Instead of thinking outside the box, Rothbury Insurance Brokers has got rid of the box and is using a virtual underwriter.
Steadfast New Zealand’s Virtual Underwriter (VU) turned one last month and has paved the way for Rothbury to better manage its Small Medium Enterprises (SME) business.
VU is a full life cycle broker to underwriter placement system which gives Rothbury’s brokers the ability to transact SME business coverage in a fast, efficient and more structured way. It includes full quoting and binding and is set to change the way the brokerage carries out its daily SME business.
Client data is placed in VU and quotes are returned from the underwriter’s quoting platform, usually in under a minute. The package information is fed back into Rothbury’s Swift Broking system to enable a smooth, easy and accurate process. Two Rothbury branches are now past the first anniversary with VU and into the renewal cycle which is even quicker!
Over the last year, more than 2,500 packages and over $4 million of business has been closed through VU. Now the platform is set to evolve even further as VU continues into its second year and more underwriters come on board.
VU was initially part of a tri-partite project between Steadfast, Rothbury and NZI. Not only does it address a business issue around the cost and time incurred by both broker and underwriter dealing with multiple micro SME businesses, it allows brokers to spend more time interacting with their clients.
Rothbury’s goal is to be able to receive quotes from multiple insurers within 30 seconds – and that’s set to become a reality in 2019.
As the insurance broker continues to grow organically and through business acquisition new brokers coming on board get to enjoy the benefits of using VU as well.
Talk to Rothbury’s EGM - Broking Services and Business Operations, Chris Hughes if you’d like to find out more.
