QBE strikes gold at the Insurance Times Tech & Innovation Awards

Authored by Corinne Pringle, E-trade Manager, QBE

QBE has won ‘Best Insurer via Software House eTrading Platform’ at the Insurance Times Tech & Innovation Awards 2023

The Insurance Times Tech & Innovation Awards celebrate outstanding initiatives, and teams embracing emerging opportunities and leading the charge in a rapidly changing industry.

Winning the award for Best Insurer via Software House eTrading Platform at this year’s awards is a great testament to everyone involved in our E-trade success story, across underwriting, pricing, product development, operations, business assurance, claims, broker engagement and marketing.

We believe there are three main factors that may have helped sway the judges’ decision.

Quality of support

We often refer to our offering as ‘E-trade with a human touch’ and this was noted by the awards judging panel in their citation:

“An impressive and detailed presentation that conveyed the importance placed on people – whether it be through broker interaction or investment in the QBE team to provide the best level of service. A people-driven business with technology acting as a tool rather than the number one priority.”

Alongside advancements in technology, we know from broker partner feedback how much they value access to our experienced and knowledgeable underwriters in our Stafford E-trade Centre of Excellence. Our product specialists across property, casualty, professional lines, motor fleet and minibus are available via system referrals, email, live chat and freephone – and they have the training and empowerment to make decisions on any referrals on the spot.

We also engage with and listen to our broker partners proactively and regularly to ensure their needs are being met.

Innovation

We make our E-trade products available to brokers across our QBE FastFlow extranet and selected software house platforms – Applied, Open GI, SSP and the largest platform for us, Acturis. These all give brokers online access to an innovative set of products which are constantly being developed and improved.

Innovation is central to our E-trade growth, and we haven’t been shy about leading the way on product development. QBE was the first insurer to develop Professional Indemnity Combined, Contractors Combined and CyberCrime on E-trade. We’re seen as the market leader in Minibus insurance, so were naturally also the first to develop an E-trade Minibus product.

This desire for innovation is leading us to explore how we can push the boundaries of E-trade. For example, we’ve expanded our Mini Fleet product to now quote for up to 20 vehicles at new business and with no maximum number of vehicles for existing business (renewals / MTAs).

As confidence in E-trade grows, we are also supporting brokers to E-trade larger and more complex risks.

Quotability and trading ease

Our E-trade development programme is about making it easier and faster for brokers to quote, buy, renew, and manage insurance policies.

We’re working constantly to improve products, reduce question sets and make answering questions more dynamic so that we save brokers more time, minimise referrals and see more quotes go straight through the system with minimal underwriter intervention.

Enhancements in our use of data science and data enrichment will continue to lead to a better customer experience.

We are working hard to stay relevant, demonstrate our capabilities and give brokers more reasons to E-trade with QBE.

Visit our SME insurance webpage HERE or speak with your local QBE account manager for more information on e-trading with us.