Cornmarket Insurance

A total technology transformation to unlock strategic growth

Trading in the Republic of Ireland, Cornmarket Insurance, aimed to significantly expand its personal lines revenue, which had historically accounted for a small portion of its overall business.

General insurance has always been part of Cornmarket’s business, and the strategy was to grow this significantly across personal lines. With limited sophistication for handling ratings and underwriting, their heritage IT platform was restricting this goal.

Automated personal lines distribution increases efficiencies

Applied Connect, a high volume personal lines distribution platform, allowed Cornmarket to automate the personal lines quoting process, unlocking full-cycle processing and auto-rebroke. “Our investment in Applied Connect plays a significant part in our ambitious growth strategy,” said Mark Bourke. “It has allowed us to deliver broader coverage options and a premier online customer experience.”

By gaining access to the most sophisticated rating system with integrated online quote and buy functions, Cornmarket enhanced its distribution capabilities and diversified its panel. This transformation would be one of the biggest and most significant operational projects for Cornmarket in two decades.

Boosting productivity with end-to-end policy automation

Initially, the organisation managed 50,000 policies on a legacy platform, requiring manual updates and file uploads for each renewal cycle, which created a heavy workload. Applied Connect automated these processes, eliminating manual efforts by introducing full cycle trading and automated document management and delivery. Cornmarket is also successfully using Applied Connects rollover capability and renewal management processes to reduce manual intervention at the renewal offer stage of the policy lifecycle.

Applied Connect replaced manual document handling with automated email, SMS, and outsourced mailshots, streamlining renewal processing and significantly reducing print and postage costs. Additionally, incoming mail is scanned directly into the platform, eliminating manual document handling for agents. This automation has freed staff from menial tasks, allowing them to better utilise their skills so they can be redeployed to more valuable roles, which has enhanced overall efficiency and productivity at Cornmarket.

Increasing conversion rates and improving customer retention

Mark said, “New business conversion is a metric that's improved radically with the addition of the broader personal lines panel that Applied brought to us, which has dramatically increased the options we can offer to customers.

“Since adopting Connect as our trading platform, we have seen a significant increase in our trading performance across all our distribution channels. This has been transformative for both our new business and retention metrics.”

He continued:

“Next, Cornmarket is working with Applied on the development of a customer portal, which will act as a document repository as well as self-service features, giving more convenience to our customers.

“When going through a business transformation journey, you need a partner who can provide a range of solutions encompassing business performance uplift, operational efficiency and the capability to add value for the customer.” said Mark, ending with, “We believe we found that partner in Applied.”