The Independent Agent's Guide to Faster Commercial Lines Quoting

Close your eyes and reflect on your commercial lines quoting process. Does your mind jump to a process that's slow, with too much manual data entry? Are you thinking about how your insurance agency struggles to keep up with complex business needs, avoid data errors, and inefficient use of time, all on an outdated agency management system?

If any of these resonate with you, then it's time to use a commercial insurance rater. Growing agencies need a system to help streamline commercial lines quoting, create efficient workflows, and enhance their customer experience.

But if you're wondering what a commercial insurance rater is, when to use one, and how Applied Systems is here to help make positive change, we've got you covered.

What Is a Commercial Insurance Rater?

Let's start by breaking down what a commercial insurance lines rater does and how it works.

1. Streamline Your Insurance Quoting

First, a commercial insurance rater, also known as a comparative rater, is a tool that industry professionals use to compare policy quotes from different carriers by inputting client data once to create various coverage options. It streamlines an insurance agent's process and gives them more time back in their day compared to manual quoting.

An agent will enter client information like the location of the business, payroll, and the industry just once into the system. That's all, instead of manually entering the same information over and over again for different quotes. The rater will then send the client data to multiple insurance companies. If you were doing this manually, you'd have to send the information to the insurance companies one by one. After the underwriting is finished, the agents receive quotes, deductibles, and premiums from the carriers.

2. Easily Compare Options

Now it's time for the agent to compare the options and find the coverage that best fits their clients' needs. They've spent less time inputting data and sending one-off emails, so now they can spend more time figuring out how to better support their clients. The manual process is more time-consuming and involves bouncing from multiple screens and working in different systems. But with a commercial insurance rater, this is all done under one roof in an efficient, organized, and productive manner.

Biggest Misconceptions About Commercial Insurance Raters

Before we go any further, we want to clear the air on some misconceptions around these rating systems.

Misconception #1: Commercial Insurance Raters Are Only for Large Agencies

Think the opposite! Raters are very beneficial for small commercial agencies because they give them a competitive edge, save time, and create new growth opportunities. If cost is an issue, some systems offer free integrations with other products or a pay-as-you-go model.

Misconception #2: Personal Lines Insurance is Excluded

Some platforms can handle both commercial and personal lines insurance, but not all. Lots of raters separate the lines of business due to the complexity of each business, and since some carriers specialize in either one.

Misconception #3: A Commercial Insurance Rater Stays the Same

This is false. As new demands, trends, and technology grow throughout the insurance industry, the higher quality raters grow too. They can add new features to improve the quoting process, and don't stay stagnant.

When Should Independent Agencies Use a Rater?

At Applied Systems, we understand the need for and importance of levelling up insurance technology. But sometimes insurance professionals question when they need certain solutions, like a rating system.

Here are some scenarios where an independent agency would benefit from using a commercial lines rater:

• There's a high volume of small commercial accounts to quote and the manual entry work is taking up too much time
• Insurance professionals are sacrificing more valuable tasks to finish the quoting process
• The customer experience is on a downward trend and clients are taking their business elsewhere
• More errors are being made when inputting data and communicating with insurance companies
• The commercial insurance market is getting increasingly competitive, and turnaround time is getting longer
• Other work at the agency uses products that harness automation and is seeing positive results

How Applied Systems Streamlines Commercial Lines Rating

When agencies look for a way to deliver accurate, fast quotes to small commercial lines business, they'll find Epic Quotes Commercial Lines (EQCL). Integrated into Applied Epic®, our small commercial insurance rating system rises to meet your growing needs. EQCL leverages the functionality of being integrated with Applied Epic to bring single-entry, multi-insurer comparative rating, and allows you to seamlessly remarket or quote new business, present a proposal, or simplify the bridge-to-portal bind.

How can you benefit from using EQCL? Here are a few ways:

• Remove redundant data entry as EQCL prefills pre-existing customer and prospect data into the application to create a single point of data validation
• Grow your commercial book to become more profitable by eliminating the worry of maintaining profits on lower premium commercial policies
• Offer your customers more product choices in less time with market access to most major commercial lines within your management system
• Create the most accurate insurance rates by receiving quotes from insurers directly to your system workflows

Key Capabilities of EQCL Insurance Agencies Will Love

Prefill You Quotes with Epic Policy Data: Take risk data from the account or policy screen to automatically prefill policy and risk details from Applied Epic. This way, you won't need to re-enter base question data. Consider a once-tedious, time-consuming task a thing of the past.

Experienced Enhanced Security: Cybersecurity is important to all agencies. EQCL allows you to control user access to customers and data as your agency has defined in Applied Epic. It ensures that sensitive information remains private based on already established permissions.

Multi-Line Quoting: Start quoting multiple lines simultaneously as part of a single workflow. Worried you might quote from redundant lines? EQCL has built-in logic to prevent you from wasting your time on work you've already completed.

Market Matching and Appetite Visibility: Dive into markets with an appetite for each risk at many stages in the quoting workflow. While you explore, you'll ensure proper coverage options and that you're only quoting in-appetite markets.

Fast, Efficient, and Accurate Commercial Lines Ratings for the Future

A commercial insurance rater streamlines the quoting process by eliminating redundant data entry, helping grow commercial book of business, enhancing customer relationships, and more. Insurance agencies working with commercial lines must recognize the value of using a rating system to keep their competitive edge and have a prosperous future. With Applied Systems, agencies can experience industry-leading rater technology without leaving Applied Epic.

Ready to streamline your commercial quoting? Explore more of EQCL's capabilities and how it supports agencies.