Many leading commercial auto insurers place intense focus on being easy to do business with. This helps them become and remain the carrier of choice to agents. At the same time, carriers are interested in accurate and complete applications, requiring agents to undertake the often dreaded task of entering vehicle schedule data manually, including the 17-character vehicle identification number (VIN) for each vehicle in a fleet. How do insurers balance these two seemingly conflicting interests? Prefill technology.
This unique data service instantly "prefills" VINs and other vehicle data based on the vehicles registered to the prospect's business on the agent's screen, saving the agent the significant time and aggravation of manual data entry and turning the conversation with their customer from one of data collection to one of data verification. This enables agents to focus on serving the customer's needs instead of ensuring all the required vehicle information has been entered in their system.
Anyone who has filled out an ACORD auto application and vehicle schedule will realize the value that prefill technology can bring to the commercial auto insurance industry. For example, the estimated cost of data entry for the industry is 166.3 million keystrokes annually—just to enter basic vehicle details. 51.5 percent of those keystrokes are due to typing in the VIN and could be eliminated by using prefill technology. Costly errors are quickly eliminated, speeding the application process and moving a prospective customer toward a bound policy faster.
While the primary benefits of prefill technology are ease of doing business and efficiency, it can also reveal some interesting information about the insured's business. Consider a routine prefill exercise for Joe's Plumbing. When an agent keys in the business address, the prefill tool returns all the commercial vehicles registered at that address, as well as vehicles you may not know you are insuring, such as high end luxury vehicles utilized primarily for other uses. Notably, in Joe's case, it shows the five pickup trucks registered in the business name—as well as another car, a high end luxury vehicle, that Joe parks on the premises. Since most commercial auto policies extend coverage to any and all vehicles that may be associated with the business, Joe's carrier is unknowingly responsible for claims to the luxury vehicle.
Using prefill technology, underwriters can verify and uncover information about a business, such as driver and vehicle details. These insights can be provided in real time and within the underwriter's own system. These data elements improve your underwriting workflow and reduce operating costs while providing customers and agents with a positive experience that underscores the ease of doing business with your company. By eliminating the need for expense and tedious manual data entry, you increase your focus on servicing the customer and building your business.
With its ability to provide underwriting efficiencies, data accuracy and, most importantly, a superior customer experience, prefill technology is win-win for all involved.
LexisNexis® has many different solutions that can assist you across the insurance continuum, please visit www.lexisnexis.com.
Deke Phillips, deke.phillips@lexisnexis.com, is a Director of Commercial Insurance for the risk solutions business of LexisNexis®. Deke is responsible for leading new product development and market strategy within the commercial lines insurance vertical for LexisNexis, including the positioning of data and analytics products into carrier underwriting and claims workflows.
Prior to joining LexisNexis, Deke served as AVP Underwriting for ACE Group, Vice President of Global Risk Management for Marsh, and Commercial Lines Director with AmTrust Insurance. Deke has over 13 years of commercial lines underwriting and brokerage experience, holds a graduate certificate from MIT Sloan School of Business, and undergraduate degrees from Oglethorpe University and Georgia Perimeter College.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.