGU’s commercial property offering called Padlock - on this system. Morgan described broker feedback as “outstanding” and said it is “a really significant shift in experience.”
He said this is an example of “straight through processing.” “They [brokers] get their quote and their bind opportunity in a much faster process without having to talk to us,” said Morgan. He said the intention is to add more products for brokers.
Insurance Business asked Morgan to explain in more depth how this has changed brokers’ interactions with his firm? “It feels like a proper digital experience,” he said. “More of the [policy] life cycle is available to the broker.”
Under IAG’s older system, he said, a quote process involved a broker uploading considerable information and then waiting while the information was assessed. Then IAG would come back to the broker with a quote and he or she would have to speak to someone to bind. “The information would be looked at, then there's maybe a referral,” he explained. “Then someone comes back to the broker, then you have to speak to someone to bind it.”
He said the new system means the “full life cycle is through the digital interface”, including the quoting and binding.
Morgan said cloud versions of the new commercial, broker-facing platforms are also being created that allow for much quicker changes to products. “We have the flexibility to modify products and turn products on or off in a very, what we call, low code [non-technical] way,” he said. “So making changes in hours, not weeks or months.”
In December, Suncorp announced digital plans with implications for its broker offerings.
In January, QBE Insurance announced a partnership with Ki, a Lloyd’s digital follow platform. “Digital follow is driving positive outcomes for the market, brokers and insureds by providing faster access to high quality capacity and more certainty of placement,” said Jason Harris, CEO of QBE International.
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