Brokers reveal their top e-trading partners

The Insurance Times Etrading Broker Insight 2018 analysed the current state of e-trading in UK general insurance. 

The report’s findings are based on responses from 743 brokers from across the UK surveyed between February and April of 2018. 

Brokers were asked about their experiences of trading across insurer platforms and software house systems. 

Brokers were asked to rate from very poor to excellent the following areas to determine which route of trading provided them with a better broking experience when acquiring an insurer product. 

Insurer platforms were benchmarked in the following areas:

• Product range

• Quality of questions

• Referral process and expertise

• Ease of navigation

• Price competitiveness

• Broker experience

Software house systems were benchmarked in these areas:

• Customer relationship management

• Mobility (mobile/tablet capability)

• Software innovation

• System security

• Ease of navigation

• Data analytics

• Broker experience

Overview of results:

Plum Underwriting has topped the rankings as the best performing insurer platform, while Acturis was the top performing software house system according to brokers. Allianz improved on its 2017 score to finish in second place in 2018, while Applied Systems also improved on their score securing second place amongst the software houses included in this survey. 

Plum Underwriting came top in 4 out of the 6 service areas, receiving its highest scores in ‘product range’, the service area ‘Ease of navigation’ was topped by Allianz whilst the leading insurer in ‘Price competitiveness’ was Home and Legacy.

 

Software house results overview:

Software house Acturis secured first place among software house platforms in this year’s e-trading report, scoring 4.05 amongst all software houses included in this survey.

Acturis was placed at the top of the rankings in 6 out of the 7 service factors, with their highest score being received in ‘System Security’. Applied Systems secured 2nd place in 2018 improving on its 2017 score to achieve an overall average score of 3.86 out of 5; receiving their highest score in ‘Mobility – Mobile/Tablet Capability’. 

 

Insurer via software house platform:

A new area of investigation in 2018 is to examine broker satisfaction of individual insurers accessed through a software house system. We aimed to shed light upon whether the broker satisfaction is lower or higher going direct or via a software house system whilst acquiring an insurer product.

NIG, Hiscox and Allianz topped the table as the best performing insurers via a software house platform. NIG achieved first place with a score of 4.10 out of 5, whilst Hiscox performed far better in this route of trading compared to its direct trading route. Allianz performed consistency throughout both journeys of trading for the broker achieving 3rd place via software house system with a high score of 4.05 whilst their direct route of trading Allianz QuoteSME platform achieved 2nd place achieving 4.16 out of 5.