Commercial Lines Data Standards Level the Playing Field for Small Business Quotes

Similar to personal lines, commercial lines (CL) data standards are mapped to CSIO’s XML Standard and implemented by insurers and vendors to allow for frictionless data exchange between systems.

Since the launch of the CSIO Commercial Lines Working Group in 2018, the industry has seen a series of advances in CL Data Standards, including recently finalizing a standard set of questions for underwriting small retail business submissions. This seamless interaction enables automation within commercial insurance underwriting while also advancing real-time quote functionalities.

With recent articles in Canadian Underwriter and BC Broker Magazine, the industry is taking note of the many benefits CL Data Standards provide to insurers and brokers in order to help them deliver superior customer service.

Insurer Benefits of CL Data Standards:

• Grow business portfolio: The small commercial insurance market accounts for one third of the commercial lines market and is the fastest growing segment of all commercial property and casualty, making it an attractive opportunity for insurers to gain market share. To find success in this space, insurers are leveraging CSIO Standards and real-time functionality to streamline the process and win more business.
• Enhance data quality: Capture more sophisticated data and improve the ability to acquire, select risk, underwrite and price policies. With this, insurers can identify trends and segment markets to improve rating models to boost profitability and provide new products that better meet customer needs.
• Automate underwriting: Small business insurance applications can take 2-3 days to process. By implementing real-time quoting, insurers can automate this process by cutting this time down to seconds. The end-result would be a greater number of commercial insurance transactions digitized and higher industry productivity.

Broker Benefits of CL Data Standards:

• Ability to approach multiple markets for a quote: When working with insurers who use the standards, brokers will only need to enter a customer’s information once. From there, they can submit the request for a quote to multiple insurers simultaneously and no longer need to create insurer-specific quote submissions.
• Provide dynamic pricing based on changes in limits or risk details: Quotes can be automatically produced, reducing processing times dramatically, as well as increasing the accuracy of the quotes received in the BMS.
• Provide better customer service: Data-enabled processes minimize friction and streamline the insurance customer journey, resulting in higher productivity and the ability to digitize a larger number of small commercial insurance transactions.

Watch this short video to see how CL Data Standards streamline broker workflows by providing industry consensus on data required and a simplified quote process.