How Zurich improved eTrading for brokers with enhanced communication

Enhancing communication with brokers partners has helped Zurich make a “difference” when it comes to eTrading.

That was according to Will Edwards, head of SME at Zurich, who said he was “over the moon” to see the results the insurer secured in this year’s Insurance Times Five Star eTrading report.

For 2024, brokers trading via insurer extranets gave Zurich Online a maximum overall five-star rating, an improvement from the four-star rating last year.

And when it came to insurers via a software house, brokers again awarded Zurich an overall five-star rating.

It came after the insurer made several changes for its broker partners, such as increasing flexibility when it comes to communication.

For example, over the past year Zurich has seen a 46% increase in live chat demand, which the insurer will continue to invest in.

The firm also did more training with its underwriters towards the end of 2023.

“We took all our underwriters through some training, which was designed to allow them to easily identify the type of individual that’s on the end of the phone,” Edwards told Insurance Times.

”The training helped enable the underwriter to understand what type of person they were dealing with and what they want out of the conversation. It seems to have made a difference.”

Progress

The report included the views of 700 brokers, which identified and rated insurer extranets, insurers via platforms and software houses with which they have regularly placed business during the past 12 months.

Edwards said that Zurich’s results ”demonstrate the progress that we have made”.

“We have been on a journey for the last three to five years and it’s great to see the work of the team recognised by our broking partners, he said.

”I am so proud of what the team has built and what we have delivered to brokers.”