Etrading Q&A: QBE improves quote functionality to aid brokers buying cyber insurance

The Insurance Times Etrading Survey 2020 is now open to brokers. While the survey is live, we will be speaking to a wide variety of insurers and software houses that are involved in the survey, to discuss the progress made over the last year as well as what future developments will benefit brokers.

Here, we speak to etrade development manager Corinne Pringle, from QBE, on the topical service factors being investigated in our annual etrading survey.

One of the service areas we explore in this year’s survey is around usability and trading ease. What developments have QBE made here in the last 12 months?

QBE is committed to making it as quick and easy as possible for brokers to etrade with us. Our latest development is the launch of a quick indicative quote functionality for brokers obtaining a quote for our CyberCrime insurance, available through the QBE FastFlow extranet.

We are also looking at quotability as a key service area. What developments have been made in this area that benefits brokers?

We are continually reviewing products and quotability. Most recently we have worked on our tradesman product to be clearer in our ‘Straight to Obtain’ and ‘Decline’ responses, to help save time by eliminating referrals for brokers. It would be useful to know if brokers value this more black and white approach on smaller or simpler cases.

A service area being investigated in our Insurance Times Etrading Survey 2020 is around the quality of support provided to brokers online - what developments have been made in this area over the last year that benefits brokers?

Functionality like live chat is now making it quicker for brokers to get answers to questions. We have made live chat available to brokers on the QBE FastFlow extranet and other software platforms. We’ve also introduced better chat routing so that brokers are chatting with the most appropriate product experts in our small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) centre. We are keen to understand how brokers are using this service and if they prefer it to a phone call or email.

We are also finding out more about the quality and number of questions asked to brokers. What changes have been made in this area over the last 12 months?

Most lately, the commercial combined risk capture on Acturis has been updated and improved, with the results showing an increased quotability. We are interested to know if brokers have noticed the difference, and to also understand how open brokers would be to data enrichment to answer some questions for them to review.

Lastly, the survey further analyses breadth of cover and the product range being provided to brokers and their customers over the last 12 months. Have you noted any developments here?

QBE has an innovative approach to etrade, which led to us being the first insurer on Acturis to offer professional indemnity combined, contractors combined and minibus insurance. Most recently, we were the first with an Acturis etrade CyberCrime product. We are considering additions to our product range, for example excess of loss, so it would be very useful to know what products brokers are looking for.