Insurance on Discount in Australia

Insurance Aggregators Insurance Aggregator websites (aka Comparison websites) enable clients to complete a single form and obtain quotes from different insurers. Quotes for all insurers are returned (usually ordered lowest cost first) and the potential client can select a quote to purchase. Alternatively, as the quotation is stored in the insurer’s system, the client can return later (say, up to 30 days) to complete the purchase. Over the past few years, there has been a substantial increase in the amount of insurance contracts concluded via the internet. The aggregators are developed with this in mind and are marketed as an “ultimate online one-stop insurance shop, giving consumers instant and easy access to a range of insurance solutions, tailored specifically to their insurance profile". Particularly prevalent in the personal lines marketplace, aggregators are starting to develop a presence in the commercial lines marketplace also. Some e...

Online Account Reconciliation (continued) The Requirement Many insurers provide online access to both personal line and commercial line products to a network of insurance brokers. And many offer online “full cycle” insurance management. However, even in these times, the provision of monthly statements to brokers, the reconciliation of those statements, and the payment and collections is often a tedious, paper-based manual process. It is slow, time consuming and error-prone. Query handling lacks immediacy and, often, there is no query audit trail available to all parties. There is no ongoing visibility of the status of an account as the month progresses. Collections lack predictability and cash management suffers. And these problems compound across the insurer’s broker network. This obsolete process impairs credit risk management for the insurer, makes them difficult to work with and reduces competitiveness.

Diary Management In any "full cycle" Insurance Management System, there are various stages in the life cycle of a policy where further manual actions are required by the operators of the system. A Diary Management function facilitates this by creating diary items detailing what action is required, by which team, and by when. Most of the diary items will be created automatically, dependent upon certain conditions. For example, if a motor policy is accepted at New Business with a No Claims Discount (NCD) carried over from another insurer, a diary item is created to remind an operator to chase up the Proof of NCD from the client. Other examples for diary items are to chase the collection of a payment instalment or to send out a renewal invitation. It is also possible to create custom diary items for items that are not created automatically. When an operator logs into the Insurance Management System they are presented immediately with a list of all o...

Full Cycle Insurance Many insurers and intermediaries have deployed online insurance applications that enable users to obtain quotes and purchase policies for a range of personal line and commercial line products. The policy details are then transferred to the insurer’s back-end system. Discover IT has developed and deployed many such applications. The more compelling application that demonstrates more complete engagement of the Internet provides brokers and agents, and also end user customers, with their own log-in to allow the processing of policy adjustments, renewals, and cancellations, directly online. Discover IT  has developed, deployed, maintains and operates a number of systems in which the complete life-cycle of insurance policies (New Business, Mid-Term Adjustments, Renewals, Lapses, and Cancellations) can be administered directly online  . . . online "full cycle" insurance applications. Brokers, agents and clients have the flexibility to administe...