If you’re a broker spending seemingly countless hours reading and negotiating Terms of Business Agreements (TOBAs), you’re in for some good news.
The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) has released a standardised TOBA template designed to streamline the exchange process, and now REG (UK) Ltd has made it available for use through its online agency management platform called the REG Network.
The regtech firm, which caters to thousands of insurers and intermediaries in the UK, believes the time-consuming paper-based onboarding and TOBA issuing processes represent a significant economic and opportunity cost to everyone involved; thus its support for the new template.
“We felt so strongly about this that we made it one of our key manifesto issues for 2018,” explained BIBA executive director Graeme Trudgill. “Our technical team have sought opinion from many stakeholders, and this resulting TOBA template will benefit both insurers and brokers for many years to come.
“We greatly welcome REG’s inclusion of the template on the REG Network in support of our strategic aim of driving out frictional cost and reducing bureaucracy. Our aim is for use of the template to be available across the insurance industry in years to come and by making the template available for issue to its wide membership base, REG is supporting us in achieving this goal.”
Meanwhile managing director Nicholas Phair, expressing REG’s backing for the TOBA initiative, described the company as an advocate of systems and processes that drive efficiencies in agency management.
“We believe that intermediaries will benefit from speedier assessment and acceptance of Terms of Business, and this will greatly facilitate the ease of doing business for all market participants,” he said.
