Traditionally, insurers had to collect information from prospects in person or over the phone in order to issue a quote. This was typically a frustrating experience because prospects either were required to sit and fill out lengthy paper forms or disclose personal information on the phone to a stranger on the other end of the line.
After spending hours on the phone with an insurance agent, the potential customer would wait for the insurance agent to manually calculate the premiums, and then cross their fingers and hope they got it right.
Thankfully, insurance quoting tools have ushered in a new era in the insurance industry by streamlining the quoting process and making it much easier for both agents and potential policyholders.
What is a Quote?
A quote is an estimate of a premium for insurance coverage based on the data provided by a potential customer. A quote is not, however, a formal offer from an insurance company for an insurance contract.
Rather, it serves as a free overview of a customer's insurance needs and helps gauge what kind of insurance coverage they require.
What are Insurance Quoting Tools?
Insurance quote tools are software systems that allow carriers to generate estimates or quotes for insurance products based on specific criteria. The tool typically uses algorithms and data analysis to calculate the estimated cost of insurance coverage based on the information provided by potential customers.
Prospects can input their personal information, such as age, gender, location, and occupation, along with details about the type and level of coverage they require.
The quoting software will then analyze this information and provide the user with an estimated cost for the policy, which may include additional fees, taxes, and discounts.
These solutions are commonly used by insurance carriers, brokers, and agents to provide potential customers with an estimate of the cost of a particular insurance policy.
Insurance Quoting Software: A Breakdown
Insurance quoting software replaces the tedious task of manually collecting data from prospects to create customized insurance quotes, which has been traditionally performed by agents. This approach often lacked accuracy, which resulted in poor customer experience.
Insurance quoting tools streamline the quoting process and offer convenience to both agents and prospects by delivering fast and accurate quotes to leads and potential clients.
Various types of insurance, such as life, health, auto, renters, travel, and pet insurance, have their own quoting tools. These tools usually come equipped with several key features, including calculators, option comparison, chat, and customer service management. By using these tools, agents can efficiently gather information and connect with prospects.
Benefits For Potential Customers
Obtaining an insurance quote presents an excellent chance for potential clients to discover any available discounts and obtain an accurate estimate of their insurance premiums.
Insurance quoting tools can help prospects compare and select the best insurance policy available on the market that meets their needs and budget, as well as save time and effort in the insurance buying process.
Quoting Engine For Insurers
By automating the underwriting process, quoting tools enable insurers to generate accurate quotes within minutes, eliminating the need for customers to fill out multiple forms or speak to multiple agents.
More time that is required to research options and generate quotes means less time agents have to prospect and sell.
Rules-Powered Quoting Tools
Business rules engines are used by leading insurance agencies to build or improve insurance quoting tools because they can further automate and streamline the quote-generating process.
A rules engine is a pluggable piece of software that enables organizations to create and manage complex business rules. Think of business rules as powerful conditional "if-then" statements that guide some aspect of a business's operations, policies, or procedures and ensure consistency in how tasks are performed.
A business rules engine automates decision-making by building and managing the insurance agency's underwriting rules, eligibility criteria, and pricing and discount models. This way insurance carriers generate quotes that are consistent, accurate, and compliant with all the relevant regulations.
Let's quickly go over some of the most important advantages of connecting insurance quoting tools with business rules engines.
Speed
Apart from the inability of insurers to manually process large volumes of quotes, the manual quoting process is also error-prone due to human error or misinterpretation of data.
The benefit of rules-based quoting tools lies in their ability to rapidly and accurately present potential customers with the relevant information they need to make an educated choice regarding their insurance coverage.
Customization
Insurance companies can use a business rules engine to offer customized policy options based on the customer's inputs. For example, if a customer is interested in a homeowners' insurance policy, the engine can offer different coverage options based on the size of the home and the location.
Ensuring Compliance
A business rules engine can help ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and company policies. For example, the rules engine can be configured to ensure that the products of an insurance agency are only offered to customers who meet certain eligibility criteria.
Bottom Line
Quoting tools that are powered by Hyperon can provide a quote within minutes, including to internet leads even outside of business hours. Hyperon pushes the information directly so the quote is as accurate as the information that comes in on the lead.
Hyperon is a user-friendly rules engine that empowers non-technical users to create and update quotes for various insurance products instantly without relying on any help from IT.
Insurers use Higson to instantly generate quotes to mass volumes of prospects without skipping a beat.
Get in touch with one of our experts to learn how Higson can automate and streamline your quoting process and set you up for success.
