The Hanover has deployed CoverWallet’s newly launched business-to-business insurance platform, allowing agents to manage entire commercial policy lifecycles with minimal data input from customers.
The startup, which also serves as an industry aggregator for businesses looking to purchase coverage, will provide real-time quoting, underwriting, binding and billing to The Hanover — the first industry user of its online software. The insurer intends to use its new technology to address the friction independent agents regularly encounter when selling coverage to small business owners, such as yoga instructors, tech consultants and fitness trainers.
“Agents traditionally work as the middle men between the insurer and the customer, and that can cause longer turnaround times on policies that only generate $300 to $500 quotes,” said Willard Lee, The Hanover’s chief business innovation officer. “Economically speaking, it’s tough to have hundreds of these clients at once and service each one in that way.”
Using CoverWallet’s platform, The Hanover will utilize in-house and third-party data to limit the amount of questions asked of prospective clients. Agents’ roles in the small commercial space are now two-prong: servicing customers after the policy is issued and pushing people to the revamped website through affinity groups and social media marketing. Agents are then able to spend that saved time to bring in larger, more complicated business typically generating premiums of up to $5,000 or more, Lee says.
“We will continue to sell through independent agents,” he added. “But we envision them using CoverWallet’s platform as a customer acquisition tool to bring traffic to the site on smaller business [companies of less than five employees].”
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Prior to the companies’ reached agreement earlier this month, The Hanover ran multiple pilots with existing retail agent partners. Each agent moved to the new platform reported cost savings and better efficiency, Lee said. The Hanover’s overarching goal is to green light several proofs of concepts focused on customer experience in the small commercial space, while applying those learnings to its larger business.
“Through the micro segment, we can learn the UX piece of the puzzle, and apply that to our larger clients,” Lee concluded. “It’ll be the same experience smaller businesses get, but more profitable from an underwriting standpoint.”
