The tremendous impact of today’s business technology translates into a huge plus for South Western Insurance Group Limited brokers. After some heavy customization work, the company transitioned its quote and bind process to a superior policy management program just over one year ago. “We basically took an ‘out-of-the-box’ software program called iBroker,” explains business analyst Alroy Desa, “and turned it into a platform capable of handling SWG’s ‘outside-the-box’ approach to coverage solutions.” When the company’s former system reached the limits of its usefulness a couple of years back, Desa knew it needed to be replaced with a platform that would drastically improve the policy issuance process. “The beauty of our new system,” he says, “is that we do not have to re-enter the same information over and over for each step of the quote and bind process. That was a big problem in the past.” Fewer repetitive data entry tasks means a lower margin of error, improved speed of service, and better efficiency in dealing with broker requests. “It is a very streamlined system,” says Desa, “that lets us turn quotes into policies much faster. The new program also provides our staff with better analytics and more detailed information, so it allows us to do our jobs better.” When a broker approaches South Western Insurance Group Limited with a quote request, all the information on their application gets immediately entered into the company’s automated system. The underwriter assigned to the request can then review the data, assess the risk involved, determine whether additional information is required from the broker, and update the file – all in one place. But before any of that even happens, the system will have already calculated a premium for the coverage requested. “Without getting into too much detail,” Desa explains, “the system basically functions like a fancy calculator. Whereas calculating premiums used to involve a lot of manual work – searching through paper files, tracking down rates, and doing the necessary math – this system does all that for us. And not only does it calculate premiums based on the data that has been entered, that same data automatically generates both the quote and policy documents.” According to Desa, iBroker is not as locked down as some of the bigger corporate software programs out there, and that means more flexibility. “That is a key benefit for us because we work in such a specialized area of insurance, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all program.” And speaking of benefits, one of the biggest where South Western Insurance Group Limited’s brokers are concerned is the fact that once information has been entered into the company’s new system, it never has to be entered again. “That speeds up the quote and bind process considerably,” says Desa, “and it definitely contributes to quotes getting turned around faster. Overall, I would say we stand our ground against other insurance companies in terms of leveraging technology to better service our brokers.”