5-Star Insurance Technology Providers 2022

“New technology works best when it removes relatively simple labour-intensive tasks and/or provides significant new insights”
Andrew Lowe, Carpe Data 

BeniPlus is a provider of tech-empowered brokerage services for small businesses and a 2022 IBC 5-Star Insurance Technology Provider award winner. Fellow winner FIRST Insurance Funding of Canada (FIRST Canada), also based in Toronto, is a payment solutions provider that won for its FIRST Pay for Applied Epic solution. They are two of the 14 winners selected by Canada’s broker community for being market-leading insurtechs.

FIRST Canada’s SVP of business solutions, Jamie Ugarte, says, “We’re seeing a lot of insurtech start-ups bringing a lot of unique digital capabilities and having some great success penetrating the market. We're also seeing a lot of the established players recognize that they need to really rethink some of their technology strategies if they want to retain and grow their market share.”

IBC’s data reveals that brokers rated ease of implementation and customer support as the top-performing features of the solutions they currently use, followed by ease of use. 

“As an industry veteran, I can say the pace of technological change is rapid, particularly due to COVID”
Scott Beckett, BeniPlus 

Simplifying benefits for SMBs

One meaningful solution is the BeniPlus Wallet. This virtual wallet allows employers to provide employees with a complete benefits plan that enables them to allocate money across five categories: health, wellness, savings, personal insurance and charitable giving. 

Andrew Lowe, business development director at insurance data firm Carpe Data, says, “New technology works best when it removes relatively simple labour-intensive tasks and/or provides significant new insights.” 

Of the BeniPlus Wallet, Beckett says it addresses typical consumer pains such as those exhibited by his son, who recently graduated from university and got a job. His son had to complete a “fillable” PDF form to apply for his benefits. The process proved to be extremely error-prone and tedious. “Ultimately, we had to print it, fill it in, sign it, scan it and send it back,” explains Beckett. “And there was nothing on the form that indicated where you sent it. So it was just a horrible user experience. With BeniPlus, our customers set up their account online; it's all done digitally.” 

BeniPlus Wallet fills the void between traditional brokers and SMBs. Historically, brokers would bypass businesses because there wasn’t enough money to be made and their solutions were complex, inflexible and usually unaffordable. “So we turned that upside down,” says Beckett. “Our mantra is ‘simple, flexible and affordable benefits for small businesses.’ So there's no financial risk because you're limiting the employee’s wallet to a set sum of money. There's no decision risk because we have no set-up fee, no ongoing fee and no flow requirement. And you can cancel your BeniPlus wallets at any time. And when it comes to flexibility, one of the things we're most proud of is that we're the only company that can provide a retirement savings plan solution to small businesses. We can take one employee from a business and set them up in a retirement savings program that's funded by the company.” 

“FIRST Pay for Applied Epic is the first API-driven, fully integrated solution on the market that simplifies how insurance brokers obtain and present payment options for their clients”
Jamie Ugarte, FIRST Insurance Funding of Canada 

Transforming payments

Also simplifying administrative tasks, FIRST Pay for Applied Epic simplifies payment processes for brokers and their clients – improving the experience while cutting costs. Applied Epic is an insurance agency management software that delivers a clear picture across all roles, locations and lines of business. 

“FIRST Pay for Applied Epic is the first API-driven, fully integrated solution on the market that simplifies how insurance brokers obtain and present payment options for their clients,” explains Ugarte. “So, without ever leaving their Epic environments, a broker can perform all the functions relating to their clients’ accounts with FIRST Canada. Functions like generating brokerage-branded payment options; submitting signed loan agreements; processing; endorsements; requesting cancellations; looking up payment information; and accessing your client’s documents – all these sorts of administrative functions related to their account with us are just some of the features contained within the solution that make it so efficient. Additionally, the payment options can be sent to the clients electronically.” 

“Have you built a product that is elegant in its design and only has complexity when it needs to?”
Kirstin Marr, Insurity 

There are other solutions on the market, but none that consider the full spectrum of clients’ expectations. FIRST Canada remains focused on delivering the most comprehensive, automated services that incorporate different disciplines ranging from the user experience to technology to security, as well as risk and compliance.

This aligns with the viewpoint of the chief analytics officer at Insurity, Kirstin Marr, on where insurtechs can fall down – “if you're just providing technology, but you're not really grounded in the business of insurance and how you're solving problems or creating opportunities for growth,” she says. “Second, in terms of being a good provider, have you thought through and provided a streamlined solution? We can all have really complex solutions. You can just look at Salesforce or marketing automation software, and most companies are using a fraction of it. I mean, look at my smartphone; I use a fraction of what it can actually do. Have you built a product that is elegant in its design and only has complexity when it needs to?” 

“I’d like a streamlined solution to the day-to-day dealings of a broker from a service and sales standpoint”
Cody Douma, Billyard Insurance Group 

The numbers don’t lie

BeniPlus maintains an average client base of four employees and a wallet dollar average of $2,000. It adjudicates and pays reimbursement claims within 24 hours. 

“With our solution, small businesses can compete with larger businesses by offering employee benefits. And I think we've all seen the ‘now hiring’ signs on the doors and windows of many, many small businesses – they're having difficulty hiring team members,” says Beckett. “With the BeniPlus Wallet, it allows them to offer a simple, flexible and affordable benefit plan for their employees that they couldn't offer before.” 

Meanwhile, FIRST Canada says that after implementing FIRST Pay for Applied Epic, clients can expect to: 

• increase their premium financing by 15% 
• boost their financing by 30% 
• experience a 69% growth in operational efficiencies 

“It’s important to design products and services that are both simple to use and align with clients’ expectations,” says Ugarte. 

And what’s next for insurtech in Canada? 

“I’d like a streamlined solution to the day-to-day dealings of a broker from a service and a sale standpoint,” says Cody Douma, Vice President, Billyard Insurance Group. “A refined approach on how to quote business, how we sell business and how we interact on a day-to-day basis. What I view as next for our industry several firms attempting to implement technology with some success and some failure. Through this process we will inch up on finding meaningful solutions that can act as an accelerator in our industry.”

5-Star Insurance Technology Providers 2022

• 
  BeniPlus
  BeniPlus
   
  

• Alert Labs
  AlertAQ
• APOLLO Insurance
  APOLLO Exchange
• BlueMind
• BluRoot
  BluInsurance
• CloudAdvisors
• FIRST Insurance Funding of Canada (FIRST Canada)
  FIRST Pay for Applied Epic
• Foxquilt
  Foxden
• Insurance Supermarket International
  Jenie
• Insurance Systems
  ISI Enterprise
• Lavvi
  Sales and Distribution Platform
• Life Design Analysis
• Opta
  iClarify
• Quotey