CapSpecialty seeks to better serve SMBs through technology in 2018

Helping wholesale brokers succeed in the small business insurance market along with simplifying the underwriting process are high on small and medium-sized business (SMB) insurance provider CapSpecialty’s agenda for 2018, both of which it aims to achieve through the use of technology-enabled solutions.

This is according to Adam Sills, head of professional liability and small commercial P&C at CapSpecialty, who is a believer that the changing role of technology in the insurance industry will be especially prominent in 2018.

Against a backdrop of rate-challenged markets, he suggests that while the value of technology used to be measured by administrative cost savings, it is now evolving quickly toward more valuable use-cases such as applying big data analytics to decipher patterns in loss experience.

Sills says the traditional insurance business models will be further disrupted as more companies leverage artificial intelligence and advanced analytics and bring more third-party data sources to aid with decision-making.

“While some insurance companies tend to focus inward, drive rates and ride the market cycle, we view technology as a differentiator that improves the underwriting process, enhances the customer experience and that can potentially transform the overall insurance industry. At CapSpecialty, we view ourselves as active participants in this race to innovate and drive change to better serve our customers,” explains Sills.

One of CapSpecialty’s priorities for 2018 is building new technology-enabled self-service tools that speed up the quote process and help agents access the right information in the context of the broker, customer and insurance offering, without having to wait for underwriters to get back to them.

“Helping wholesalers succeed in the small business insurance market is top of mind for us. Many are rethinking how they do business to adapt to changing market dynamics and disruption. The role of the wholesale broker is evolving,” says Sills.

Another area that CapSpecialty is focusing on—and one of its New Year resolutions for 2018—is to drive continued growth through the simplification of the underwriting process.

“Our resolution is to help drive change in the SMB insurance sector by continuously innovating to improve how business is underwritten with small business owners,” he says.

“To date, most platforms have been built with the underwriter in mind and not to the benefit of the end user—who is subjected to slow systems and long questionnaires. By investing in new technologies that can automate workflows and pre-fill key information, brokers and underwriters can focus on the most salient pieces of the risks they are placing. In turn, underwriters can make faster and more accurate decisions and give better service to brokers. As for sticking to the resolution, stay tuned.”

Reflecting on the important moments and development in the re/insurance industry in 2017, Sills highlighted some of the issues brought forward by the series of extreme weather events, such as the hurricanes and wildfires which cost billions of dollars in reconstruction and relief programmes.

While he believes CapSpecialty had a strong 2017, he says that many in the overall casualty market continue to face significant hurdles in generating profitable growth.

“Our industry will need to embrace change and leverage new technologies to deal with this year’s catastrophic losses and find ways to drive greater profitability,” he says.