Safeco makes commercial auto insurance sales faster, easier |
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Written by U.S. Insurance News
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Monday, 28 July 2003 |
Safeco Business Insurance — one of the nation's top commercial auto insurance providers — has expanded its online sales platform to make it faster and easier for agents to sell commercial auto insurance to small businesses. The platform, called ESP(TM), allows agents to quote, bind and instantly issue commercial auto policies online. This allows agents to sell insurance in minutes, rather than days. Since 5,400 agents representing Safeco Business Insurance collectively sell or renew nearly 100,000 commercial auto policies every year, this adds up to a significant time savings.
SEATTLE — Safeco Business Insurance — one of the nation's top commercial auto insurance providers — has expanded its online sales platform to make it faster and easier for agents to sell commercial auto insurance to small businesses.
The platform, called ESP(TM), allows agents to quote, bind and instantly issue commercial auto policies online. This allows agents to sell insurance in minutes, rather than days. Since 5,400 agents representing Safeco Business Insurance collectively sell or renew nearly 100,000 commercial auto policies every year, this adds up to a significant time savings.
"Selling commercial auto just doesn't get simpler than this," said Jeanne Lind, director of automation for Safeco Business Insurance. "With ESP, we can cut the time it takes to quote commercial auto policies and with real-time underwriting we can issue a policy instantly. In most cases, agents can literally issue their auto policies while they're on the phone with a client. It's part of Safeco's strategy to reduce the time, cost and complexity of selling and servicing small and medium-sized business accounts."
The ESP process is simple: Agents can select the "full quote" option, enter data on drivers and vehicles, and instantly receive a final price that they can bind and issue. ESP technology automatically pre-fills common customer information fields, based on vehicle identification numbers, and the system adjusts its questions according to the data entered. Or, they can choose to enter a "quick estimate" to get a ballpark price without having to enter detailed driver and vehicle information. As a result, agents spend a lot less time on data entry.
"By introducing ESP for commercial auto, we're giving our agents a real opportunity to profitably expand their small-business accounts," said Tom Troy, vice president of underwriting for Safeco Business Insurance.
"Small businesses represent the largest, fastest growing segment of the commercial auto market in the United States, and these business owners typically rely heavily on the few vehicles they operate. ESP gives agents a quick and easy way to add commercial auto coverage and better manage this exposure, helping business owners avoid increasingly common legal actions and other business disruptions that can make or break a small and growing company."
ESP is accessible at www.safecoplaza.com/esp for both businessowner policies (BOPs) and commercial auto risks. Initially, agents will be able to use the system to sell Safeco's most popular commercial auto policies -- non-fleet policies for vehicles garaged in a single state. Safeco accepts both monoline commercial auto policies and policies written along with a Safeco businessowners policy (BOP) or commercial multiperil (CMP) package.
In 2003 and 2004, Safeco will enable agents to use ESP to sell workers' compensation policies, commercial multi-peril (CMP) package products and other commercial auto policies — including fleet vehicles, multi-state garaging locations and farm vehicles.
Safeco Insurance, in business since 1923, is a Fortune 500 company that sells auto, home, life and small-business insurance and investment products through independent agents, brokers and financial advisors nationwide. The company's mission is to make the experience of buying, selling and owning insurance easier than anyone else. More information about Safeco is available online at www.safeco.com.
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