The same fifty questions, five times over
A small commercial enquiry comes in: a shop with a flat above, some stock, public liability and employer's liability. The handler has the details on a proposal form the client filled in. To get terms, they open the first insurer's portal and start typing. Trade description, turnover, wageroll, construction of the building, flat roof percentage, alarm, claims in five years. Then the second portal, which asks the same things in a different order with slightly different options. Then the third.
By the fourth portal the handler is copying from their own notes rather than the proposal form, and small differences creep in. Turnover rounded one way here, another way there. A trade description chosen from a drop-down that does not quite match.
Why the details never flow from one place
Insurer portals are built by insurers for their own underwriting. Each has its own question set, its own trade codes and its own validation rules. The broking system holds the client and the policy, but usually not the full risk information in a form that maps to any particular insurer.
Software houses provide some multi-quote platforms for standard lines, and they help where they cover the product. The trouble is everything outside them: the scheme insurer with its own portal, the specialist market for the unusual trade, the insurer that only takes submissions through its own site.
The cost of the retyping
- Handler time goes on typing rather than on reading terms or talking to the client.
- Fewer insurers get approached, because each extra portal is another half hour.
- Answers drift between portals, so the risk presented to one insurer is not quite the risk presented to another.
- There is often no copy of what was declared to each insurer, only the final quote PDF.
- If a claim later turns on what was disclosed, reconstructing the answers is hard.
The last point is the one that worries compliance people most. The file should show what the client told you and what you told the insurer, and retyping makes those two harder to line up.
One record in, many portals out
- We build a structured risk capture form for each class you trade, based on the union of the questions your insurers ask, so the client or handler answers once.
- Where the client fills it in themselves, it is a short online form with the answers they gave last time pre-filled.
- Each insurer's question set is mapped to the master record, including how their trade lists, construction categories and ranges translate.
- For each portal we produce a pre-filled answer sheet in that insurer's order and wording, and where the insurer offers an API or accepts structured submissions, we send it directly.
- Where a portal can only be filled by hand, the handler works from the answer sheet in portal order, which is much faster and consistent.
- A copy of the answers given to each insurer is stored against the client in your broking system, dated, alongside the quote returned.
- Where an insurer asks something the master record does not hold, it is flagged so the form can be extended rather than guessed.
We are careful about automating clicks inside insurer portals. Some insurers do not permit it, and screens change without notice. Where there is no sanctioned route, the answer sheet approach is the safer one.
How a quote run looks afterwards
| Task | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Collecting the risk | Proposal form, emails, phone notes | One structured record, client pre-filled |
| Insurer one | Typed from the proposal | Sent or keyed from a mapped sheet |
| Insurers two to five | Typed again, with drift | Same answers, insurer's order |
| Evidence of disclosure | Final quote PDF only | Answers given to each insurer, stored and dated |
Handlers approach more of the market for the same effort, and the answers presented to each insurer match. When a question comes up later, the file shows exactly what was declared where.
Signs this is your problem
- Handlers keep a paper proposal next to them while typing into portals.
- You approach fewer insurers on small commercial risks than you would like to.
- You could not quickly show what was declared to each insurer on last year's quotes.
- New handlers take weeks to learn each portal's quirks.