Playbook, insurance broker
Coming to a broker for the first time
Nothing goes to an insurer until a broker knows what the risk is, and what that means in practice is a longer list than a first time buyer expects. The awkward part is that the list is not paperwork, it is answers, and the answers carry a duty: what somebody tells a broker at this stage is what the policy gets written on. Which is why a chat window is a fine place to publish the list and a bad place to start answering it.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for first visit questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The first exchange is not an enquiry but a fact find, and what is said in it becomes the basis on which cover is written, so it goes to a person rather than into a widget.
- The most useful single thing a new customer can have to hand is the renewal date of whatever they already have, because it sets the whole timetable and nothing else can be planned around it.
- Claims experience is usually required in the insurer's own format for a number of past years, and obtaining it from a previous insurer takes days, so somebody who starts that on day one saves the most time.
- A new customer is owed information as well as asked for it: whether the firm searches a panel or a wider market, and how it is paid, are things the broker has to tell them rather than things they should have to ask.
How it arrives
- what do i need to give you to get started
- how many insurers do you look at
- do you need my claims history from my old insurer
- i have never used a broker before what happens
- what is a statement of fact
- do i have to sign anything before you get prices
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The information list, by class of business | Trade description, turnover or wage roll, sums insured, premises, vehicles, drivers, and claims over a stated number of years. Publish it per class, because a list written for a commercial risk is intimidating and irrelevant to somebody insuring a flat. |
|---|---|
| Your terms of business, in customer language | Who you act for, whether you search a panel or a wider market, how you are remunerated, and what you charge. This is the document a new customer accepts and never reads, and explaining it plainly earns more trust than anything else on the page. |
| The duty to give a full and accurate picture | Written as what it means for the customer: the answers become the basis of the policy, and something left out can affect a claim. Say that it exists and that it goes through a person. Never help anybody decide what to include. |
| What each document is and what it does | The wording, the schedule, the statement of fact and any certificate, with a line on the job each one does. New customers receive four documents and read none of them, and knowing which to check matters at the first claim. |
The reply
Two things make the first conversation short. Have the renewal date of your current cover, and have your claims history, which comes from your previous insurer and can take a few days to arrive [1]. The rest of the list depends on what you are insuring and is set out by type of cover [2]. It is also worth reading our terms of business, which say who we act for, how we search the market and how we are paid [3]. I am not going to take any of those answers here: what you tell a broker forms the basis of the policy, so it goes to a person. Leave me your name and an email and somebody will start it properly.
It gives the two items that genuinely shorten the process rather than reciting a list that is already on a page. The terms of business is raised before the customer thinks to ask for it, which is the right order. And the refusal to collect answers is explained by what those answers do, so it reads as care rather than as an obstacle.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor starts giving risk information, describes their business or their claims history, or asks what it would cost for them.
I do not want to take those answers here, because what you tell a broker forms the basis of the cover and it has to be recorded properly. Leave me your name, an email and what you are looking to insure, and somebody will take it from there.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never suggest what a customer should or should not mention, because helping somebody shape a disclosure can cost them the policy and the firm its position.
- Never say a risk sounds straightforward or easy to place, since the assistant has seen none of it and the sentence will be remembered as a promise.
- Never say how many insurers will be approached for a particular customer, as that depends on the risk and on what your terms of business actually commit you to.
- Never treat information typed into the chat as having been disclosed to the firm, and say so plainly the moment somebody starts.
Questions
- Can it collect the fact find and save us the first call?
- No, and this is the clearest no in the whole set. Answers given to a broker carry a duty, they have to be recorded, and a chat message is not a proposal. It collects a name, an email and a short message, and that is all it should ever resemble.
- Should we publish the information list at all?
- It is the highest value page a broker can put up for new business. A submission that arrives complete is priced far sooner, and the customer who read the list is the one who turns up with the claims experience already requested.
- New customers ask whether we are whole of market. What can it say?
- Exactly what your terms of business say, in those words. It is a statement about the firm's own arrangements, so it is safe to quote and dangerous to paraphrase.
Keep reading
- Everything for a insurance brokerProduct information is safe ground. A personal recommendation is regulated, and no assistant may confirm whether a loss is covered.
- Handling first visit questions in generalWhat to wear, where to park, how long it takes, whether they can bring somebody. Cheap to answer and disproportionately valuable.
- Coverage questions, and the only safe shape for the answerThe one question a broker's assistant can never answer, and the reply that still leaves the customer better off than silence would.
- Quote requests at a broker, and the underwriting that stands in the wayPremiums come out of underwriting, not out of a price list. What the assistant collects instead, and how it keeps an indication from becoming a quote.
- Cancellation questions a broker can answer without opening a policyCooling off rights, mid term cancellation, how a refund is worked out and why the assistant cannot calculate one for a named policy.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.