The Centre for Study of Insurance Operations’ (CSIO) Commercial Lines Working Group has finalized a standardized set of questions to ask small retail business clients when underwriting insurance for them.
By standardizing the questions, CSIO hopes that it will support workflow efficiencies between brokers and insurers by improving the speed of information exchange. The organization also believes standardization can strengthen the value proposition of the broker channel.
The finalized questions will support real-time quoting for almost 90% of the Insurance Bureau of Canada’s (IBC) retail industry codes, CSIO said in a statement. This includes retail services like florists, bakeries, drug stores, hardware stores, and electronics shops.
It added that the questions, which were completed in November 2019, were built using the foundational minimum data set comprised of common data elements used by insurers to underwrite commercial risks.
Standardizing the questions is an important step to allow insurers to properly determine the appropriate industry group classification to quote a risk, CSIO explained. Once the questions have been programmed in the broker management system (BMS), brokers can approach multiple markets using the same information.
“In an increasingly competitive marketplace, these technology advancements using data standards allow us to provide greater value to the brokers and better service to their customers,” said Brokercore director of business development Chris Farris.
Farris added that using the standardized questions is the most effective way for the industry to implement real-time quoting. He also mentioned that Brokercore had demonstrated how it successfully worked with the contractors’ industry segment, and that the group is excited to build functionality for retail risks.
CSIO’s Commercial Lines Working Group is comprised of representatives from insurers, brokers, and service providers.
