Most financial advisers do not fully embrace the potential of the general insurance business. One of the main reasons is that intermediaries in the sector are often stuck with a tiresome manual workflow where they spend most of their time on administrative work. Asia Advisers Network spoke with the founders behind insurtech firm Surer, which aims to revolutionalise the way general insurance business is done.
Surer is a cloud-based, web platform which harnesses the power of insurtech to help general insurance intermediaries optimise process efficiencies to close deals faster.
For example, the traditional way is to fill up multiple proposal forms to get quotes from a maximum of three general insurers that an agent can represent. But Surer users just need to fill up a proposal form once to get multiple quotes from all insurers in their pre-selected referral circle.
Beyond time efficiency in quote sourcing, Surer’s first-in-market solutions also allow its users to expand their network base and help them keep track of the progress of deals and clients’ policies, all within one system.
What this means is that Surer helps its users to cut down on time taken to quote-source by over 95% with the click of a few buttons. Additionally, it helps its users save some 70% of their time needed on administrative work as all the deals are automatically tracked - from start to finish, to renewal.
“An adviser who is an early adopter of Surer have shared that they were able to close a deal via Surer within 10 minutes - this would have previously taken them up to a month!” they shared.
Credit: Surer
Bridging the gap between intermediaries and insurers
Surer not only helps intermediaries, but it also adds value to insurers and underwriters. As the salesforce in the general insurance industry remains highly fragmented, Surer’s ability to bring together intermediaries makes it a natural place for insurers to leverage the platform as a distribution channel for products and share them meaningfully to a targeted set of people.
“This creates a win-win situation in the entire ecosystem where we match the supply of the insurer with the demand of the intermediaries’ clients - all these while ensuring a streamlined, automated workflow,” they said.
Underwriters from these insurers will then benefit from receiving and sending information in a more structured, efficient and trackable manner; ensuring next-to-zero error in the process.
The untapped potential
Even though the focus of many financial advisers may not lie in general insurance, they would have clients who have needs in this area.
Advisers should not forego such opportunities due to a lack of expertise or a lack of time. Essentially, what Surer does is to solve the challenges of ‘expertise’ and ‘time’ for advisers so they can capture such opportunities. Surer allows advisers to work collaboratively and efficiently with general insurance-focused agents on the platform while holding on to the relationships with their clients.
And for those who are unfamiliar, perhaps only personal lines such as travel and motor may come to mind when general insurance is mentioned. But it is a lot more than that. There are other products, including Work Injury Compensation, Product Liability, Money, and Property.
Surer allows the adviser to be able to deal in all of these products simply and efficiently, thus opening up new opportunities.
...commercial insurance is set to grow by 70% in the next 10 years to a US$1.6 trillion industry
Two trends indicate that general insurance, and more specifically commercial insurance, will be the next frontier for insurance, they added.
Firstly, in various reports, including one by Ernst & Young, commercial insurance is set to grow by 70% in the next 10 years to a US$1.6 trillion industry.
Secondly, more and more insurers are seeing that commercial insurance is a line that requires a human adviser - it is not something that can be sold directly to the end consumer. In technologically advanced markets like Europe and the US, over 70% of commercial insurance products are still being researched online, and purchased offline, through an intermediary.
“It is a combination of these two trends that compels us to believe that the opportunity for insurance is within commercial insurance and it is within commercial insurance that the value of an adviser will shine through,” said Surer’s founders.
Certified by the Singapore FinTech Association
Surer is certified by the Singapore FinTech Association as an InsurTech service provider. The certification acts as the benchmark qualification, which allows companies to be recognised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Surer is co-founded by Gordon Tay, Derren Teo and Renfred Tay, bringing together both tech and insurance expertise.
Surer's Co-Founders (L-R): Derren Teo, Gordon Tay, and Renfred Tay
Amongst the co-founders, they have held key positions in highly successful startups including PropertyGuru and Carousell, successfully founded and exited VendTech startup ShakeSalad, and had careers in major financial services and insurance companies such as AIG, MSIG and QBE.
In collaboration with Surer, Asia Advisers Network readers may request a demo via https://bit.ly/SurerDemo or sign up for for a time-limited, 60-day free trial at https://bit.ly/SurerFreeTrial
To learn more about Surer, check out https://surer.sg/
Surer is also running monthly webinars, with the upcoming one happening on 18 Dec, in partnership with Allianz - RSVP at https://bit.ly/dec20webinar